Live chat is the area in Drift where users can see conversations that have started on their website. These conversations are handled by humans, the bot, and even AI (Drift Automation). Most Drift users spend the majority of their time in live chat.   Reading through this next section will serve as a road map for all the features you'll find when using Live Chat.

Billing Plan: The features in this article are available on all Drift plans unless otherwise noted.

In this article, we'll go over all the following Live Chat topics:

• Navigating to Live Chat
• Inboxes
• Conversation Search, Settings, Composer Preferences, Help, Organizer, & Sections
• Agent Status
• Notifications
• Conversation Header
• Composer Actions, Keyboard Shortcuts, the Shortcut Menu, and Slash Commands
• Conversation Details

Navigating to Live Chat

There are two versions of Live Chat - browser (app.drift.com/conversations) and the Desktop App. 

Browser Version:

1. Go to app.drift.com and log in.
2. Click on the chat bubble icon on the left side menu.
3. If the user is an Admin on a legacy plan, click on Live chat in the menu.
4. This will bring you to app.drift.com/conversations.

Desktop App

1. Go to our Featured Downloads doc to download the desktop app for Mac or Windows.
2. Sign into your Drift account.
3. It should automatically open to live chat, but you can also click on the chat bubble icon on the left menu. 
4. Note that the other icons on the menu will redirect you to the browser version of Drift when clicked. 

Inboxes

With Drift, you have the ability to manage and configure your inbox(es). This can help you direct all conversations from specific Playbooks into a designated space! For instance, you may want to set up a Sales inbox and a Support inbox. Your sales-oriented Playbooks will populate that inbox, while any conversations from a support-related Playbook will go to the other! e.g. Drift has an inbox for all Support Chats for the CA Team and one for all Sales Chat for the SDR Team.

Finding and Configuring Inboxes

In new live chat (app.drift.com/conversations or the desktop app), you can switch between inboxes by clicking the small caret next to the inbox name in the top left corner.

• In new live chat (app.drift.com/conversations or the desktop app), you can switch between inboxes by clicking the small caret next to the inbox name in the top left corner.
• In legacy plans (e.g., before FY22), Admin can configure the inbox settings under Settings > App Settings > Conversations > Inboxes 
• In FY22 plans, Admin can configure inboxes in each workspace (more on workspaces in Settings) under Settings > Organization Settings > Workspaces > Choose a workspace > Inboxes

• • FY22 plans do not have inbox limits

Default versus Custom Inboxes

• Every customer has a default inbox, which is the inbox that is already set up by Drift
• You cannot change which inbox is your default inbox
• Conversations started from the default greeting, live view, Drift profile, Drift Video, and ABM notifications are all directed into the default inbox.

Default Inbox (Legacy plan) without DKIM setup

Custom:

If on a paid plan, you can set up multiple inboxes to organize conversations. Navigate to the inbox list (paths in section above, see: Finding and Configuring inboxes) and click on Create inbox. 

• Legacy plans also have inbox limits
  • Free/Standard (legacy): 1
  • Essential (legacy)/Startup/Premium: 2
  • Enterprise: 2 with option to purchase more (need to talk with AM/CSM)
• You can delete your additional inbox(es), best practices suggest that you ensure that none of your playbooks are directing conversation there before you do. 

Default inbox (FY22 plan) with DKIM set up

Configuring an Inbox (Default and Custom):

Once you’ve chosen your inbox, there are 2 fields to configure

• Inbox name
  • This is only visible to users within the Drift account (e.g., your site visitors will not see the inbox name)
  • You want to make sure this is informative and describes the types of conversations that are in the inbox

• Public email address

• This is the email address that is associated with the inbox so people can reply to conversations or email you directly to start a chat within Drift
  • You need to set up DKIM (more details on that later) for this to work properly
  • If you do not have DKIM set up, there is a default email address (numbers and letters @fwd.drifttmail.com) that is associated with the inbox
• Remember to click “Save” after making any changes to these fields

Deleting an Inbox

• Click “Delete inbox” on the inbox configuration page
• DO NOT DELETE YOUR DEFAULT INBOX! 
  • If you delete it, the conversations will still be sent to that inbox, but they won’t be visible in the UI
• If you want to delete an additional inbox you created, you can do so, but first check your playbooks to ensure that none of them are directing conversations to that inbox.

Conversation Status and Deletion

Deletion

In short, Drift does not allow conversations to be deleted. This is because Drift doesn't want to lose any activity with your contacts and/or leads. Instead of deleting conversations, Drift utilizes Conversation Statuses to help organize your chats.

Conversation Status

Open: These are your active, ongoing chats. Keep your conversation view here to declutter your chats and to make sure you don't miss any messages. If you close out a chat and your site visitor chats back in, this will re-open the conversation again. Chats between Bots and site visitors are considered Open conversations.

Closed: When Closed, the conversation will essentially be archived. To close multiple conversations at the same time or bulk-close, check the box next to Conversation Status and click "Close selected" when prompted. You can close up to 25 conversations at one time.

• Closing
  • Keyboard shortcut: ⌘⇧C
  • Chat status changes to Closed, and you're still a participant
  • The chat will show up in the Closed filter of “My conversations” and Closed section of other sections
  • If the site visitor reopens the chat, it will be routed to you
• Closing & leaving
  • Keyboard shortcut: ⌘⌥C
  • Chat status changes to Closed, and you're no longer a participant
  • The chat will show up in the Closed filter of other sections, but not of “My conversations” 
  • If the site visitor reopens the chat and there are no other participants,  it will be routed using the lead routing rules
• All: This is a combination of Open and Closed conversations.

Changing a chat status

Open

• A chat will be Open whenever a site visitor chats in
  • e.g. starts a new chat or reopens an existing one
• You can also manually open a chat by clicking the status drop-down in the top right of the chat or using a keyboard shortcut (⌘⇧O) 

Closed

• You can manually close a chat by
  • Clicking on the status drop-down in the top right of the chat
  • Using the keyboard shortcut (⌘⇧C)
  • Hovering over the chat in the list on the left and clicking X
• Drift can also close chats due to inactivity (Settings > App settings > Conversations > Advanced > Auto-close conversations after a period of inactivity)

Conversation Search, Settings, Composer Preferences, Help, Organizer, & Sections

Search

• Search for conversations by word or phrase or using the site visitor’s email
• Click on the magnifying glass icon in the top left corner

Composer Preferences

• Available on live chat (app.drift.com/conversations or desktop app)
• Click on "Preferences" in the bottom left left side and choose Composer preferences from the menu.

 

• Show send button
  • Toggle this on if you want to click a Send button in the composer when chatting with site visitors. This will make the Enter/Return button a new line.
  • Toggle this off if you want to press Enter/Return to send a message in a chat with site visitors. This will make Enter/Return + Shift a new line.
• Show quick replies
  • Toggle this on or off if you want to see these suggestions when you are first chatting with a site visitor or not.
• Help
  • Available on new live chat (app.drift.com/conversations or desktop app)
  • Click on … in the top left corner and choose Help from the menu
  • Take the product tour
  • Watch a video tutorial
  • Switch to Drift’s legacy live chat (only available in ORG 1)
  • Get help (redirects to help doc)

Conversation Sections

• Note that the conversations in each section will change as you change the inbox view.
• Default sections: These are sections that all users who can chat (Admin, Sales Seat/Chat User) will see without configuring anything.

My conversations: These are all conversations you are a participant in. You can toggle between Open, Closed, and All in this section. 

• Click on the … for the section options
  • Mark all as read
  • Turn on/off notifications for all open chats in the section
  • Section length (choose from 3, 5, or 10 conversations shown in the list)
  • Close all my conversations
  • Create section (create a custom section)

No participants: These are conversations that do not have a human participant (e.g., the site visitor is still chatting with the bot or the conversation did not route to someone). Admin and chat users/Sales Seat users with access to all conversations or their conversations and empty ones will see this section. Only Open chats will be in this section.

• Click on the … for the section options
  • Turn on/off notifications for chats in this section
  • Configure section length (3, 5, 10 conversations)
  • Delete the section
  • Create section

All conversations: These are all conversations within an inbox filter (e.g., all inboxes or specific one). Admin and chat users/Sales Seat users with access to all conversations will see this section. You can toggle between Open, Closed, and All in this section. 

• Click on the … for the section options
  • Turn on/off notifications for chats in this section
  • Configure section length (3, 5, or 10 conversations)
  • Create section

Custom sections: Users can create custom sections to view and organize conversations that they care about. Custom sections are individual, meaning users cannot share them and everyone needs to create their own. You can toggle between Open, Closed, and All in this section. 

• Click on Create section at the bottom of the sections list or click on … within an existing section and choose Create section.
• Name the section
  • Add conversation filters based on 
    • Conversation tag (conversations with a specific tag(s))
    • Team (conversations where users from a specific team are participants)
    • Teammate (conversations where specific a user(s) are participants)
  • Add multiple filters as AND conditions
  • Click … for the section options
    • Turn on/off notifications for chats in this section
    • Configure section length
    • Edit section (name or filters)
    • Delete section
    • Create section

Note: If you create a section that filters conversation based on response time it is expected for the "closed" and "all" tabs to sort conversations oldest to newest. This is because if the section involves a response timer condition, we need to invert that and sort by oldest first instead of newest since response time is a queue order.

Who can view and create sections?
 

Agent Status

• Your Agent Status is your personal availability. The purpose of this status is to handle how to notify and assign agents to conversations. 
• 2 of the agent statuses are set manually or by an Admin in Settings > Organization settings > Manage teammates, and 2 of the agent statuses are set automatically

Available

• Users will manually set themselves as Available or an Admin can do so in Settings > Organization settings > Manage teammates
• You will get the normal notifications that you have turned on in your notification settings
• New conversations will be assigned to you (e.g., you will get routed into chats)

At chat limit

• Available on Premium & above
• Chat limits allow users to focus on a certain amount of Open conversations before getting routed into new ones. 
  • If you reach your chat limit you will not be routed into additional conversations until at least one conversation is set to Pending or Closed
  • Set in Settings > App settings > Conversations > Advanced or as a custom value in Settings > Organization settings > Manage teammates

In a meeting

• Available on Premium & above
• If a user has their calendar connected, Drift can read when they are in a meeting (public meeting that is marked as busy) so they are not routed into any chats.
  • Users will toggle this setting on in either Settings > My settings > Calendar (legacy plans) or right from the Meetings tab (FY22 plans) within the Availability > When are you available for meetings section. 

• • If this is not toggled on or a user doesn’t have their calendar connected, they will need to manually toggle themselves to Away while they are in meetings so they do not get routed into chats.

Away

Users will manually set themselves as Away or an Admin can do so in Settings > Organization settings > Manage teammates

• You won’t be routed to any conversations when you’re unavailable
• Your calendar will still be dropped (if connected)
• Set an amount of time for Away

Notifications

• • Users will click on their avatar in the bottom left corner and choose Notifications and a modal will pop up in the live chat view (https://app.drift.com/conversations#notificationSettings)

Each user will configure their own notifications for conversations, account activity, admin emails (Admin only), and sound & appearance. Users can also snooze notifications

• Conversations: Check the boxes to turn on notifications for the default and custom sections that you have in your live chat view.. You can also toggle on email notifications which send every 15 minutes.

 

• Account Activity: (Available on Premium & above)

• Target account activity on my site (site visitors from target accounts that you own)
  • Contact activity on my site from an Outreach Sequence Email (site visitors who were directed there from an email sent in Outreach - the integration needs to be connected)
  • Contact opens my Drift Sequence (email playbook) or tracked email (Gmail + Chrome extension), and when they open a link in it (site visitors who open emails sent to them and/or visit the site from that email)
  • Contact changes their lead stage (choose 1 or more lead stages to be notified about)

• 
• Administrator emails: (Available to Admin)
  • Every morning with team states, action items and how Drift is performing for you
  • When a playbook suddenly stops sending to site visitors
  • When a teammate is added to your organization
  • When an integration is connected or disconnected to Drift
  • When the first sync error of the day occurs for the selected integrations
• Sound & appearance:
  • Notification sounds
  • Display desktop notifications when Drift is not open in a browser
  • Keep desktop notifications on-screen until I interact with them (only available on browser version, not on desktop app)

• Troubleshoot notifications: Users can work to troubleshoot notifications before reaching out to Support.
  • Send test notifications for desktop and email 

 

Conversation Header

Here is a list of the information, if available, we display:

• Site visitor status: The dot next to the site visitor will be green if they are actively on the site and grey if they are not actively on the site
• Name: If Drift recognizes the site visitor and has their name in the contact record in Drift, we will show it. If we do not have a name, we will show their email. If we do not know their email, it will show as Site Visitor.
• Site visitor’s role (not show above): If we know the site visitor’s role at their company we will show it here (pulled from Drift Intel, IP address + email)
• Company name and website: This information is pulled in from Drift Intel (IP address + email)
• Location: Pulled from IP 
• Page: What page (and the link) did they last view on your website where Drift is installed

Composer Actions, Keyboard Shortcuts, and Shortcut Menu + Slash Commands

Composer Actions
 

• Format text: Highlight the word(s) you want to format and choose from bold, italics, underline, or hyperlink
• Zoom icon: Premium+ users can connect their Zoom account and start a Chat to Zoom (more details later)
• Phone icon: Premium+ users can start a Chat to Call (more details later)
• Calendar icon: An agent can send their calendar (or someone else’s) to book a meeting with the site visitor (more details later)
• Paper clip: Add files (25 mb max per file)
• Emoji: Add emojis into the chat

Keyboard Shortcuts

• Basic
  • ⌘ B = BOLD
  • ⌘ I = italics 
  • ⌘ U = underline
  • ⌘ K = insert saved replies 
  • ⌘ F = search
  • / = internal notes & slash commands

• Conversation Status
  • ⌘ SHIFT C = Mark as “Closed”
  • ⌘ SHIFT O = Mark as “Open”
  • ⌘ Option C = Mark as “Closed & Leave” 

• Navigation
  • OPTION ⇧ = Previous Conversation 
  • OPTION ⇩ = Next Conversation

Shortcut Meni and Slash Commands

• Click on the lightning bolt icon in the composer or type / 
  • • /invite (add another teammate to the conversation) (available on paid plans)
    • /note (add an internal note)
    • /sendtranscript (send transcript to site visitor or other teammates in Drift)
    • /block (block site visitor’s IP address)
    • /savedreply (insert saved reply) (available on paid plans)
    • /tag (add conversation tag)
    • /leave (leave conversation)
    • /rating (send conversation rating) ((un-gated in some Premium and above plans)
    • /sync (sync to integrations) (available on Startup and above)
    • /outreach (enroll in Outreach sequence) (available on Premium and above)

• Copy conversation link 

• • This is helpful when using the desktop app so you can send and share conversation links. Those using the browser version can copy the URL of the conversation or use this option.

Conversation Details

• Conversations are expanded by default
  • To collapse them, click on the i icon in the top right of the chat

About

• CQL score

We define a CQL as a person who you've had a conversation with (via Drift) and they have made it clear to you that:  

1. 1. They are interested in buying your product or service, and 

Their goals can be accomplished with your product 

• Name, email, company (if there’s a value in their record or from Drift Intel), location (from IP address)
  • • You can manually update the name and email values

• Show more attributes will show a full list of Drift & custom attributes
  • More about Drift & custom attributes in the CRM (pt. 1) training
  • You can edit the values of these attributes
  • You can customize which attributes show up in the conversation view by going to the Visitors > Contacts > Contact settings. Here you can check the boxes under "Show in Conversation" in order to change what is displayed in this section. 

 

• View full profile
  • This redirects you to the contact record 

Powered by Drift Intel. Clicking the "Company" tab gives the user information on (if available)

• More on Drift Intel in Settings 
• Website
• Location (headquarters)
• Employees
• Category 
• Estimated annual revenue
• About

Salesforce

• Available on Premium and above
• Salesforce record details (you cannot edit these fields as they are being pulled in from Salesforce by the site visitor’s email)
• View in Salesforce
• Configure fields 
  • You can customize which attributes show up in the conversation view by going to the Visitors > Contacts > Contact settings. Here you can check the boxes under "Show in Conversation" in order to change what is displayed in this section.

HubSpot

• Available on Premium and above
• We find this data using the email address of the visitor or if the visitor has the Hubspot cookie and the toggle turned on
• HubSpot record details
  • Contact owner
  • Lifecycle stage
  • Lead status
  • HubSpot score
• View in HubSpot

Recent Activity

• Recently visited pages
• View full activity timeline on contact record

Participants

• Current participants of the conversation
• Admin can invite and remove participants, but chat users can only invite others and remove themselves

Conversation Info

• Conversation started from + view audit log
• Date & time conversation started
• IP address
• Web browser
• Device
• Routed to + view audit log
• Copy conversation link

Conversation Audit Logs

Audit logs give the user more information about how the conversation started and who was routed in. The audit logs will also show any conditional branching in bot playbooks

Targeting audit log: If a conversation was started from a playbook due to targeting conditions, the audit log will review which targeting conditions the site visitor met, and therefore why they saw the playbook. If a conversation was started from a direct source (e.g., default greeting, Drift profile, ABM notification, driftlink, conversational landing page) that does not use targeting, there will not be information in the audit log.

Routing audit log: When a routing event occurs in a chat, there will be an audit log to tell you how and why that user was routed into the conversation. If someone is manually invited and/or manually joins a chat, there will not be a routing audit log. You will also be able to see who else was available during the routing event to understand why (or why not) someone was routed in. If the chat goes through the lead routing rules (more on that in Routing), you will also be able to see why the site visitor matched the routing rule conditions.

Conditional branching audit log: If a bot playbook or conversational landing page (CLP) contains a conditional branch, the audit log will show how Drift evaluated it to choose which path the site visitor followed in the chat flow. 

Tags

• Conversation tags applied manually or by the bot to label and organize conversations
• Add tag (or you can use the /tag command)
• Manage tags (Admin can create, edit, and delete tags (also in Settings > App settings > Conversations > Tags)