How can we help?
Browse the FAQ, read the docs, or open a ticket. Most things about HelpBird's support chat and shared inbox have a one-click answer below.
Frequently asked questions
Getting started
How long does it take to install?
Under a minute. Copy the snippet from the Install tab and paste it inside your site's <head>. Shopify stores get one-click install from the App Store — no code at all.
Can I match the support widget to my brand colors?
Yes. The Appearance panel ships with eight presets plus inline color pickers for the seven theme slots — header, bubbles, borders, text, page background. Basic adds a custom-CSS slot and chat wallpapers for total control.
How do I lock the widget to my own domain?
Set the Restricted domain field in Project → Settings. The widget will refuse to load on any other origin. Wildcards (*.example.com) and comma-separated lists are supported for multi-subdomain setups. Combined with our origin allow-list on the realtime bridge, this prevents your support chat from being scraped or rebroadcast from a rogue page.
Can I run multiple support inboxes on the same site?
Yes. Every project supports unlimited rooms (e.g. one per product line, per region, per brand). The "multiple chats per domain" toggle (Basic and above) lets one project serve different room IDs at different URLs of the same domain — useful when product pages, your docs, and a checkout flow all need separate conversation streams but share branding and team access.
Does the support chat work on mobile?
Yes — the widget is fully responsive and survives back-forward cache (bfcache) restores on iOS Safari. There's a mobile size toggle so visitors can collapse the chat to a launcher bubble and re-expand. Notifications, image upload, and replies all work the same as desktop. We test viewport widths from 320px up.
Visitor experience
Do customers need to create an account to start a conversation?
No — anonymous chat is on by default. Visitors pick a display name and start typing. If you'd rather require sign-in, toggle members-only mode in Moderation; visitors then log in with Google, Facebook, or email. On Basic and above you can hide individual login options if you only want one path.
How do mentions, replies, and reactions work?
Type @ to autocomplete a teammate in an internal note. Hover any bubble to reply inline; the parent message stays attached to the reply so context is preserved. Reactions are emoji on each bubble — long-press on mobile, hover on desktop. Mentioned teammates get a notification with a one-click jump to the original message.
Can customers use polls or slash commands?
Yes. Anyone can open a poll from the chat menu (single- or multi-choice, with a closing time) or via /poll question | option 1 | option 2. Other commands: /help to list them, /announce <text> for a highlighted system bubble, plus agent-only /timeout @user [min] and /clear. Custom emote shortcodes (:emote-name:) work inline.
Team & moderation
Can multiple people on my team reply?
Yes — Basic plans and above support team agents and sub-admins. Each agent gets their own login and a scoped view of just the shared inbox. You can also restrict an agent to a specific inbox or room.
Will I miss messages when I'm away?
Email digests batch new and unassigned conversations and send a summary on a schedule you control (minimum 10 minutes between emails). Available on Basic plans and above. The inbox itself plays a soft chime when your tab is unfocused, and a notification bell shows unread mentions and replies.
How do I keep spam and abuse out of the chat?
Layered tools in the Moderation panel: banned-words list, IP / CIDR ban list, slow mode (per-user cooldown), members-only mode (require sign-in), and AI moderation on Pro that auto-redacts harassment, hate, and graphic content via OpenAI's classifier.
Can I pin an important message to the top of the conversation?
Yes. Agents can pin any message from the bubble menu — it sticks to the top of the chat for every viewer until you unpin it (only one pinned message per room). Pins fire a message_pinned webhook event so you can mirror them to Slack or your CMS. Useful for an outage notice, current promo, or an "away until 6pm" status.
Can I ban a specific user, IP, or whole range?
Yes. From any message you can click ban-user (account-wide) or ban-IP (single address). The Moderation panel also accepts CIDR ranges (e.g. 203.0.113.0/24) for blocking entire networks, plus an allow-list to whitelist trusted IPs. Bans take effect instantly — active sockets from the banned IP are kicked from the realtime bridge, not just blocked at the next page load.
Customization & branding
Can I add a wallpaper or background image?
Yes (Basic and above). Pick from the curated gallery or upload your own (we auto-compress and serve from our CDN). You also pick the overlay opacity so message text stays readable. Visitors can override the wallpaper with their own choice from a built-in picker.
Can I write custom CSS or build my own theme?
On Basic and above the Appearance panel exposes a Custom CSS slot that's injected into the widget shadow scope. We expose stable class names (.ec-bubble, .ec-author, .ec-header, etc.) so your rules survive minor releases. You can also save themes as named presets and reuse them across inboxes or projects.
Can I set a welcome message or auto-greeter?
Two options. The static welcome message renders once when the chat loads (everyone sees it). The proactive greeter (Basic and above) is scripted — it greets first-time visitors by name a few seconds after they land, optionally with a link or a CTA. Both are configurable per inbox, so different sections of your site can have different greetings.
Can I add custom emotes for my team or community?
Yes. Upload PNG / GIF / WebP from the Emotes tab and assign each one a :shortcode:. They appear in the emoji picker and inline via shortcode — handy for branded reactions and internal team shorthand.
Can I remove the "Powered by HelpBird" footer?
Yes — the white-label toggle is on Basic and above. Flip it in Appearance and the footer disappears from every chat in the project. The widget keeps a tiny version selector in browser dev-tools (so we can debug your tickets) but visitors see no branding.
Automation & integrations
Can HelpBird route conversations to the right agent automatically?
Yes, on Pro plans and above. Auto-routing rules assign each new conversation to the right teammate or team — round-robin, by tag, or by business hours. Agents can hand off with one click, and nothing sits unowned in the shared inbox.
Can the inbox send events to Slack / Zapier / my CRM?
Yes — webhooks on Pro plans and above. Configure a URL + shared secret per project and we'll POST signed JSON on message_posted, mention_received, and message_pinned. See docs →
Is there an AI assistant or auto-reply I can drop in?
Yes (Pro and above). Enable AI auto-reply in Project → Bot and give it a system prompt + a Help Center knowledge base (FAQ, policies, your docs). On first touch the assistant drafts an answer instantly and hands off to a human the moment a customer needs one. Responses are rate-limited per visitor and you can review every call in the audit log.
History & analytics
Can I replay or search past conversations?
Yes — conversation history (Pro and above) records every message, reaction, poll, and agent action. From the Replay tab pick a date range or a contact and scrub through the session at 1×–8× speed. Full-text search works across all inboxes in a project so you can find a refund request, a complaint, or a banned-word incident in seconds.
Can I track SLA targets and first-response time?
Yes. Set a first-response target (e.g. reply within 30 min) and every conversation shows its time-to-first-response, with a breach view that surfaces the threads about to miss before they do. Combined with CSAT and per-agent load, it turns the shared inbox into a measurable support operation.
What analytics do I get out of the box?
The Analytics tab shows conversation volume, median first-response time, SLA attainment, CSAT trend, top participants, signed-in vs anonymous split, peak concurrency, and per-agent load. All charts are filterable by inbox and date range, and downloadable as CSV.
Privacy & data
What happens to image metadata when customers upload?
We strip EXIF (GPS, camera serial, capture timestamp) before storage and serve a resized version through our CDN. Decompression bombs and oversize files are rejected at the boundary. The original is never reachable from a public URL — only the sanitized re-encode.
How does GDPR delete work for visitors?
A signed-in visitor can delete their account from the profile menu in any chat where they're logged in. We anonymize their past messages (username becomes (deleted), profile photo cleared, social-provider id wiped), tombstone the account, and store a one-way hash of the email so they can't sign up again with the same address by accident. The action is irreversible and confirmed via email.
Can I delete my admin account and all project data?
Yes. Profile → Delete account cancels any active Stripe subscription, terminates every project (the widget will refuse to load), purges inboxes, messages, themes, custom emotes, webhook configs, and your auth records within 30 days. Invoices stay (legal requirement) but are anonymized. Email us if you need an export of your data before deletion.
Billing
Is there a free trial?
Yes — every new account gets a free trial with full Pro features enabled. No card required to start. When the trial ends, the support chat keeps working on the free Starter tier (which never expires); paid features simply disable until you pick a plan. We never auto-charge a card you didn't put in.
Can I change plans later?
Yes — upgrade, downgrade, or cancel anytime from Profile → Subscription. Pro-rated billing for upgrades; downgrades take effect at the next billing cycle and gated features auto-disable.
What payment methods do you accept?
All major credit cards via Stripe. Shopify users are billed through Shopify directly. Invoices are available in Billing & invoices.
What happens if a payment fails?
A 7-day dunning window: we email you when a charge fails and again at days 3 and 6. Paid features stay on so live customers don't see a sudden downgrade. If the card still hasn't been fixed on day 7, the plan auto-suspends to Starter (your data and config stay intact) and you can resume by updating the card under Profile → Subscription.
Still stuck? Send us a message
A team member will get back to you within 24 hours on business days. Average first reply is around 6 hours.
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