Website chat experience
Visitor messaging and chat controls
The Stand widget gives website visitors a real-time text conversation with a matched rep or AI Stand-in. Visitors can send formatted messages, minimize or resize the window, end a conversation, and start another without leaving the website.
- Availability
- All plans
- Configured in
- Installed website → Stand launcher → conversation window
- Category
- Website chat experience
- Reference status
- Current
Before you begin
Plan availability: All plans.
Prerequisite: An installed, enabled, matched site and available chat capacity. It also needs an Available rep or, while Stand-in coverage is active, an enabled AI Stand-in.
Key boundary: Visitor messages are text-only. Visitors cannot upload files, images, or other attachments.
How a visitor conversation works
When Stand finds an eligible responder for the current page, the website can show the Stand launcher or another configured entry point. Opening it reveals the responder identity, greeting, transcript, message composer, send control, and conversation options.
The visitor’s first message creates the conversation. Later messages are delivered in the same live session to the assigned rep or AI Stand-in. Human takeover, cards, contact capture, and other specialized behavior can appear inside this same transcript without opening a second chat.
Minimizing the regular popup hides its window but keeps the session active. Reopening returns to the same transcript. A Stand chatbox has its own conversation by default. With shared-session enabled on the primary chatbox, the corner button opens that embedded conversation; minimizing returns it to the page, with the composer or browsable transcript according to its mode. Ending the conversation closes that session; the ended state offers a separate Start a new chat action rather than silently reusing the old conversation.
Message and window controls
| Control | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Message composer | Enter sends a message in the normal desktop composer. Shift+Enter inserts a line break, including with an external keyboard on supported mobile devices. |
| Minimize | Closes the floating window while leaving the active conversation available from a resume control. A primary Stand chatbox returns to its in-page composer, or to a browsable transcript when its floating attribute is set. |
| Conversation options | Provides the End conversation action. Ending is explicit and changes the transcript to its completed state. |
| Start a new chat | Appears after the prior conversation has ended and creates a distinct session with a new transcript. |
| Desktop resize handle | Dragging the top edge changes the chat height within viewport bounds. The chosen height is preserved while the window is minimized and reopened during that page runtime. |
| Mobile presentation | The widget adapts to the available screen and visual viewport. It follows on-screen keyboard changes and keeps the composer and latest messages usable. |
Supported message formatting
Messages are rendered as text with a deliberately limited Markdown subset. Stand does not render arbitrary HTML from a message.
| Supported | Notes |
|---|---|
| Bold and italic | Standard Markdown emphasis is rendered within message text. |
| Inline code | Short code spans are shown with code styling and display their contents as literal text. |
| Fenced code blocks | Backtick or tilde fences show a separate code block, preserving line breaks and indentation. HTML and Markdown inside the block display as literal code. An optional language label is accepted without syntax highlighting. |
| Inline links | HTTP, HTTPS, and supported relative links render as safe clickable links. |
| Short bullet or numbered lists | Consecutive Markdown list items render as a list inside the message. |
| Blockquotes | Consecutive lines beginning with > render as a quote, including supported inline formatting and links. |
| Plain paragraphs and line breaks | Unformatted text remains readable and preserves the intended message structure. |
Delivery and failure behavior
- A visitor message is shown in the transcript as it is sent so the conversation remains responsive.
- If creation of the first session or first send fails, the message is marked as not sent and exposes a Retry action instead of disappearing.
- Retry attempts the failed message again without asking the visitor to retype it.
- Temporary connection recovery can add missed rep messages to the transcript. The regular minimized popup reopens when recovery discovers a new rep message; it stays minimized when nothing new was missed. A collapsed Stand chatbox updates its in-page transcript without reopening the floating panel.
- Reaching the organization’s chat limit prevents a new conversation from starting but never interrupts an already active conversation.
Availability and prerequisites
- Messaging and live human or AI handling are available on every plan.
- The page must match an enabled Site whose installation has loaded successfully.
- At least one Available rep must be eligible for the page, or Stand-in coverage must be active with at least one enabled, eligible AI Stand-in. The organization must also be able to start another chat.
- The visitor needs a browser that can run the Stand widget and connect to the Stand service.
- No visitor account or Stand login is required to send a normal website message.
Limits and boundaries
- Visitors cannot attach files or images. Developer-provided cards and links are separate features, not visitor uploads.
- The supported Markdown subset is not a general-purpose HTML or document renderer.
- Ending a conversation is final for that session. Continuing requires Start a new chat and creates a separate record.
- Desktop resizing does not turn the widget into an independently positioned or full-page chat application.