Live Chat Meets AI: Let Your Team Take Over When It Matters

An AI shopping assistant can answer most of what shoppers ask: which serum suits dry skin, whether a jacket runs small, how long delivery to Austria takes. But some moments need a person. A shopper about to place a large order wants reassurance. A gift has to arrive by Friday and the details matter. Someone simply prefers to talk to a human.

Until now, AskMerra handled those moments with a contact form: the shopper left a message, and your team got an email with the whole conversation. That still works. On the Pro plan and above, there is now a faster option: live chat with your team, inside the same widget. This article explains how the handoff works for shoppers, what your team sees in the dashboard, and how to set it up so nobody is left waiting.

How the handoff works for shoppers

When a shopper asks for a person ("Can I talk to someone?", in any of the six languages), the assistant offers Chat with our team. The widget header also gets a button for it, so shoppers can ask directly without typing anything.

From there:

1. The shopper joins your queue and sees their place in line. If the wait gets long, the widget suggests leaving a message instead (you choose after how many minutes).
2. Someone from your team accepts the chat. The shopper sees who joined, by first name, so it feels like a conversation and not a ticket.
3. You talk. Typing indicators work both ways. While a person is answering, the AI stays out of the conversation completely.
4. You end the chat when you are done. The assistant takes over again, with the whole conversation, including your replies, in its history. If the shopper asks a follow-up question an hour later, it knows what you discussed.

The chat follows the shopper around your store. If they open another product page while waiting or talking, the conversation and its state are restored on the new page.

What your team sees in the dashboard

Live chat has its own page in the dashboard, right above Conversations. It is built to be watched, not checked occasionally.

• A live queue. Tabs for chats that are waiting, your own chats, the chats your colleagues have taken, and ended chats.
• The context, before you say hello. Every waiting chat shows the conversation with the AI so far: what the shopper asked, which products were recommended, which page they are on. Nobody has to ask "Can you repeat your question?"
• You hear it. A new chat rings in every open dashboard tab, with a badge in the menu and, if you allow them, desktop notifications. You can mute the sound.
• One person per chat. When someone accepts, the chat is theirs; colleagues see it as taken, so two people never answer at once.
• Your status. Set yourself to Online or Away. Only people who are online with the dashboard open count as available.

Ended live chats stay in your Conversations inbox with the rest of the history, with your team's replies marked as such, so you can review them, filter them and export them like any other conversation.

Opening hours and what happens outside them

In Live chat → Settings you switch the feature on and set your opening hours, day by day, in your shop's time zone. You can also choose "always" if someone is always around.

Live chat is offered only when it can actually work: during your opening hours and with at least one team member online. Outside your hours, or when nobody is online, shoppers who ask for a person get the contact form, exactly as before. Their message and the full transcript arrive in your team's inbox, with reply-to set to the shopper, so you can follow up by email.

Two safety nets keep the queue clean. You choose after how many minutes in the queue the widget suggests leaving a message (5 minutes by default). And chats left waiting or quiet for 30 minutes close by themselves, so a forgotten tab never leaves a shopper hanging.

A role for your support team

Many shops have people who answer customers but should not see revenue, billing or API keys. For them there is a new team role: Customer support.

Invite them from Team like anyone else and pick Customer support as the role. When they sign in, they land on Live chat, and that is all they see. They can set their status, accept chats, answer and end them, and they count as available for the queue. Everything else, from the catalog and analytics to billing and settings, stays closed, and the server refuses it too, not just the menu.

The other roles keep working as before: owners and admins can answer chats and change the live chat settings, and viewers can watch the queue without answering.

Tips for a good handoff

Live chat is only as good as the response time behind it. A few habits help:

• Set hours you can keep. Shoppers forgive a contact form outside office hours. They do not forgive a queue that nobody answers.
• Use Away when you step out. It takes one click, and shoppers get the contact form instead of a wait.
• Read the AI conversation first. The shopper has often already explained everything. Start from there.
• Turn repeated answers into FAQ entries. If your team answers the same question in live chat every day, add it to your FAQ in the knowledge base, and the assistant will answer it instantly next time. Our guide on reducing support tickets shows how.
• Let the AI do the product work. Shoppers who want to compare products or check sizes are usually served faster by the assistant, which has your whole catalog with live prices and stock in front of it.

Plans and pricing

Live chat is part of the Pro plan and above. Messages between shoppers and your team do not use the AI, so they do not count against your included AI usage. See pricing for what each plan includes.

The widget documentation has the technical details. If you want to see live chat on your own store first, book a demo, or create your account and try it in the dashboard.