AI Stand-ins
Starter questions
Starter questions are up to four short questions a Stand-in offers under its greeting. Visitors can tap one instead of typing the first message, which matters most on phones. The Stand-in answers a tapped question like any typed one, and can optionally suggest two next questions after each reply.
- Availability
- All plans
- Configured in
- Dashboard → Stand-ins → select a Stand-in → Edit → Identity → Starter questions
- Category
- AI Stand-ins
- Reference status
- Current
Before you begin
Plan availability: All plans.
Prerequisite: A Stand-in owned by the signed-in member. Visitors see the questions only when that Stand-in is matched for the page.
Key boundary: Starter questions are shown only before the visitor’s first message, only for Stand-ins, and only in the floating widget. They are not shown for human reps, under a greeting supplied by a page’s own open request unless it supplies questions too, or in stand-chatbox. Suggested next questions are not shown in stand-chatbox either.
What visitors see
- When the chat opens, the questions appear as buttons under the Stand-in’s greeting. Tapping one sends it as the visitor’s first message, and the buttons disappear.
- Before the chat is opened, the greeting bubble next to the launcher shows the same buttons. Tapping one opens the chat and sends that question. A greeting bubble with questions stays up for 15 seconds instead of 7.
- The composer stays available, so a visitor can type their own question instead.
- On phones the buttons stack as full-width tap targets, and the keyboard stays closed until the visitor taps the message field, so it does not cover them.
- A tapped question is an ordinary visitor message in the transcript and in History.
Add starter questions
- Open the Stand-in, choose Edit, and find Starter questions under the greeting in Identity.
- Choose Add question and type one, or choose Suggest questions and click the suggestions you want to keep.
- Save the Stand-in. Saved questions apply to new visitor conversations and also appear in Try it out.
- Remove a question with its remove button. Removing every question turns the feature off for that Stand-in.
Where suggestions come from
Suggestions are only proposals. Nothing is added until you click it, and nothing is shown to visitors until you save. Suggest others asks for different questions.
| Source | When it is used | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Visitors’ first messages | At least five first messages in the last 30 days of your conversations, limited to the Stand-in’s Site when it has one, that group into at least two questions. | Questions grouped by AI from what visitors actually typed first, with how many first messages asked each. |
| Stand-in configuration | Otherwise. | Likely first questions from the Stand-in instructions, the Site and Team instructions, and the titles of pages in attached knowledge bases. |
Questions from page code
A website can offer its own questions for what the visitor is doing, such as installation questions after a visitor has spent a while in the installation guide. StandChat.openChat(greeting, { questions }) opens the chat with them under the greeting; StandChat.showGreeting(greeting, { questions }) shows them in the greeting bubble without opening the chat.
Page questions replace the Stand-in’s starter questions for that open, follow the same limits of four questions and 60 characters, and also appear when a human rep answers. An empty list shows none. The Stand JavaScript API page describes both methods.
Suggested next questions
Suggest next questions after each answer, in the same section and off by default, keeps the conversation tappable after the first message. After each Stand-in reply, a separate AI step reads the recent conversation and offers up to two short follow-up questions under the reply.
- Tapping one sends it as the visitor’s next message. They disappear when the visitor sends anything or another reply arrives.
- None are offered when the reply asks the visitor something, ends the chat, hands it to a person, or requests follow-up, or when no follow-up fits.
- They are not saved in the transcript or History and do not reappear after a reload.
- The questions are written by AI from the conversation, so they can vary. Try it out shows them once the setting is saved.
Limits
- Up to 4 questions per Stand-in, each up to 60 characters, so the buttons fit on a phone.
- At most 2 suggested next questions per reply, each up to 60 characters.
- Duplicate questions are removed when saved.
- Each Stand-in has its own questions. Clones and the replacement version created when editing a Stand-in with chat history keep them.
- Suggest questions can be used up to 30 times an hour.