What does a visitor see when they use the chat on my site?
A visitor sees a small round chat button in the corner of your website. They click it and either land on a list of their past conversations or go straight into a new one. They type a question, press Enter, and the agent's reply appears in the same window, with three bouncing dots while it is being written. Their conversations are saved in that browser, so everything is still there after a page refresh, and the button shows a small red dot when a reply arrives while the window is closed.
The chat button
The widget adds one round button, in the bottom-right corner by default. Hovering it grows it slightly. Its colour is whatever accent you set for the instance. A red dot on the button means there is an unread reply waiting.
Opening the chat
When a visitor clicks the button, what they see depends on whether they have talked to you before, in this browser:
- A first-time visitor goes straight into a fresh conversation, ready to type. A line reads "Ask anything about [your product] — a real agent with full knowledge of the product picks this up."
- A returning visitor sees the home view: a heading that reads "Your conversations", a list of their past conversations, and a New conversation button.
The window's header shows your product's name and the line "Usually replies in minutes".
Sending a message
The box at the bottom reads "Describe your question…". The visitor types and presses Enter to send (Shift+Enter makes a new line without sending). Their message appears straight away as a bubble on the right. If sending fails because of a connection blip, the message is outlined in red and reads "Failed to send — click to retry" so they can tap it to try again.
Getting a reply
Replies from your side appear as bubbles on the left, whether they come from the agent or from you when you have joined the conversation. While a reply is being prepared, the visitor sees three bouncing dots. A short status line under the transcript tells them what is happening, for example:
- "An agent is on this conversation"
- "An agent is preparing a reply"
- "You are talking to the team" (when a person on your side has taken over)
- "Waiting for an agent — usually a few minutes"
The full set of these is on its own page: see What do the conversation states mean?.
Do conversations survive a refresh?
Yes. Each visitor is remembered in their own browser, so their conversations stay put across page refreshes and return visits. After a refresh they open the chat, see their conversations in the list, and tap one to read the whole transcript again, exactly as it was.
Two things to know about how that memory works:
- It is tied to that browser. If the same person opens your site in a different browser, on another device, or in a private/incognito window, they start fresh with no history, because there is nothing to remember them by there.
- If they clear their browser data for your site, their saved conversations are forgotten on that machine.
Starting a new conversation
From the home list, New conversation opens a fresh, empty chat. This is deliberate: each question is its own conversation, so a new topic does not get tangled up with an old one. The first message a visitor sends becomes that conversation's title in their list.
Moving around
- The back arrow at the top left of a conversation returns to the list of conversations.
- The × closes the chat window. The conversation is not lost; it is waiting in the list next time.
- Pressing Escape goes back a step, then closes the window.
At the very bottom is a small "Powered by codus Support" link. On a phone, the chat opens full-screen rather than as a small panel.
What visitors do not see
Visitors only ever see the conversation itself. Anything you do behind the scenes stays private: your internal notes, the issues you raise from a message, which agent is handling it, and any workings attached to a message are never shown in the widget.
Common problems
"My customer says replies never appear." The usual cause is your allowed-domains list not including the site's domain, which lets a visitor send a message but blocks the widget from reading replies. See Why can't my visitor see replies?.
"A customer lost their history." They almost certainly returned in a different browser, a different device, or a private window, or cleared their site data. Their conversations still exist on your side in the chats tab; they cannot be matched to that fresh browser.