What is it?

The Chats page is a unified inbox for text channels — WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram (you can reply to Instagram DMs here too, within Meta's 24-hour window). Left column: one list of every channel together, each row showing the person (their initials) with a small icon of the channel they wrote from, the last message, and when it arrived — the time for today, "Yesterday", then the date for older (hover for the exact stamp). Right column: chat with the selected contact. Voice calls go to the separate History page, and so do the conversations from the chat on your website — find them there under Site Widget.

Channel filters: the chips above the list narrow it to a single channel — WhatsApp, Instagram or Telegram — and All brings everything back. The Instagram chip appears once you've connected an Instagram account, so you never get a filter that can only be empty.

AI is on by default:

When a customer writes, the AI answers automatically using your knowledge base. You see the back-and-forth in the chat panel and in the operator Telegram group (if configured). Most messages don't need operator intervention.

Taking over:

If you want to reply yourself, type into the input box on the chat page and send — that automatically takes over the conversation (AI stops responding for 5 minutes after your last message). Alternatively in the operator Telegram group, reply to the forwarded message OR use /take to take over without sending. Finish (or /release in the group) hands the customer back to the AI at once.

One person answers a customer at a time. When a colleague is already handling the conversation, the chat says so — Handled by Mia — here, in the mobile app and in the Telegram group. If you reply anyway, you are asked first: Mia is handling this conversation. Take it over? Say yes and the conversation is yours; the activity log records who took it and from whom. In the Telegram group there is no question to answer: your reply goes through and the group is told whose conversation it was. A conversation taken under the shared password is not anyone's by name, so it never stops a colleague from answering.

How the customer knows a person is answering:

Choose it in Settings → When a person answers instead of the assistant:

• Say who it is — the first message from a person starts with a line like Mia, Alatau Dental:. The name is the one on the Staff page. You can write your own line with {name} and {business}.
• Say it is a person, without a name — A member of the Alatau Dental team:, in the customer's language.
• Say nothing (the default) — the reply goes exactly as typed. Right for a business where one person answers everything.

The line is added only when the person answering changes — after the AI, or when a colleague took the conversation over — never to every message. Pressing Finish in Chats sends the customer nothing; in the operator Telegram group, /take tells the customer an operator has joined and /release that the operator has finished. Under the shared password the line has no name. The customer sees the same text you see in the chat.

Escalation triggers:

When the customer writes «оператор», «менеджер», «человек», «администратор», «жалоба», «помогите», "operator", "manager" or "human", an alert fires in the operator Telegram group with the full thread context. AI keeps replying but you're warned to step in.

Who's waiting for a reply:

A contact whose last message is from the customer (no AI/operator answer yet) gets a blue dot and a bold name, so you can triage a long list at a glance. The same count is on the Home page as the "Awaiting reply" card, linking straight back here.

A number instead of the dot means the customer wrote more than once while waiting — "3" is three unanswered messages, which is a different situation from one. The number appears inside the "Needs reply" filter, where you are triaging; the all-channel view keeps the plain dot.

Finished "thank you" chats leave the queue by themselves. An AI reads the customer's last message: a genuine conversation-closing thank-you ("Thanks", "Спасибо", "Рахмет", "🙏") drops from the queue automatically, while a sarcastic or dissatisfied "thanks", a question, or any request STAYS flagged. It understands tone and any language, runs only on the few waiting threads (cheap, cached), and fails safe — any doubt keeps the thread flagged. A chat stays in the queue while this customer is still owed something — it was handed to a person, a callback is open, or the agent filed a request in the last three days — because there «thanks» means «I'm waiting». On by default; switch it off in Settings → AI inbox triage.

"Needs reply" filter (amber chip): at the top of the contact list, next to All / WhatsApp / Instagram / Telegram, the "Needs reply" chip shows just the threads awaiting an answer — across all channels at once — with a count that matches the Home card. Click it to stop scrolling a long list looking for the few that need you; the filter stays put (the 15-second auto-refresh keeps it applied).

Opening a chat does NOT clear the dot. Just reading a thread never removes it from the queue — otherwise one glance would hide a waiting customer from the whole team. A thread leaves the "Awaiting reply" list only when someone actually replies, or clicks the check-mark button next to it — «Mark handled (no reply needed)» — to dismiss it without a reply (that dismissal is recorded in the Action journal, with who did it).

The 24-hour window of WhatsApp and Instagram. Both deliver an ordinary message only within 24 hours of the customer's last message. After that, sending from Chats — on the web or in the app — is refused with a sentence saying so, instead of showing a message the customer would never receive; in the app the reply box gives way to that explanation. Call the customer, or wait until they write; once they do, the window opens again for 24 hours. Telegram has no such window. Replies to Instagram go as text: attach files on WhatsApp or Telegram.

Voice messages. When a customer sends a voice message on WhatsApp, Telegram or Instagram, the assistant answers it like a written one, and it knows the customer spoke: it will not ask them to type instead. In Chats, on the web and in the app, the message is marked Voice message with its length, shows the words as they were recognised, and has a player so you can listen to the original. If a message cannot be made out, the customer is told so and asked to repeat or write.

From a chat to the card

When the person you are chatting with is in your contacts, the chat header shows Contact card, and Lead with its stage and owner if they have a lead in work. One click opens it. Replying in the chat makes you the owner of that lead if nobody owns it yet, or if it only went to the person on duty or to whoever had the least work.