Configure

Live chat

Every conversation on Quincer AI is simultaneously an AI chat and a live chat. Reps can jump in mid-conversation, type, pause the AI, and hand back. Visitors see no interruption.

The inbox

Open Inbox from the dashboard sidebar and switch to the Live tab. The list panel across the top has three filters, each with a live count:

• Live — conversations a human has taken over right now (the ones that need you).
• Mine — conversations currently locked to you.
• All — everything, including recently closed threads.

In the panel below, the Live / Mine / All strip carries those counts, and each row shows the visitor (their name if captured, otherwise a visitor label), a preview of the last message with who sent it, and a cluster of badges on the right: an ⚠ Escalated badge when the AI asked for a human, a channel badge (SMS, WhatsApp, and so on), and a status badge that reads Human Active or AI Active. A row that a human has taken over is tinted so it stands out.

Getting notified

There are four places an alert can land:

• Dashboard bell — red dot when a conversation escalates or a Hot lead starts.
• Browser notifications — opt in from the dashboard header.
• Slack — if connected, the AI posts alerts in the channel you chose. Reps can reply from Slack threads or click Take over to drive the live chat.
• Telegram — if connected, escalations post into your Telegram group with inline Take over / Hand back buttons.
• Email digest — one email per day, or instant for Hot leads.

Notification preferences live in Settings → Notifications.

Where the three surfaces fit

Live chat happens in three places. They complement each other; use the right surface for the job.

• Quincer AI portal (Dashboard → Inbox → Live) — the full experience. Every active conversation, AI copilot suggestions, internal notes, transfer between teammates, resolve, close, and a force-release button when an integration bot holds the lock. Use this when you want to drive a conversation from the start.
• Slack and Telegram — escalation surfaces. They only light up when the AI explicitly hands off a conversation using slack_escalate_question / telegram_escalate_question (because a visitor asked for a human or the AI couldn't answer). Conversations you take over from the portal are not auto-mirrored there.

Taking over from the portal

Open a conversation and you get its full transcript with an action bar pinned to the bottom. Before you take over that bar shows a single Take Over button; once you do, it swaps to the reply composer and the two release controls shown in the panel below — a Type your reply… box with a Send button (Enter sends, Shift+Enter for a newline), and a Hand Back to AI and Close pair to the right. The header keeps the visitor’s name and page, plus a Human Active status badge while you’re driving.

1. Click a conversation in the inbox. You'll see the full transcript and the action bar at the bottom.
2. Click Take Over. The AI stops replying; the visitor sees a brief “I've sent your message to a teammate” note on their next send.
3. Type your reply and hit Enter. Messages appear under your name.
4. When done, click Hand Back to AI (returns to AI-led) or Close (ends the conversation).

Taking over a voice call

When the conversation is an active voice call, the inbox row shows a Voice call badge and the Take Over button routes you to the dedicated voice console. The AI speaks a brief hand-off line to the visitor while your console auto-connects your mic; within a few seconds you’re bridged directly with the visitor over Cloudflare’s WebRTC SFU and the AI steps aside. Requires a live voice seat ($19/user/month) — see Voice chat → Live voice takeover for setup details.

Taking over a text conversation (SMS & WhatsApp)

SMS and WhatsApp threads appear in the same inbox as web chat, each tagged with a channel badge. To answer one yourself:

1. Open the conversation in the inbox.
2. Click Take over. The AI stops replying.
3. Type your reply and send. It's delivered to the customer as a text message — on SMS it goes back out the same business number the customer texted; on WhatsApp it sends from your connected WhatsApp number.

Re-opening a closed text thread

SMS conversations auto-close after 2 hours of inactivity and WhatsApp after 24 hours, so a thread you want to follow up on later may already be closed — for example a customer texts overnight, the AI handles it, and a teammate wants to reply in the morning. To pick it back up:

1. In the Inbox, open the closed thread.
2. Click Re-open & reply. The conversation moves back to Live so a human can respond, and you can text the customer from here.

Re-open & reply is available on closed SMS and WhatsApp threads.

Channel badges

Every conversation carries a badge for the channel it came in on — SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, or Telegram — shown across all conversation lists and conversation headers, on desktop and mobile. Web chats carry no badge. The badge makes it obvious at a glance which surface a customer reached you on before you open the thread.

Visitor photos, described for you

On plans with file attachments (Growth, Scale, and Website + Widget), visitors can send photos in chat — a snapshot of an error screen, a broken part, a room to quote. Each photo shows as a thumbnail with a one-line AI caption describing what’s in it, written in the visitor’s language. The thumbnail and caption appear in the visitor’s own chat transcript, and in your Inbox → Live view and conversation history — click a thumbnail to open the image full size.

The caption is generated right after the message sends, so it can trail the photo by a moment; if it can’t be generated, the filename shows instead. Captioning never delays the AI’s reply to the visitor.

If the conversation is mirrored to Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Chat, or Telegram during a takeover, those surfaces are text-only — they don’t show the image itself. Instead the forwarded message carries a text note: 📷 An image uploaded (…) with the caption inside the parentheses (or the filename while the caption is still generating), so the operator knows what arrived without leaving the thread. Non-image files are noted as 📎 A file attached.

Visitor uploads are switched on per widget: tick Allow visitors to upload files in the Capabilities card on Customize & Deploy.

Internal notes

Click the Notes tab in the conversation detail to leave notes your team can see but the visitor cannot. Useful for recording context before handing a ticket to another rep.

Taking over from Slack

Prerequisite: the AI escalated the conversation via slack_escalate_question. That's the only time a message appears in your channel — conversations you drive from the portal don't post here.

The escalation message has three buttons and two reply modes:

• Quick answer — reply in the thread without tapping Take over. Your reply streams back to the visitor prefixed with “I checked with my team”, and the AI continues to drive the conversation.
• Live takeover — click Take over. The AI pauses. Every thread reply is forwarded to the visitor as you. Visitor follow-ups appear in the thread as 💬 {visitor}: {message} so you see what they're saying, not just the first question.

During a live takeover the buttons become:

• ✋ Hand back to AI — releases the lock. AI resumes. Conversation stays open.
• 🔒 Close — terminal. Conversation is marked closed, the lock released, the visitor sees “This conversation has ended. Send a message to start a new one.” Future visitor messages start a fresh session with the AI.
• Open in Quincer AI — deep-links to the conversation in the portal.

No setup needed on your end — Quincer AI's Slack app ships with Interactivity, /quincer, and event subscriptions pre-wired. Connect once at Integrations → Slack and the Take over flow is available in every workspace channel the app is invited to.

Taking over from Telegram

Prerequisite: the AI escalated the conversation via telegram_escalate_question. A message appears in your configured group only when that happens — portal-driven conversations don't post here.

The escalation message has a Take over button. Two reply modes mirror Slack:

• Quick answer — reply to the escalation message without tapping Take over. Your reply is relayed to the visitor prefixed with “I checked with my team”, and the AI continues.
• Live takeover — tap 🎧 Take over. Reply to the escalation message (or the “X is now live” confirmation posted below it — either anchor works) and every reply goes to the visitor as you. Visitor follow-ups appear threaded under the escalation as 💬 {visitor}: {message}.

During a live takeover the inline keyboard shows three actions:

• ✋ Hand back to AI — releases the lock. AI resumes.
• 🔒 Close — terminal. Conversation closed, session ended for the visitor.
• Open in Quincer AI — deep-links to the conversation in the portal.

Required BotFather setup: run /setprivacy and choose Disable so the bot can read group replies. See Telegram.

Closing a conversation

A closed conversation is terminal — the visitor's session ends, their next widget message starts fresh, and the thread drops from the live inbox. Close from any of the three surfaces:

• Portal — the Resolve button on the conversation header.
• Slack — tap 🔒 Close on the escalation message (only available after takeover).
• Telegram — tap 🔒 Close on the escalation message (only available after takeover).

When a conversation is closed from the portal, the Slack/Telegram thread gets a 🔒 closed by X note so the integration operator knows to move on. When closed from Slack/Telegram, the widget shows the visitor “This conversation has ended. Send a message to start a new one.” and their next message opens a fresh conversation with the AI.

Working hours

Under Settings → Availability you can set business hours and OOO windows. Outside hours, the AI gives a different closing message (“The team is offline — we'll reply first thing tomorrow”) and all conversations are held in the Escalated tab for morning review.

Closing a conversation

Click the Close button in the conversation detail. This marks it resolved, triggers the follow-up email (if enabled), and syncs the final state to your CRM. You can always reopen from the detail view.

Mobile

The full inbox works on mobile browsers. Dedicated iOS and Android apps are on the roadmap for Scale customers.