Proactive chats

Note: The Email channel for proactive chats is available from March 25, 2026 in the following regions: AP1, AP2, AP9, EU1, and US3.

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With proactive chats, agents can reach out to a customer first through Messenger or Email. You can use proactive chats to notify customers about service disruptions, delays, or cancellations before they need to contact you.

When a customer replies to a proactive chat, it converts to a regular ticket. The ticket is then assigned to an available agent in the team using auto ticket routing.

Note: You can't start a proactive chat with customers from social media.

1. Go to Settings > Desk > General.
2. Turn Proactive chats on and select Messenger, Email, or both.
3. If you selected Email, also select a Delight AI agent from the dropdown. The dropdown lists production AI agents with the Email channel enabled.

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Note: To add or customize the sender email address, go to Delight AI dashboard > Workspace settings > Channels > Emails.

If the Email option is disabled and displays Talk to sales or Not available, complete the following setup:

You can start a proactive chat from the following locations:

• Proactive chats page: Go to Proactive chats and click Start proactive chat.
• Customer detail page: Open a customer's detail page and click Start proactive chat.
• Customers page: Click the overflow button of a customer and select Start proactive message or Start proactive email.

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After selecting a channel — Messenger or Email — select a recipient and write your message:

• For Messenger, select a recipient from the existing customer list.
• For Email, enter the recipient's email address, subject, and message body.

Set the priority and assignee, then click Send.

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Note: If the recipient's email address is not registered, a modal appears to create a new customer. After creating the customer, you can send a proactive email to the customer.

On the Proactive chats page, agents can click the airplane icon to send follow-up chats. There's no limit to the number of follow-up chats, and any agent can send them.

Note: When a customer replies to the proactive chat, agents can no longer send follow-up chats. Only the assignee of the ticket can continue the conversation in Tickets.

You can check the sender of each message or email on the chat view of a proactive chat.

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To assign tickets to the last sender, go to Settings > Desk > General and turn on Assign a ticket to the last sender.

When this option is on, the agent who last sent a proactive chat becomes the assignee when the customer replies. If that agent is away or offline, the ticket is assigned to an available agent within the ticket's team based on auto ticket routing.

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If you don't want to manage inactive proactive chats, go to Settings > Desk > General, turn on Auto-delete inactive proactive chats, and set how long to keep the chats without a customer reply. Deleted chats appear in Tickets if the customer replies.

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Note: Auto-delete is available for Messenger channel proactive chats only. Email channel proactive chats are not affected by this setting.