If you use Zendesk Chat, you can enable end-users to initiate chat sessions with agents through your Help Center. If you offer Chat in the Web Widget on your Help Center, or are using Chat Phase 4, you do not need to enable Chat in Guide as described in this article.
To add Chat to you Help Center, you must enable the Chat setting in Guide, then add the chat component to your theme where you want the Chat widget to appear. You must be a Guide Manager on Guide Professional or Enterprise to add Chat to your Help Center.
About the end-user experience
When you enable Chat, the Chat widget is displayed in your Help Center when an agent is available. If no agent is available, the chat option is replaced by the option to leave a message.
The collapsed chat option looks like this:
Clicking the chat option opens a chat window:
Enabling the Chat setting in Guide
You must enable the Chat setting in Guide to offer Chat in your Help Center.
If you offer Chat in the Web Widget in your Help Center, you do not need to enable Chat in Guide. If you enable the Web Widget for your Help Center in Support and you enable the Chat widget in Guide, two widgets will appear in your Help Center.
To enable Chat
- In Guide, click the Settings (
) icon in the sidebar. - Under Integrations, select Chat.
Now you need to add the chat component to your Help Center theme.
Adding the chat component to your theme
After you enable the Chat setting in Guide, you need to add the chat component to your theme so that it appears in your Help Center.
To add a chat component to a Help Center template
- In Guide, click the Customize design (
) icon in the sidebar. - Click Edit Theme and select a template from the menu.
- Enter the chat component,
{{chat}}, in a template's HTML (see Customizing the HTML for more information).Insert the component in each template that you want to display Chat, or in the Footer template to display it on all pages.
- Click Save at the top of the sidebar to save your changes.
- When you're ready to deploy the change, click Publish changes at the top of the sidebar.
20 Comments
Hi there,
We are on the regular plan. Will there be additional costs onto our subscription in order to use this?
Hey Storm!
This is a great question. The native Zendesk chat in Help Center will not incur any additional charges to use, but I do need to let you know that this feature is on the list to be deprecated at some point in the future.
We'll be sure to give you advanced notice that the feature is going away so you'll have time to prepare and move to a different solution, but what I might recommend instead is to look into Zopim chat, which is our newer (and much more robust) chat feature. This way, you'll be able to get your chat workflow up and running without having to worry about changing everything later down the line.
You can find more information about Zopim chat here: Introducing Zopim Chat
Please let me know if you have any other questions!
This doesn't work for me. I've enabled chat under "Integrations", and placed {{chat}} in my footer. I refresh the page & nothing happens. It doesn't even place anything within the container. What am I doing wrong?
We have since figured this out, no need to respond to this comment :) there is a delay when updating template files. I waited a bit and for whatever reason, the next day it was working just fine.
Hi Kristin,
I'm going to create a ticket so we can investigate this one further with you from there. See you in the ticket. :)
Hello Amie!
Looks like I have the same issue with embedding of chat widget on Zendesk Help Center. Can you help to solve it? Thanks!
doesnt work for me as well..
have embedded the {{Chat}} at the end of the footer page..no good
Hi There!
If you aren't currently using the offline form, you won't see the chat widget until you have agents online and in available status. It looks like your Help Center is behind a login so I couldn't verify. However, if you are still having issues, please let us know and we can open up a ticket to troubleshoot this further!
Molly | Customer Advocate |
I have added {{chat}} in the footer as well, and nothing happens. I've confirmed we have agents available and Online.
Hi Mark!
Can you confirm that you've enable Chat in your Guide settings?
Sent an email with the response. Yes, this is enabled
Hey Mark!
Can you provide a screenshot of where in the footer code you added the chat placeholder?
Hey! I followed the directions in the above article and the widget isn't showing up on my page either. Can you please provide guidance on how to get this to work?
Hi Kristen!
Can you provide a screenshot of where you added the chat place holder?
Hey Jessie,
Sorry, my comment is a little old and I didnt update - we got it to work on our site, i think there is just a bit of delay when updating template files and maybe I wasnt patient enough. Sorry and thank you for your attention! :)
Hey Jessie, see below. Thanks!
Reading what Kristin sent - possibly I didn't wait long enough for the system to update?
Let me know, thanks!
Hey Kristen!
It could definitely be a caching issue. Is it working now?
Hi,
i have the same issue with the others.I've enabled chat under "Integrations", and placed {{chat}} in my footer like this.
I refresh the page & nothing happens. What should i do?
Thankyou.
Hi Elmo, thanks for the question.
Can you please confirm that you are online within your chat instance, and open your Help Center in an incognito tab at the same time? If it does not appear, please clear your cache and cookies and attempt to replicate following the same steps once more. Again, those are going to be...
1) Go online in your chat instance
2) Open up your Help Center in an incognito page
3) Await the appearance of the Widget.
I hope this gets you to a resolution!
Hi Dan,
Sorry, i don't understand at this point "Go online in your chat instance". Do you mean, i have to setting the widget on zopim chat?
I already tried open it with incognito, but nothing happens.
Thanks.
Hi Elmo,
What I mean is to set yourself online within your Chat Dashboard. This means navigating to your Chat Dashboard and logging in, while ensuring that your status is on the green 'online' circle on the top left.
Thanks!
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