Set up your Shopify Inbox availability and automated first reply

To help manage your customer's expectations when they use your online store chat, you can set up hours of availability and customize an automatic first reply that's sent when the customer sends you a message.

Set up your hours of availability

By default, your hours of availability are set to always available. You can update your chat availability from your Shopify admin in the Inbox channel.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, click Settings > Apps and sales channels.
2. From the Apps and sales channels page, click Inbox.

3. Click Open sales channel.

4. Click Chat settings, and then click Availability.

5. In the Hours section, do any of the following steps to set your availability:

   • To set different availability for each day of the week that you're available to respond to online store chats, use the drop-down menus to select a start and end time for each day.
   • To set your availability as always available for a specific day, click …, and then click Select all hours for this day.
   • To set the same hours for all days of the week, set your hours for one of the days using the drop-down menus, click …, and then click Apply these hours to all days.

6. Click Save.

Set up first reply messages

You can set up two different automatic first reply messages depending on whether the customer messages you during your hours of availability.

The During available hours message is sent to customers who start a chat during the hours that you set as available. You can use this first reply to ask for any additional information that you need from your customer, and let them know when to expect a reply.

The Outside of available hours message is sent to customers who start a chat outside of the hours that you set as available. You can use this message to let your customer know that you're not available, and when to expect a reply.

Turn on automatic first reply messages

1. From your Shopify admin, click Settings > Apps and sales channels.
2. From the Apps and sales channels page, click Inbox.

3. Click Open sales channel.

4. Click Chat settings, and then click Availability.

5. In the Automated first reply section, click Turn on.

Customize your automated first reply messages

After you turn on automated first reply messages, you can customize the message that displays to customers when they start a new chat.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, click Settings > Apps and sales channels.
2. From the Apps and sales channels page, click Inbox.

3. Click Open sales channel.

4. Click Chat settings, and then click Availability.

5. Do any of the following:

   • To customize the message that's sent to customers during your available hours, click During available hours.
   • To customize the message that's sent to customers outside of your available hours, click Outside of available hours.

6. In the Message text box, enter a message up to 2048 characters.

7. Click Save.