Manychat Live Chat is your go-to tool for communicating with customers across multiple platforms like Instagram, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, and SMS, all within a single interface. Whether you're answering questions, sending payment links, or managing contact data, Live Chat has you covered. This guide will help you get the most out of Manychat Live Chat with easy-to-follow steps and tips.
Navigating the Live Chat interface
The Live Chat tab is organized into the following key components:
Folders: These are categorized by assignment (Unassigned, You, Team, All) and by conversation channel (Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, etc.), allowing for easy navigation and management of your conversations.
Conversation list (or Threads): Displays all conversations relevant to the selected folder and channel, offering an overview of ongoing and past interactions. You can filter conversations by status (Open, Closed, or All) and sort them from oldest to newest. By default, threads are arranged according to the time of the last message from the contact, with the latest dialogues appearing at the top. Timestamps indicate when the last message was manually sent by the contact. If no manual message has been sent (e.g., the contact clicked buttons in an automation), there will be no timestamp, and these dialogues will be shown under conversations with manual activity.
Selected conversation: The central area where you actively engage with a contact. Here, you can respond to messages, assign the chat to a team member, add notes, or take actions like reopening closed conversations. Messages sent by automations are identified with a bot icon, making it easy to distinguish them from human interactions.
Contact panel: This panel provides detailed information about the contact, including their profile, conversation history across different channels, and tools for managing tags, sequences, and custom fields. It is crucial for gaining insights into your contact and tailoring your responses accordingly.
Understanding messaging windows
⚠️ Please note that sending automated messages is not allowed outside the 24-hour window in accordance with Meta's policy.
24-hour window
For Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, there’s a 24-hour messaging window. During this period, you can send both regular and automated messages freely.
Post-24-hour windows
- Messenger & Instagram: After the 24-hour window, a 7-day messaging window begins, allowing you to continue sending regular (not automated) messages through Live Chat.
- WhatsApp: WhatsApp doesn’t have a 7-day window. Once 24 hours have passed since the last interaction, you’ll need to use Message Templates to contact the user.
Beyond 7 days
- Messenger & Instagram: After the 7-day window closes, you can still send messages using Message Tags or Messenger Lists.
- Telegram: There are no limitations—you can send both regular and automated messages at any time.
Managing conversations
Send automation
Send an existing automation to a contact directly from the chat.
⚠️ Note: If Pause automation is active, it will be deactivated once the automation is sent.
Pause automation
Pause all automation messages while chatting with a contact. This ensures your manual messages aren’t interrupted by automated sequences. The keywords will also not trigger during this period.
When you start replying to a contact, a 30-minute pause is automatically applied, temporarily halting any automation messages to that contact. You can adjust the duration of this pause in Settings → Live Chat Behavior.
You'll know the pause is active when you see a pause icon displayed on the contact's profile picture within the conversation window.
If the contact has already started receiving an automation, all automated messages will be sent to the end of the automation or the closest break point, such as a Delay or Smart Delay.
If a Delay is triggered before or during the pause, the delayed messages will be delivered only once the pause has ended.
Canned responses
Save time with pre-written replies for frequently asked questions. Simply type / to search and select the canned response.
To create a new canned response, click the + New button in the upper right corner:
To edit or delete a canned response, click Manage, which will open the settings. You can also manage your canned responses in the Settings → Live Chat.
Notes
Add notes to conversations to keep track of important details or reminders. Use @ to mention a team member, or yourself if you're the sole admin, to get notified in Messenger.
All notes added to a conversation are displayed in the contact’s panel. To view a note in context, simply click on it, and it will take you to the exact point in the conversation where it was added.
Product catalog
Send product links directly in the chat for a seamless shopping experience.
💡 Note: It requires a Manychat Pro plan with Stripe or PayPal integration.
Personas
Enable personas to show the agent’s name and profile picture during Messenger chats, personalizing the customer experience. Go to Settings → Messenger and enable this feature:
⚠️ Note: Personas are only supported in the Messenger channel.
Why do I see my name in the Live Chat next to my message?
Sometimes you might notice your profile picture and name appearing in Live Chat instead of the bot’s:
This is a feature that allows Manychat Admins to easily differentiate between bot messages and those sent by a real Live Chat agent. Only Admins can see this inside Manychat; your contacts will still view all messages as coming from the public Facebook page.
Live Chat actions
In addition to marking conversations as Open or Closed, Manychat allows you to use additional Actions within your automations to manage the Live Chat behavior.
To receive notifications about incoming messages, add a Notify assignees action in the appropriate section of your automation. If you need to assign a conversation to a specific team member, use the Assign conversation action.
Managing Live Chat seats
A Live Chat seat is required to participate in conversations:
- Manychat Pro plan: Includes 3 Live Chat seats (no additional seats can be added).
- Manychat Inbox plan: Starts with 3 Live Chat seats, and you can purchase more at $39 each.
You can learn more about these plans here.
⚠️ Note: The account owner automatically takes a Live Chat seat, which can’t be transferred to another team member.
If you see the message, "You have insufficient rights to chat with the contact," this means you don’t have a Live Chat seat. Ask the account owner to grant you access by navigating to Settings → Team Members.
Live Chat settings
Live Chat behavior
You can adjust how Live Chat handles new conversations:
- Go to Settings > Live Chat Behavior.
- Choose between:
- Any message starts a conversation: New messages go to the Unassigned folder.
- Conversation should be opened explicitly: New messages go to the Closed folder until marked as Open.
If you select the second option, conversations will be directed to the Unassigned folder only when the Mark conversation as unassigned action is performed. Otherwise, they will be automatically marked as Closed.
To ensure you're notified, you'll need to add the Notify Admin and Mark conversation as unassigned actions in the relevant section of your automation. This will send you a notification, and the conversation will appear in the Unassigned folder in Live Chat.
You can learn more about auto-assignment here.
Mobile app
The Manychat app allows you to manage Live Chat conversations on the go. With the app, you can easily handle contact data, including Tags, Sequences, and Custom Field values, right from your mobile device.