Auto-responses for chats

For: Account owners, administrators and team leads who set up automatic chat replies, and agents who meet them in chats·Requires: Chats or the live chat widget (every plan) and the Automation permission in the Chat Tools section to manage rules; nothing to see the replies in chats·Screenshots show sample data

A customer who messages your shop on Instagram at 07:45 hears nothing until someone starts work, and on a chat channel a silence of an hour feels like no answer at all. Chat auto-responses answer for you: a rule listens to your Messenger, Instagram, Telegram and TikTok Shop accounts and your live chat widgets, and when a customer message arrives at a time and with a content the rule covers, Replyco sends one of your chat templates into the chat, at once or after a short delay.

What it does

Chat customers expect a reply within minutes. Your team cannot give one at night, at the weekend or while everyone is busy with other chats, and a customer who hears nothing writes again on another channel or gives up. A short, honest message that the chat has arrived and when a person will answer keeps most of them waiting patiently.

A chat auto-response rule sends a chat template automatically. It names the chat accounts and live chat widgets it listens to, a schedule (outside your company’s working time, set days and hours, or one continuous stretch of the week, within a date range), a delay before the reply goes out, whether it answers once or every time, and the conditions a message must meet. Replyco sends at most one automatic reply to each customer message, even when several rules match. From there:

• You decide when a rule may answer, down to the day and minute, including your company’s holidays. See when a chat rule answers.
• Replies can wait a fixed or random time, and a chat gets a rule’s reply only for its first message or for every one. See every setting.
• WhatsApp chats and your team’s own messages never get an automatic reply. See what does not get an auto-response.
• Your team sees every automatic reply in the chat, named after its rule, and can cancel one that has not gone out yet. As soon as someone replies in the chat, waiting automatic replies are cancelled. See auto-responses in your chats.
• Out-of-hours rules follow the working time in your company settings, not the hours of a live chat widget. See working hours for chats.

Every automatic reply stays in its chat as a message with the rule’s name, its status and its time, and every change to a rule is recorded in the rule’s history with the person and the date. To read that history and every control of the rules tab, see Chat auto-response rules.

Before you start

Requirement	Details
Plan	Every plan includes chats, WhatsApp, the live chat widget and chat auto-responses; companies on an older plan may not have them. See What each plan includes.
Who can set it up	Users with the Automation permission in the Chat Tools section of their permissions see Chat Tools›Automation; creating, changing, switching and deleting rules needs its edit level. Every user who can open a chat sees the replies in it. See User permissions and roles.
A chat template	Each rule sends one chat template from the Templates tab of the same screen. Write the text there first; see Chat templates.
A chat account or a live chat widget	Rules answer Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Telegram and TikTok Shop accounts and live chat widgets. To connect an account, see Social media and phone accounts; to add a widget, see Live chat widget.
Your working time, for out-of-hours replies	Out-of-hours rules follow the days, hours and holidays in the Working Time card under Admin›Company Settings. See Company Settings.
Cost	No AI actions and no separate fee. An automatic reply counts as the chat’s first answer, so the chat counts once towards your usage, as with a reply from your team.

Good to know

Chat rules and ticket rules are separate. The rules under Tools›Automation answer tickets only and never chats; chat rules answer chats only. To set up automatic replies for marketplace and email tickets, see Auto-responses for tickets.

Understanding when a chat rule answers

A chat rule answers a customer message when the chat belongs to one of its accounts or widgets, the message arrives inside its schedule and date range, the frequency allows it, and the message meets its conditions. The schedule has three forms, and the date range always sits on top:

Schedule	The rule may answer	Typical use
Send Outside Working hours of Company	Whenever your company is not working: outside the working days and daily hours in Working Time, and on the dates under Holidays	Out of hours: “Our team is offline right now. We reply from 9 am on the next working day.”
Days and Working Hours	On the chosen days, inside the daily time window	Return questions on weekdays from 09:00 to 17:30
Use Working Time Range	In one stretch from Active From (a day and a time) to Active To	A weekend note from Friday 18:00 to Monday 08:00
Date Range, on top	Only from the first to the last date, both included	Easter delivery notice from 2 to 6 April

How Replyco decides

For every customer message in a chat, Replyco works through these checks in order.

1. Is it a customer message on a channel with auto-responses? Messages from Messenger, Instagram, Telegram, TikTok Shop and live chat visitors are checked. WhatsApp messages and your team’s replies never are.
2. Which rules listen to this chat? Every switched-on rule whose Accounts include the chat’s account, or whose Widgets include its live chat widget, and, when a date range is set, whose dates include the message’s date.
3. Is the message inside the rule’s schedule? Replyco compares the time the message arrived with the rule’s days, hours or stretch, or with your company’s working time.
4. Does the frequency allow it? Once (1st response only) answers only the first customer message the chat has ever had; Continuous (every response) answers every one.
5. Do the conditions match? At least one condition group must match completely.
6. The first rule that passes every check answers, and no other rule does. The rules tab has no order or priority, so when two rules pass, you cannot choose which of them answers.
7. The reply is created at once. With a delay of 00:00 it goes out straight away; with a delay it waits in the chat with its send time and goes out in Replyco’s next sending round after that time. The text is copied from the chat template when the reply is created.

A rule answers on its chosen days, within its time window. With Working Hours 09:00 to 17:30 on Monday to Friday, as in Return questions:

Customer writes	Rule answers?	Why
Monday 08:45	No	Before the window
Monday 09:15	Yes	Inside the window
Monday 17:15	Yes	Inside the window
Monday 17:45	No	After the window
Saturday 10:00	No	Saturday is not one of the days

A window whose start is later than its end, such as 18:00 to 08:00, covers the evening and the early morning of each chosen day, and 00:00 to 23:59 covers the whole day.

For your company’s working time, the start and end count as working time. With Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 18:00, and a holiday on 25 December, an out-of-hours rule behaves like this:

Customer writes	Inside working time?	Out-of-hours rule
Tuesday 08:59	No	Answers
Tuesday 09:00 exactly	Yes; the start counts as working time	Does not answer
Tuesday 18:00 exactly	Yes; the end counts as working time	Does not answer
Tuesday 18:01	No	Answers
Saturday 11:00	No; not a working day	Answers
Friday 25 December, 10:00	No; a holiday, every year on that date	Answers

Worked example: Northwind’s rules on a Tuesday

Northwind Electronics works Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 18:00, and has three chat rules switched on:

• Welcome message: every day, 00:00 to 23:59, Once (1st response only), no delay, on Messenger, Instagram, Telegram, TikTok Shop and the Northwind Live Chat widget.
• Out of hours: Send Outside Working hours of Company, Once (1st response only), a delay of 00:02, on the same accounts and widget.
• Return questions: Monday to Friday, 09:00 to 17:30, Continuous (every response), a random delay of one to three minutes, when the text contains return, refund or send back, on Messenger, Instagram and the widget.

Message	Rules that pass	What the customer gets
Telegram, 07:44, a customer’s first message	Welcome message and Out of hours	One of the two replies, not both; in the chat it was Out of hours, two minutes later
Messenger, 10:15, first message: Do you sell USB-C cables?	Welcome message	The welcome, at once
The same chat, 10:20: Can I return one if it does not fit?	Return questions	The returns answer after one to three minutes; Welcome message does not answer a second message
Telegram, 10:30, second message: I want a refund	None	Nothing; Return questions does not listen to Telegram
Messenger, 17:45, second message: refund please	None	Nothing; after 17:30 and before 18:00 no rule covers the chat
WhatsApp, any time	None	Nothing; WhatsApp chats get no automatic replies

The first row is why overlapping rules need care: before 09:00 both rules pass, and Replyco picks one. If the out-of-hours note should always win at night, give Welcome message the working hours 09:00 to 18:00, so that the two rules can never pass for the same message.

How chat rules differ from ticket rules

Chat rules share their form with the ticket rules, but several things work differently. For the ticket side, see Auto-responses for tickets.

Topic	Ticket auto-responses	Chat auto-responses
Where	Tools›Automation	Chat Tools›Automation
What is sent	A ticket template with placeholders and attachments	A chat template: plain text, no placeholders, no files
Several rules match	Every matching rule sends its own reply	Only one rule answers
Once (1st response only)	The ticket’s first customer message	The chat’s first customer message, ever
Your team replies first	The waiting reply still goes out	Every waiting reply in the chat is cancelled
Condition fields	Client email, Subject, Text, Language	Client email, Text, Client name
Channels left out	Etsy, and some marketplace notices and bounces	WhatsApp
Usage per rule	Autoresponses Usage on the Performance dashboard	No count per rule

What does not get an auto-response

• WhatsApp chats. WhatsApp accounts are not offered under Accounts, and Replyco never runs chat rules on WhatsApp messages. Answer them by hand within WhatsApp’s 24 hours; see Answer a chat.
• Your team’s replies, sent from Replyco, and messages your business sends from its own Facebook page or Instagram account, which Replyco does not store.
• Chats of accounts or widgets the rule does not name.
• A second message in a chat, for a rule with Once (1st response only), even when the chat has been closed and the customer writes again weeks later.
• Messages outside the rule’s date range, when Date Range is switched on.
• Messages that arrived before the rule was saved or while it was switched off. Nothing is answered afterwards.
• Tickets. Messages from marketplaces, webstores and mailboxes use the ticket rules instead.

The AI Customers Blacklist is checked for ticket messages only, so it does not stop a chat rule. To keep a rule away from some customers, use a condition.

Setting it up in five steps

1. Write the reply. Under Chat Tools›Automation › Templates, create a chat template such as Out of hours: Thanks for your message! Our team is offline right now. We reply from 9 am on the next working day, and your chat stays open until then. Chat templates have no placeholders, so write it for everyone; see Chat templates.

2. Check your working time. Under Admin›Company Settings, check the Working Time card: days, daily hours and holidays. Out-of-hours rules follow it.

3. Create the rule. Open the Auto-response Rules tab and select Create New. Enter a name, pick the template under Template to Send, and the accounts under Accounts, the live chat widgets under Widgets, or both.

   

   Chat auto-responses are set up on their own tab under Chat Tools, separate from the ticket rules.

   What this screenshot shows

   Screen

   Chat Auto-response Rules (/instant-messages-automation?tab=autoresponseRules)

   Highlighted

   tab “Auto-response Rules”, left-tab-list, selected. shows the chat auto-response rules

   Also visible

   Active - 3: Welcome message, Out of hours, Return questions; Inactive - 1: Easter delivery notice; Create New at the top right

   Purpose

   entry point of chat auto-responses

4. Set the schedule. Switch on Send Outside Working hours of Company, or set the days and a time window for the times the rule should answer. Leave Date Range off for a rule that should work all year; switch it on only for a message that is true for a limited period.

5. Set the delay and a condition, and save. Choose a delay such as 00:02 and keep Once (1st response only) for a greeting. A rule needs at least one condition: Text Does not contain unsubscribe lets every ordinary message through. Select Save. The rule is saved switched on and answers messages that arrive from now on.

Suggested rollout

Start with one out-of-hours rule for all chat accounts and widgets and watch the chats it answers for a few days. Add a greeting next, limited to your working hours so that it can never pass together with the out-of-hours rule. Add rules for topics such as returns last, with narrow conditions, because a rule that answers every message keeps answering while your team is chatting.

Every setting, explained

Every rule is edited in one form on the Auto-response Rules tab; the settings below appear in its order. For every button, list control and validation message of the tab, see Chat auto-response rules.

Rule Name, the rule’s name

Where

First field of General Info. Saved with Save.

What

Required, up to 500 characters. The name appears in the rule list, in the rule’s history and under every reply the rule sends, in the line as auto-response “Out of hours”.

Why

A name that says the purpose, such as Out of hours, tells an agent at a glance why the customer has already had a reply.

Template to Send, the reply

Where

General Info, second field: a select of every chat template. Saved with Save.

What

The chat template the rule sends. Required. The customer receives the template’s text exactly as written: chat templates have no placeholders and no attachments, and an automatic reply is always text only. The text is copied into the reply when the reply is created, so a change to the template does not change replies already waiting. Deleting the template deletes the rule.

Why

One template can serve several rules, and you improve every automatic reply by editing one text.

Do	Don’t
Say when a person will answer: We reply from 9 am on the next working day	Promise a time you may not keep: We reply within five minutes
Keep it to two or three short sentences that read well on a phone	Paste a long answer that the customer has to scroll through
Write for every customer: Thanks for your message!	Write #customer_first_name#; it is sent as it stands
Tell the customer the chat stays open	Ask a question an automatic reply cannot follow up

Accounts and Widgets, where it listens

Where

General Info, third and fourth fields, both multi-selects. Saved with Save; Add Accounts on the rule list adds accounts to several rules at once.

What

Accounts lists your Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Telegram and TikTok Shop accounts; Widgets lists your live chat widgets by their chat title. You need at least one account or one widget, or saving shows All fields must be completed. The reply goes out through the chat’s own account or widget. WhatsApp accounts are not offered, because WhatsApp chats never get automatic replies.

Why

The same words do not suit every channel: a welcome on your website can be longer than one on Instagram.

Date Range, the period it works

Where

Section Schedule, first switch; when on, a date range picker appears. Saved with Save.

What

Off, the default: the rule works on every date, without an end. On: the rule answers only from the first to the last date, both included, on top of the rest of the schedule. The last date must be after the first, or saving shows The End Date must be greater than the Start Date, so a range covers at least two days. Outside its dates the rule stays in the Active group; it simply does not answer.

Why

Seasonal notes, such as Easter delivery times, should answer only while they are true. Prepare them weeks ahead and let them stop by themselves.

A date range limits a chat rule to a period, both dates included.

What this screenshot shows

Screen

Edit Chat Auto-response Rule (/instant-messages-automation?tab=autoresponseRules)

Highlighted

switch “Date Range”, form-schedule, on. limits the rule to the dates of the range

Also visible

Date Range 2026-01-01 — 2026-12-31; Send Outside Working hours of Company OFF; Use Working Time Range OFF; Days: all seven; Working Hours 00:00 — 23:59; Delay 00:00

Purpose

a rule that answers all year

Easter delivery notice, with Date Range from 2 to 6 April 2026:

Customer writes	Rule answers?	Why
Wednesday 1 April	No	Before the first date
Thursday 2 April, inside the rule’s hours	Yes	The first date is included
Monday 6 April, inside the rule’s hours	Yes	The last date is included
Tuesday 7 April	No	After the last date

Send Outside Working hours of Company, follow your working time

Where

Section Schedule, second switch. Off by default. Saved with Save.

What

On: the rule answers only outside your company’s working time: on days that are not working days, before the start or after the end of the daily hours, and on the dates under Holidays. Its own Use Working Time Range, days and hours disappear from the form and are ignored. The working time is read when each message arrives, so a change under Admin›Company Settings applies to the next message.

Why

Your opening hours are one fact about your company. When they change, every out-of-hours rule follows without editing.

An out-of-hours rule follows the company's working time instead of its own days and hours.

What this screenshot shows

Screen

Edit Chat Auto-response Rule (/instant-messages-automation?tab=autoresponseRules)

Highlighted

switch “Send Outside Working hours of Company”, form-schedule, on. lets the rule answer only outside the company working time

Also visible

Date Range 2026-01-01 — 2026-12-31; Days and Working Hours hidden; Delay 00:02; Frequency Once (1st response only); condition Text Does not contain unsubscribe

Purpose

an out-of-hours chat rule

Use Working Time Range, one continuous stretch

Where

Section Schedule, third switch, shown while the switch above is off. When on, it shows Active From and Active To, each with a day and a time.

What

The rule answers from the start day and time until the end day and time; the days in between count all day. The stretch can run past Sunday, for example Friday to Monday.

Why

A weekend or a shift over several days is one period, not the same hours every day.

Days and Working Hours, days and hours

Where

Section Schedule, shown while both switches above are off.

What

The days of the week and one daily time window. All seven days by default, and at least one is required. The rule answers on the chosen days within the window; 00:00 to 23:59 covers the whole day, and a start later than the end covers the evening and the early morning of each chosen day.

Why

The simplest schedule: a greeting during your working hours, or a topic answer on weekdays only.

Delay and Delay Range, when the reply goes out

Where

Section Delivery: a time box in hours and minutes, and the switch Delay Range under it. Saved with Save.

What

The wait between the customer’s message and the reply, 00:00 by default and at most 23:59. With Delay Range on, each reply waits a random time between the two values; the second must be later, or saving shows The Delay To must be greater than the Delay From With 00:00 the reply goes out straight away. With a delay, it waits in the chat with Delayed and its send time, and any reply from your team in the chat cancels it.

Why

A few minutes give an agent who is watching the chats the chance to answer in person, and the automatic reply then never arrives.

Frequency, once or every time

Where

Section Delivery, a select under the delay, described in the form as Limit how often this rule replies within the same chat, to avoid duplicate replies. Saved with Save.

What

Once (1st response only), the default, answers only when the message is the first customer message the chat has ever had. A chat stays the same chat when the customer comes back, so a customer who writes again next week gets no second reply from that rule. For a live chat visitor this holds only in the same browser: from another browser or device, or after the visitor clears the site’s data, the widget starts a new chat, and the rule answers its first message again (see Live chat widget). Continuous (every response) answers every customer message that matches, including messages in the middle of a conversation with your team.

Why

A greeting belongs at the start of a conversation; a topic answer, such as how returns work, may be useful each time the topic comes up.

A delay range makes each reply wait a random time; Continuous answers every matching message.

What this screenshot shows

Screen

Edit Chat Auto-response Rule (/instant-messages-automation?tab=autoresponseRules)

Highlighted

combobox “Frequency”, form-delivery, Continuous (every response). chooses whether the rule answers only the first or every matching message

Also visible

Delay 00:01 — 00:03; Delay Range ON; two condition groups joined by OR

Purpose

delay and frequency of a chat rule

A customer writes three times in one Messenger chat on a Tuesday afternoon:

Message	Once (1st response only)	Continuous (every response)
First message in the chat, 14:10	Reply	Reply
Second message, 14:12, while Laura is answering	No reply	Reply
Third message, next week, after the chat was closed	No reply	Reply

Conditions, which messages it answers

Where

Section Conditions, described in the form as Set the criteria an incoming chat message or its customer must meet to trigger this rule. It holds condition groups joined by OR, each with conditions made of a field, a mode and a value. Saved with Save.

What

All conditions of a group must match, and one matching group is enough. Fields: Text (the customer’s message), Client name and Client email. Modes: Equals, Contains, Does not contain, Starts with, Ends with. Several values in one condition are separated by ; and any of them matches, except with Does not contain, where none may appear. Upper and lower case and spaces are ignored. At least one condition with a value is required, or saving shows Please enter valid conditions. Choose a field for every condition. Client email is the email address stored for the customer: live chat visitors give one, while most Messenger, Instagram, Telegram and TikTok Shop customers have none, so use Text or Client name for them.

Why

Conditions keep automatic replies to the messages they fit, and let one account have different answers for different topics.

Conditions in a group must all match; groups joined by OR are alternatives.

What this screenshot shows

Screen

Edit Chat Auto-response Rule (/instant-messages-automation?tab=autoresponseRules)

Highlighted

separator “OR”, form-conditions, shown. joins two condition groups as alternatives

Also visible

group 1: Text Contains return;refund; group 2: Text Contains send back; Add New per group, Add New Group

Purpose

conditions of a chat rule

Examples, as condition → effect:

Condition	Message	Reply?
Text Contains return;refund	Can I get a Refund for the speaker?	Yes; case is ignored
Text Contains send back	How do I sendback the lamp?	Yes; spaces are ignored
Text Does not contain unsubscribe	Where is my parcel?	Yes
Text Does not contain unsubscribe	Please unsubscribe me	No
Client email Starts with grace	A live chat visitor who entered grace.mitchell@example.com	Yes
Client name Equals Ryan Cooper	A Messenger customer named Ryan Cooper	Yes

How the settings combine

The schedule switches decide which time rules apply; the date range, the frequency and the conditions always apply on top:

Send Outside Working hours of Company	Use Working Time Range	The rule may answer
On	Any (hidden)	Outside the company’s working time and on its holidays
Off	On	From Active From to Active To
Off	Off	On Days, inside Working Hours

With Date Range on, each row applies only within the dates.

Two rules that can pass for the same message never both answer; Replyco sends one reply and you cannot choose which. Keep rules for the same accounts and widgets apart through their schedules or conditions.

Which should I choose?

For a note outside your opening hours, use Send Outside Working hours of Company: it follows your working time and holidays and needs no date range. For a greeting, use days and hours set to your working time, so that it never competes with the out-of-hours note. Use Continuous (every response) only with conditions that pick out one topic.

Auto-responses in your chats

An automatic reply is a message in the chat like a reply from your team, on the right in blue, but with the Replyco logo and your company’s name instead of a colleague’s name and picture. What is shown under it depends on its status:

What you see under the reply	Meaning	When
as auto-response “Out of hours”	The reply went out; the line names the rule	After sending
Delayed, Sending is scheduled for and a time, with a red cross	The reply is waiting for its send time	From the customer’s message until the send time
Processing	The reply is being sent	For a moment
Cancelled	The reply was stopped and never went out	After a reply from your team, or the red cross
Error Sending	The channel refused the reply	After a failed send

A sent reply

A sent automatic reply shows the text exactly as the customer received it and, under it, the line as auto-response “Out of hours” with the rule’s name. Its time is the moment it was sent. For everything else in a conversation, see Chat list and conversations.

Why: an agent opening the chat sees at once that the customer has only had an automatic reply, not an answer.

A sent auto-response carries the Replyco logo and names the rule that answered.

What this screenshot shows

Screen

Open (/chats/:type/:chatId)

Highlighted

paragraph “as auto-response “{{autoresponse}}””, conversation, Out of hours. names the rule that sent the reply

Also visible

customer message 07:44:00; auto-response from Northwind Electronics with the Replyco logo, 07:46:02; list row with the reply and a blue tick; assignee Simon Wagner

Purpose

a sent chat auto-response

A waiting reply

A reply with a delay appears in the chat straight away with Delayed and the line Sending is scheduled for with the send time in your own time zone. Until then, the red cross after the time cancels it: Replyco asks Are you sure to cancel this message?, and Yes cancels the reply for good.

Why: this is the moment to stop a reply that no longer fits, for example because you are about to answer anyway.

A delayed auto-response waits in the chat with its send time until it goes out or is cancelled.

What this screenshot shows

Screen

Open (/chats/:type/:chatId)

Highlighted

paragraph “Sending is scheduled for”, conversation, 09:00:41. shows when the waiting reply goes out; the red cross cancels it

Also visible

customer message 08:58:40; reply with the Delayed badge; assignee Laura Graf, status Open

Purpose

a waiting chat auto-response

Cancel a waiting auto-response from the chat; a cancelled reply is never sent.

What this screenshot shows

Screen

Open (/chats/:type/:chatId)

Highlighted

button “Yes”, conversation-popconfirm, enabled. cancels the waiting auto-response

Also visible

question: Are you sure to cancel this message?; buttons No and Yes

Purpose

cancel a waiting chat auto-response

When your team replies first

When anyone in your team sends a reply in the chat, every automatic reply still waiting in that chat is cancelled and shows Cancelled. The customer never receives it. This is different from tickets, where a waiting auto-response still goes out after your reply.

Why: customers should not get “our team is offline” after a real answer.

Henry answered before the two-minute delay ran out, so Replyco cancelled the waiting auto-response.

What this screenshot shows

Screen

Open (/chats/:type/:chatId)

Highlighted

status “Cancelled”, conversation, shown. marks an auto-response that was never sent

Also visible

customer message 08:20:10; cancelled auto-response 08:20:11; Henry Clarke's reply 08:21:30; list row with blue tick and no waiting time

Purpose

an agent's reply cancels a waiting auto-response

In the chat list

In the chat list, the chat’s row shows the automatic reply as the latest message, with the blue tick of a reply from your company. For the list itself, see Chat list and conversations.

An automatic reply counts as the chat’s first answer. The Chats dashboard no longer counts the chat as unanswered, and the chat counts once towards your usage, just as it would after a reply from your team; see Billing: Usage.

Why: you see in the list which chats have had at least an automatic reply.

What the customer sees

The customer sees only the text, on their own channel: in Messenger from your Facebook page, in Instagram from your account, in Telegram from your bot, in TikTok Shop from your shop, or in the chat window of your website. Nothing marks it as automatic unless your template says so. A live chat visitor sees the reply in the chat window when it is sent.

A reply that failed

When the channel refuses an automatic reply, the reply shows Error Sending in red, and the customer has not received it. Answer the customer yourself.

Working hours for chats

Where

The company’s working time: Admin›Company Settings, tab General, the Working Time card; see Company Settings. A widget’s own hours: Chat Tools›Live Chat, the switch Use Working time from Company Settings; see Live chat widget.

What

Chat rules with Send Outside Working hours of Company always follow the company’s working time, never a live chat widget’s own hours. A widget uses its hours only for itself: to choose between During business hours message and Outside business hours message, a line in the chat window, and, with Widget visibility outside working hours off, to hide the chat button outside its hours. That line is not a chat message, and neither is the bubble of Show welcome message; to send the visitor a message in the conversation, use a chat rule.

Why

Your opening hours should be one fact for tickets, chats and your website, so that the window, the automatic reply and your team agree.

Out-of-hours chat rules read the company's working days, hours and holidays when a message arrives.

What this screenshot shows

Screen

Company Settings (/company)

Highlighted

heading “Working Time”, working-time-card, shown. holds the hours that out-of-hours rules follow

Also visible

Use Working Time Range OFF; Working days Mon to Fri; Active between 09:00 and 18:00; Holidays 25 Dec, 26 Dec, 1 Jan

Purpose

the company working time behind out-of-hours chat rules

Three ways to use it:

• Add 25 and 26 December under Holidays, and your out-of-hours chat rule answers all day on those dates, every year.
• Leave the widget on Use Working time from Company Settings, and the window says “offline” at the same times as the out-of-hours reply goes out.
• Switch Widget visibility outside working hours off for a widget, and visitors cannot start a chat outside its hours, so the out-of-hours rule has nothing to answer there.

With the widget on company working time, Monday to Friday from 09:00 to 18:00, the window and an out-of-hours rule agree:

Visitor writes	The widget shows	Out-of-hours rule
Tuesday 08:30	Outside business hours message	Answers
Tuesday 11:00	During business hours message	Does not answer
Tuesday 19:30	Outside business hours message	Answers
Saturday 11:00	Outside business hours message	Answers
Friday 25 December, a holiday	Outside business hours message	Answers

If a widget has its own hours

A widget with its own hours can show its open-hours line while an out-of-hours rule treats the message as outside working time, or the other way round. Keep the widget on Use Working time from Company Settings if you use out-of-hours rules for it, or give the widget its own rule with days and hours that match.

Auto-responses on each channel

Where

The channel of the chat, shown by its icon in the chat list; the accounts and widgets a rule listens to are under Accounts and Widgets.

What

Each channel decides what it accepts from you, and automatic replies follow the same limits as your own replies. Automatic replies are text only. A rule’s delay is at most 23:59, so an automatic reply is always due within 24 hours of the customer’s message.

Why

Knowing the channel’s limits explains why a customer did not get a reply, and when you still need to answer by hand.

Channel	Automatic replies	What limits the reply
WhatsApp	Never; not offered in rules	Your own replies within 24 hours of the customer’s last message
Facebook Messenger	Yes	Meta accepts replies within 24 hours of the customer’s last message; an automatic reply is due within that time
Instagram	Yes	The same 24 hours as Messenger
Telegram	Yes	Replyco sets no time limit
TikTok Shop	Yes	Replyco sets no time limit
Live chat widget	Yes, through Widgets	Replyco sets no time limit; the visitor sees the reply in the window

An automatic reply does not extend a channel’s window: on Messenger and Instagram your own reply must still go out within 24 hours of the customer’s last message. For the limits on files, editing and deleting, see Answer a chat.

WhatsApp customers get no automatic reply

If most of your chats come through WhatsApp, a greeting or an out-of-hours rule does not reach them. Answer WhatsApp chats within 24 hours of the customer’s last message, because after that WhatsApp refuses ordinary replies.

Auto-responses and your team in the chat

Where

The chat under Chats: the reply box, the assignee select and the status in the side panel.

What

A reply from anyone in your team, assigned or not, cancels every waiting automatic reply in the chat, and replying assigns you to the chat. Apart from the red cross, only a reply cancels a waiting automatic reply. An automatic reply assigns nobody. Rules with Continuous (every response) keep answering matching customer messages while your team is chatting; each reply goes out after its delay unless someone answers first.

Why

Knowing what stops an automatic reply lets your team keep the conversation human once a person has joined.

Three combinations:

• Out of hours waits two minutes; Henry answers Ryan after one minute, and the automatic reply is cancelled.
• Laura is chatting with a customer about a lamp, and the customer writes can I return it?: Return questions answers after one to three minutes, unless Laura replies first.
• Laura closes a chat with a Messenger customer; next week the customer writes again. The chat reopens, and Welcome message, with Once (1st response only), does not answer again.

A rule that answers every message also answers during a conversation

With Continuous (every response), a customer who uses the rule’s words while talking to an agent gets the automatic reply as well. Give such rules narrow conditions and a delay of a few minutes, so that the agent’s reply usually arrives first and cancels it.

What you need to know

Topic	Fact
One reply per message	Replyco sends at most one automatic reply to a customer message; when several rules pass, one answers and you cannot choose which.
Once	Once (1st response only) means the chat’s first customer message, ever; a reopened chat gets no second reply from that rule.
Date range	Off: every date. On: from the first to the last date, both included.
Time window	A rule answers on its chosen days within its time window; 00:00 to 23:59 covers the whole day.
Boundaries	Company working time includes its start and end; date ranges include both dates.
Where it listens	The accounts under Accounts and the widgets under Widgets; at least one of them.
Delay	At most 23:59; any reply from your team cancels waiting replies.
Switching off, deleting	Stops new replies; replies already waiting still go out unless someone replies or cancels them.
Nothing retroactive	Only messages that arrive after a rule is saved, and while it is on, are answered.
Channels	Messenger, Instagram, Telegram, TikTok Shop and live chat widgets; never WhatsApp.
Content	Text only, exactly as in the chat template; no placeholders, no files, no translation.
Failures	A reply the channel refuses shows Error Sending; answer the customer yourself.
Cost	No AI actions and no separate fee; an automatic reply is the chat’s first answer and counts towards your usage like a reply from your team.

Frequently asked questions

General

What is a chat auto-response in Replyco?

A chat auto-response is a chat template that Replyco sends into a chat on its own when a customer message matches a chat auto-response rule: its accounts or live chat widgets, its schedule, its frequency and its conditions. You set up rules under Chat Tools›Automation on the Auto-response Rules tab, and each reply appears in the chat with the rule’s name.

Which plan do I need for chat auto-responses?

None beyond your current plan: every plan includes chats, WhatsApp, the live chat widget and chat auto-response rules. Managing the rules needs the Automation permission in the Chat Tools section of your user permissions, with its edit level for changes.

Do chat auto-responses cost anything?

They use no AI actions and have no fee of their own: rules and automatic replies are part of chats, which every plan includes. An automatic reply is the chat’s first answer, so the chat counts once towards your usage, as it would after a reply from your team. For how usage is counted, see Billing: Usage under Admin›Billing.

Are chat rules the same as the auto-response rules for tickets?

No. Chat rules under Chat Tools›Automation answer chats only and send chat templates; ticket rules under Tools›Automation answer tickets only. Chat rules also behave differently: only one rule answers a message, Once (1st response only) means the chat’s first message, and your team’s reply cancels waiting replies. See Auto-responses for tickets.

Setup

My chat rule never answers. What should I check first?

The schedule: the rule’s days and Working Hours must include the time of the message. Then check that the rule is in the Active group, that the chat’s account or widget is selected, that a switched-on Date Range covers today, and that the message is the chat’s first if the rule uses Once (1st response only).

How do I make a rule answer every chat, at any time?

Leave Date Range off, keep all seven days, set Working Hours to 00:00 to 23:59, and add a condition every message meets, such as Text Does not contain unsubscribe. The rule then answers the first message of every chat, at any time of day. Bear in mind that it competes with any out-of-hours rule for the same accounts.

Can one rule answer both our chat accounts and our live chat widget?

Yes. Pick the Messenger, Instagram, Telegram or TikTok Shop accounts under Accounts and the widgets under Widgets in the same rule, on the Auto-response Rules tab under Chat Tools›Automation. A rule needs at least one account or one widget; to use different wording per channel, create one rule per channel.

Why can’t I pick our WhatsApp account in a rule?

WhatsApp chats never get automatic replies in Replyco, so the Accounts field of a chat rule lists only Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Telegram and TikTok Shop accounts. Answer WhatsApp chats by hand under Chats, within 24 hours of the customer’s last message; see Answer a chat.

When replies go out

Two of our rules match the same message. Which one answers?

Only one of them. Replyco sends at most one automatic reply to each customer message, and the Auto-response Rules tab has no order or priority to decide which rule it is. Make rules for the same accounts and widgets exclusive, for example a greeting during working hours and an out-of-hours rule outside them.

The customer wrote again and got no second automatic reply. Why?

The rule uses Once (1st response only), which answers only the first customer message a chat has ever had. A chat stays the same chat when the customer comes back, even weeks later; for a live chat visitor, only in the same browser, since another browser or device, or cleared site data, starts a new chat that the rule answers again. Choose Continuous (every response) under Frequency in the rule’s form if every matching message should get the reply.

Does the out-of-hours reply go out on holidays?

Yes, when the date is listed under Holidays in the Working Time card under Admin›Company Settings. A holiday counts every year on the same day and month.

A customer wrote at exactly 09:00 and got no out-of-hours reply. Why?

The start and end of your company’s working time count as working time, so a message at 09:00 on a working day is inside it, and an out-of-hours rule does not answer it. The same is true of a message at exactly the end time you set.

Your team and the reply

Does the customer still get the automatic reply if we answer first?

No. When anyone in your team sends a reply in the chat, every automatic reply still waiting there is cancelled and shows Cancelled. A reply that has already gone out cannot be recalled, so give rules a delay of a few minutes if your team watches the chats.

How do I stop one automatic reply without switching off the rule?

Open the chat while the reply still shows Delayed, select the red cross after Sending is scheduled for and the time, and confirm with Yes. The reply is cancelled for good. Sending a reply of your own in the chat does the same.

Does switching a rule off cancel replies it already scheduled?

No. Switching a rule off or deleting it on the Auto-response Rules tab stops new replies, but replies already waiting in chats still go out at their time. Cancel them in the chat with the red cross, or reply to the customer, which cancels them.

Why did a customer get an automatic reply in the middle of a conversation with an agent?

The rule uses Continuous (every response), which answers every matching customer message, also during a conversation. The agent’s reply cancels it only while it is still waiting. Give such rules narrow conditions under Conditions and a delay of a few minutes.

Channels and hours

Does the live chat widget’s own working time decide when the out-of-hours reply goes out?

No. Rules with Send Outside Working hours of Company follow the company’s working time under Admin›Company Settings. A widget’s own hours only choose the line the visitor reads in the window and whether the chat button is shown. Keep the widget on Use Working time from Company Settings to make both agree.

Is the widget’s outside-hours message an automatic reply?

No. Outside business hours message is a line in the chat window, chosen by the widget’s working time; it is not added to the conversation, and your team does not see it. To send the visitor a message in the chat, create a chat rule under Chat Tools›Automation that names the widget under Widgets.

Can an automatic reply go out after the 24-hour window on Messenger or Instagram?

An automatic reply is due within the rule’s delay, which is at most 23:59, so it is due within 24 hours of the customer’s message. Your own replies are a different matter: Messenger and Instagram accept them only within 24 hours of the customer’s last message, and an automatic reply does not extend that time.

Why doesn’t a condition on the client email match our Instagram customers?

Client email is the email address stored for the customer, and customers who write on Messenger, Instagram, Telegram or TikTok Shop usually have none, so the condition has nothing to compare. Use Text or Client name for those channels, and the email for live chat visitors, who enter it in the chat window.

Where it is shown

How do I recognise an automatic reply in a chat?

It is on the right in blue like your team’s replies, but with the Replyco logo and your company’s name, and under a sent reply the line as auto-response “Out of hours” names the rule. A waiting reply shows Delayed and the time it is due.

Where can I see how many automatic replies each chat rule sent?

There is no count per chat rule. The Autoresponses Usage widget of the Performance dashboard counts ticket rules only. To check a chat rule, open chats of its accounts under Chats and look for its name under the replies.

Data and privacy

What does the customer see?

Only the text of the chat template, on their own channel, sent from your Messenger page, Instagram account, Telegram bot or TikTok Shop, or shown in your website’s chat window. The rule’s name, its conditions and the fact that it was automatic are not shown, unless your template says so.

What happens to automatic replies when I delete a rule or its template?

Deleting a rule on the Auto-response Rules tab stops new replies at once; replies already waiting still go out, and sent replies stay in their chats. Deleting the chat template on the Templates tab deletes every rule that sends it. Switch a rule off instead if you may need it again.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	What to check
A rule never answers	In order: the days and Working Hours include the time of the message; a switched-on Date Range covers today; the rule is in the Active group; the chat’s account or widget is selected; the conditions match; the message is the chat’s first if the rule uses Once (1st response only).
WhatsApp customers get no automatic reply	WhatsApp chats never get one; answer them by hand within 24 hours.
A different rule answered than expected	Only one rule answers each message and there is no order; make the rules’ schedules or conditions exclusive.
An out-of-hours reply goes out during working time, or not after it	The Working Time card under Admin›Company Settings: days, hours and holidays.
The widget says “offline” but no out-of-hours reply goes out, or the other way round	The widget uses its own hours; switch Use Working time from Company Settings on for it under Chat Tools›Live Chat.
A rule stopped answering after a certain date	Its Date Range has ended; extend the range or switch it off.
A returning customer got no greeting	Once (1st response only) answers a chat’s first message only, ever.
A customer got an automatic reply during a chat with an agent	The rule uses Continuous (every response); narrow its conditions or add a delay.
A condition on the client email never matches	The customer has no email address; use Text or Client name.
An automatic reply shows Error Sending	The channel refused it. Answer the customer yourself and check the account’s connection under Admin›Accounts.
You don't have enough rights when saving a rule	The user needs the edit level of Automation in the Chat Tools section under Admin›Users.

Still stuck?

Send support the rule’s name, a link to the chat, and the time the customer’s message arrived. Support can compare the message with the rule’s accounts, widgets, schedule, date range and conditions and see whether a reply was created, waited, was cancelled or failed.

Related

• Chat auto-response rules: every control of the rules tab and the rule history
• Chat templates: the texts the rules send
• Live chat widget: widgets, their hours and their status lines · the widget settings screen
• Company Settings: the working time out-of-hours rules follow
• Chat list and conversations · Answer a chat: where automatic replies appear, and the channel limits
• Chats dashboard: the numbers for your chats
• Auto-responses for tickets: the ticket side
• Chat tools