Customer support glossary

Terms

Live chat

Live chat is real-time messaging between a website visitor and a person on the business's team, through a chat window on the website. It answers questions while the visitor is still on the page, and most tools also let the team reply by email when the visitor has left. Live chat for your platform →

Live chat widget

A live chat widget is the chat button and window that appears on a website — usually in the bottom corner — and opens a conversation with the business. It is added with a short script or a plugin, and is styled with the site's colours, greeting and opening hours. The Frosvo chat widget →

Chatbot

A chatbot is software that answers chat messages on its own, without a person. Older chatbots follow fixed menus and scripts; AI chatbots understand questions in plain language and write answers, ideally only from content the business provides. Live chat vs chatbot →

AI assistant (AI agent)

An AI assistant, also called an AI agent, is an AI chatbot that answers customers from the business's own knowledge — help articles, website pages, documents — and hands the conversation to a person when it can't answer reliably. A good one shows the source of each answer. How Frosvo's AI assistant works →

Human handoff

A human handoff is the moment a chatbot passes a conversation to a person on the team. It should happen when the bot isn't sure, when the customer asks for a person, or when the question is about their own account or order — and the person should receive the whole conversation and the reason. Getting the handoff right →

Shared inbox

A shared inbox is one inbox that a whole team works from, so every customer message is visible to everyone, can be assigned to one person and never gets answered twice. It replaces forwarding emails between personal mailboxes. Frosvo's shared inbox →

Omnichannel inbox

An omnichannel inbox is a shared inbox that collects messages from every channel — website chat, email, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, SMS and more — in one place, labelled with where each message came from, so the team answers all of them the same way. Every channel Frosvo connects →

Help desk

A help desk is software for managing customer support requests as tickets: each request gets an owner, a status and a history until it is solved. Many teams combine a help desk with live chat so that a chat can become a ticket when it needs follow-up. Shared inbox vs help desk →

Ticket

A ticket is a single customer request tracked from start to finish, with an owner, a status (such as open, pending or solved), a priority and a full history. Tickets are used when an issue can't be solved during the first conversation. Tickets in Frosvo →

Knowledge base

A knowledge base is a collection of help articles that answer common questions, published as a self-service help centre. It is also what an AI assistant should answer from, so keeping it accurate improves both. Knowledge base and help centre →

Saved replies (canned responses)

Saved replies, also called canned responses, are pre-written answers a support team can insert with a shortcut — for returns, delivery times or opening hours — so common questions get a fast, consistent answer. Working in the inbox →

Proactive chat (chat triggers)

Proactive chat is a message the chat widget shows on its own — for example after a visitor has spent a while on the pricing page — inviting them to ask a question, instead of waiting for them to open the chat. Chat triggers →

First response time

First response time is how long a customer waits for the first reply from a person after they write. For live chat it is usually measured in seconds or minutes; for email, in hours. Support reports →

Resolution time

Resolution time is how long it takes from a customer's first message until their issue is solved and the conversation is closed. It shows how quickly problems are fixed, not just answered. Support reports →

CSAT (customer satisfaction score)

CSAT is the share of customers who rate a support conversation positively, usually collected with a quick rating at the end of a chat. It is the simplest measure of whether customers felt helped. Ratings in Frosvo →

SLA (service level agreement)

In customer support, an SLA is a promised response or resolution time — for example, a first reply within one hour during opening hours. Support tools track each conversation against its SLA and warn the team before it is missed. SLAs and deadlines →

Co-browsing

Co-browsing lets a support agent see the page a customer is looking at, live, with the customer's permission, so they can guide them step by step. Good co-browsing hides passwords and card details from the agent. All Frosvo features →

Status page

A status page is a public web page that shows whether a service is working and lists current incidents and maintenance, so customers can check for themselves instead of writing to support during an outage. Status pages in Frosvo →