Show your help center in the chat widget
Let visitors search your help articles from a Help tab in the chat widget, open answers in a new tab, and still start a chat when no article fits.
Last updated 2 min readPreview
With your help center published, the chat widget gets a Help tab. Visitors search your answers right inside the widget, and many find what they need before they start a chat.
Before you start
- Who can do this: owners and admins.
- Plan: all plans.
- What you need: the chat widget on your site (see Install live chat on any website) and at least a few published articles.
Step by step
- Open Settings > Help center and choose the Settings tab.
- Turn on Publish the help center.
- Save. "Help center settings saved".
- Open your site and open the chat widget. A Help tab appears next to Messages.
What happens next
In the Help tab, visitors see "Type to search our help center". As they type, up to six published articles appear with a short summary. Choosing one opens the article on your help center in a new tab. With no match, they see "No articles found" and can switch to Messages to chat.
Each search is recorded, so you can see what people looked for. See Read help center reports.
Tips
- Write a short Summary for each article; it is what visitors read in the widget.
- Put the words customers type into your titles, such as "Where is my order".
- Keep your top five articles up to date: they answer most widget searches.
Troubleshooting
The Help tab does not appear
Publish the help center is off, or the page was cached. Turn it on, save, and reload your site.
"No articles found"
No published, public article matches the search. Check the article is Published and Who sees it is Everyone, or write a new one. If the widget is shown in a language other than English, the search finds no articles today.
Help articles in other languages. Articles are written in English for now. Choosing a language per article, so visitors in other languages can find them, is not available yet.
"This chat is not available on this site."
The widget itself is blocked on this site address. See Choose which sites can show chat.
Frequently asked questions
How do I add a Help tab to my Hushdesk chat widget?
Turn on Publish the help center in Settings, Help center, Settings tab. The Help tab appears in your chat widget automatically, next to Messages, with no change to the code on your site. Turning the switch off again hides both the Help tab and your public help center pages.
What do visitors see in the widget's Help tab?
A search box that says Search help articles. As they type at least two letters, up to six matching published articles appear with a short summary. Choosing one opens the full article on your help center in a new tab, and the Messages tab is always one tap away for a chat.
Which articles appear in the chat widget search?
Only articles that are published and visible to Everyone. Drafts, articles in review and Team only articles never appear. Search looks at the title and the text of each article, so use the words your customers use, and put them in the title and the first paragraph.
Does the Help tab work in other languages?
The Help tab's own words, such as the search placeholder and No articles found, follow the widget's language. Search only looks at articles in the same language as the widget, and articles are written in English today, so visitors whose widget shows another language may find no articles yet.
Do widget searches show up in my reports?
Yes. Every search in the Help tab is counted with your help center's other searches. Searches that found nothing appear on the Reports tab under Searches with no answer, with how often each was searched, so you know which article to write next.
Was this helpful?
Related articles
- Set up your own help centerPreviewPublish a help center for your customers at your own Hushdesk address, with a title, a tagline, collections and articles they can search on their own.
- Read help center reportsPreviewSee how often articles are read, how many readers found them helpful, what they said was missing, and which searches found no answer, so you know what to write.
- Install live chat on any websiteCopy one line of code from Settings, Chat widget, Install and paste it before the closing body tag. Works on Wix, Squarespace, Webflow and custom sites.
- Publish, review and restore articlesPreviewTake a help article from draft to review to published, edit a live article safely, unpublish or delete it, and restore any earlier version from History.
Still stuck?
Chat with the Hushdesk team. A person answers on every plan.