Every customer message, in one inbox.
Your assistant answers the stock questions, the sizing and the where-is-my-order all day. When someone needs a real person, the conversation lands with your team instead of going cold, and it brings everything the customer already said. Website chat and Instagram DMs, one place.
- Priya K2m
Parcel arrived damaged
- Rohan D6m
Asked for a person
- Meera S14m
Order has not arrived
- Handle
- @rohan.d
- Looked at
- Kora Linen Shirt
- In the cart
- 1 item
- Came to you
- Asked for a person
Sample inbox. Yours fills with real messages from your website and your Instagram DMs.
Some customers need a person, now.
Most of what your store gets asked has an answer sitting in your product pages or your policies, and your assistant finds it faster than anyone on your team can between two other jobs.
The rest is different. A parcel arrives broken. A refund goes quiet. Someone has already been patient twice. Those customers do not want a better bot, they want you, and how long they wait decides whether they come back.
So they can ask for a person in one tap, on your website or in Instagram, and your assistant can pass a conversation over by itself when it should not be the one answering.
- They asked to speak to someone
- Something arrived damaged or late
- They want a refund or an exchange
- The assistant did not know the answer
- They are asking for an exception to your policy
The reason comes with it, so your team knows what they are walking into before they open the message.
Your website and Instagram, on one screen.
Someone asking for help on a product page and someone asking in your Instagram DMs is the same customer with the same problem. Both land in one list, the longest wait at the top, and your reply goes back to wherever they wrote to you.
Website chat and Instagram, together
Messages from your store and your Instagram DMs arrive in the same list, so your team watches one screen instead of three.
You see what was already said
The conversation with your assistant is right there, so your customer never has to explain their problem twice.
You know who you are talking to
Their details, the products they were looking at and what is sitting in their cart, next to the reply box.
Send products, not links
Search your own products while you type and add up to five, priced from your store the moment you hit send.
Your reply goes where they are
Answer from your dashboard and it arrives as chat on your website or as a DM on Instagram, without opening either.
Your team will not collide
Everyone sees who has a conversation open and who is typing, so two people never answer the same customer.
It is all the same assistant and the same customer record as your website, so a question asked in a DM on Tuesday and on a product page on Friday is one customer with one history, not two strangers.
Send the product, not a link.
Typing out “the Kora Linen Shirt in large” asks your customer to go and find it themselves, which is where a lot of sales quietly end. Your team can send the product instead: type @, a few letters of the name, pick it from your store.
They get a proper product card they can tap, or a swipeable carousel with Buy now in Instagram. The price comes from your store as you send it, so nobody is ever quoted last week’s price by mistake.
- On your website
- A product card in the chat, with the price and a tap through to the page.
- On Instagram
- A swipeable carousel with Buy now, going to your own checkout rather than a generic link.
- In your reports
- Counted like every other product your store shows, so what your team sends is not invisible.
It gets out of the way, and waits.
The moment your team takes a conversation on your website, the assistant goes quiet and stays quiet until you close it. Nobody gets a cheerful bot reply halfway through explaining a broken order to a human being.
On Instagram it waits a day after your reply, so a customer who comes back with one more question reaches the same person they were just talking to. Close the conversation and your assistant picks up again, and you can leave it a note that only it reads.
- Shopper asks for a human
- Assistant stops (the assistant is paused here)
- Your team answers from the inbox
- You mark it done, it resumes
- One of your team replies in Instagram
- Assistant notices
- Pauses for thirty minutes of quiet (the assistant is paused here)
- Resumes
The same question twice is a fix.
One customer asking for help is a bad day. Ten asking for the same reason is a size chart, a photo or a delivery promise that is costing you money every week, and this is where you see it.
It sits beside the rest of your conversation reporting, so what your team answered and what your assistant answered are in one picture.
Customers nobody has answered yet, so you can see at a glance whether anyone is being left.
The usual wait between someone asking for a person and your team replying.
The usual time from the first message to your team closing the conversation.
The same conversations grouped by reason, which is where a sizing problem or a delivery promise shows itself.
Nothing changes until you are ready.
Turn it on for Instagram first and leave your website alone, or the other way round. Until you do, your customers see exactly what they see today, and nothing about your store changes.
Your hours decide what customers are told. Inside them, someone is coming. Outside them, they hear that honestly and are asked how to reach them, instead of typing into a room with nobody in it.
What it will not do for you.
Every feature list is written on a good day. Here is ours with the rough edges left in, because you will meet them in your first week and we would rather you meet them now.
You get a bell, a count in the browser tab and a chime you can mute. There is no email and no text message, so this suits a team that is already at a desk.
Instagram only lets you reply within seven days of a customer's last message. After that the inbox tells you instead of letting the reply disappear.
Replying and closing conversations are limited to admin accounts, so someone you added to read reports cannot answer a customer by accident.
There is no assigning conversations, no routing rules and no saved replies yet. For a small team, one clear list beats a workflow.
On your website it stays quiet until you close the conversation, so a customer is never handed back to a bot in the middle of sorting something out.
You switch this on for your website and for Instagram separately, whenever you are ready. Until then your customers see exactly what they see today.
What store owners ask us first.
Can I answer website chat and Instagram DMs in one place?
Yes. Both land in the same inbox in your MerchantIQ dashboard, and your reply goes back out where the customer wrote to you. Nobody has to keep the Instagram app open beside the store admin.
When does a conversation come to my team?
When a customer asks to speak to someone, and when the assistant decides it should not be the one answering: a damaged order, a refund, a complaint, or a question it does not have an honest answer to.
What happens to the AI while my team is replying?
It stops answering that customer. On your website it stays quiet until you close the conversation. On Instagram it waits a day after your reply, and closing the conversation brings it back straight away.
How will my team know someone is waiting?
A bell in the dashboard for every admin, the number of waiting customers in the browser tab, and a chime you can turn off. There is no email or text alert, so someone needs the dashboard open.
Can my team send products while they reply?
Yes. Type @ and a few letters of a product name, pick it from your own store, and add up to five. Your customer gets proper product cards on your website and a swipeable carousel on Instagram, at today's price.
What if nobody on my team is around?
You set your hours. Inside them the customer is told someone is coming. Outside them they are told honestly and asked how to reach them, so you can pick it up in the morning instead of losing them.
Do I still need a separate live chat tool?
Not for this. The conversation your customer already started with your assistant is the one your team continues, in the same window, so there is no second widget and nothing for the customer to install.
Will customers know they are talking to a real person?
Yes. The conversation says so when it changes hands, and your teammate's first name sits on every message they send.
See it with your own products.
Book a 20-minute walkthrough and we will run it on your store: a customer asking for help, your team answering with a product, and your assistant picking things back up.