Chatwoot

What is Chatwoot?

Chatwoot is your customer support centre: a shared inbox where every customer conversation lands - website live chat, support email, social channels - and where the team replies, assigns and resolves. It replaces Zendesk or Intercom.

The win over a shared email account: conversations have owners, statuses and history. Two people never answer the same customer twice, and nobody's question quietly rots unanswered.

How it works: each channel (live-chat widget, email address, social account) is an inbox. Messages become conversations that agents get assigned to. A conversation is open until someone resolves it. Customer history sticks to the contact, across all channels.

Getting started (agent basics)

1. Log in at your company's Chatwoot address with your Brundo account.
2. Tour the three columns: conversation list (left), the active conversation (middle), customer details and history (right).
3. Check "Mine": conversations assigned to you. "Unassigned" is the queue - take from it when free.
4. Send your first reply: open a conversation, type, hit send. Use Private note (internal-only) to discuss with colleagues inside the same thread - the customer never sees notes.
5. Resolve when done: click Resolve. If the customer writes again, it reopens automatically.

Core concepts

Inboxes

One per channel: the website chat widget, support@yourcompany email, social accounts. All feed the same conversation list.

Assignment & statuses

Every conversation should have exactly one assignee. Statuses: Open (needs action), Pending (waiting on customer), Resolved (done).

Private notes

Yellow internal messages inside the conversation. Use them to ask a colleague ("@peter is this covered by warranty?") without leaving the thread.

Canned responses

Saved reply templates triggered by typing / in the reply box. Write them for your ten most common questions; personalise before sending.

Labels

Tag conversations (billing, bug, feature-request). Labels power reporting: what do customers actually contact you about?

Everyday tasks, step by step

Work the queue (daily rhythm)

1. Start with Mine - clear what's already yours, oldest first.
2. Move to Unassigned - assign yourself before replying, so colleagues see it's taken.
3. Can't finish? Set Pending with a private note about the state, so anyone can pick it up.
4. Resolve everything that's done. An honest inbox count is the team's shared dashboard.

Escalate to a colleague

1. Write a private note summarising the situation and @mention them.
2. Reassign the conversation to them (assignee dropdown, top right).
3. Tell the customer: "I'm bringing in a colleague who knows this area best."

Set up a canned response

1. Profile → Canned responses → Add new.
2. Short code (e.g. invoice), full reply text.
3. In any reply box, type /invoice and it expands. Edit before sending - templates are starting points, not scripts.

Tips & good habits

• First response speed matters more than instant solutions - a quick "we're on it, expect an answer by 3pm" buys goodwill.
• Read the customer's history (right panel) before replying; nobody enjoys repeating themselves.
• Label every conversation on resolve - two seconds now, real insight at month end.
• Write canned responses like a human, not a lawyer. Then personalise the first line.
• Watch the reports weekly: rising volume on one label = fix the root cause, not just the tickets.

Troubleshooting & FAQ

The customer wrote on chat, then emailed. Two conversations? If the contact is matched (same email), history unifies on the contact. Merge contacts when you spot duplicates.

Can I get notified of new conversations? Yes - browser and email notifications per your profile settings. Teams often also pipe new-conversation alerts into Mattermost via Activepieces.

What do out-of-hours customers see on chat? Configure business hours per inbox; outside them the widget collects a message and sets expectations for reply time.

Someone resolved a conversation too early. The customer's next message reopens it automatically. You can also reopen manually any time.

Useful resources

Curated for the version Brundo hosts (community / self-hosted editions) — cloud-only or enterprise-only material is skipped.

• User guide — Official agent and admin guide - inboxes, conversations, canned responses, reports.
• Help center — Entry point to all Chatwoot docs and self-service articles.
• Developer docs — Self-hosted configuration and API - relevant for integrations via Activepieces.
• GitHub project — Source and release notes for the open-source core we host.