Support Portal includes a conversation continuity mechanism that transitions live chat interactions to email when a visitor leaves the session before the exchange is resolved. Instead of losing the conversation, the platform automatically delivers a summary and any pending agent replies to the visitor's email address, allowing both parties to continue the thread without starting over.
Operational objective
In enterprise environments, visitors frequently leave a live chat session before an agent responds. A government citizen navigating a service portal may close the browser after submitting a question. A telecom customer may lose connectivity or switch devices mid-conversation. Without a continuity mechanism, these interactions become dead ends — the agent's reply goes unseen, and the visitor must repeat their request through a new session.
Email continuity solves this by ensuring that every agent reply reaches the visitor, regardless of whether their chat session is still active. When the visitor replies to the email, the response flows back into the same conversation thread in the agent's dashboard, preserving full context.
When email fallback triggers
The platform transitions a conversation to email when both of the following conditions are met:
- The visitor has left the chat session — the browser tab is closed, the visitor has navigated away, or the session has timed out.
- An agent sends a reply after the visitor has departed — the reply cannot be delivered through the live chat widget, so the platform falls back to email delivery.
If the visitor is still connected to the chat session, replies are delivered in real time through the widget as normal. Email continuity only activates when the live channel is no longer available.
Prerequisite: a known email address
For email continuity to function, the platform must have an email address associated with the visitor's contact record. Support Portal provides three methods to capture this information, each suited to different operational scenarios.
Programmatic capture via the SDK
When the visitor's identity is already known — for example, because they are logged into a customer portal or authenticated service — their email address can be passed directly to the platform using the setUser method in the Support Portal SDK. This is the most seamless approach, as the visitor is never prompted for information they have already provided during authentication.
This method is particularly relevant for government portals and telecom self-service environments where visitors are typically authenticated before reaching the chat interface. See Sdk Setup for SDK configuration details.
Collection through the pre-chat form
When a pre-chat form is enabled on the inbox, visitors provide their name and email address before the conversation begins. This ensures email continuity is available from the first message.
The pre-chat form is configured at the inbox level. See Inbox Configuration for setup instructions.
Automatic email collection prompt
When no pre-chat form is active and the visitor's email is not already known, the platform displays an email collection prompt within the chat widget. This prompt requests the visitor's email address so that the conversation can continue if they leave.
When an AI Module (Altores Intelligence) is enabled on the inbox, the email collection prompt is suppressed. The AI Module handles the conversation directly, including outside business hours. The email prompt is only displayed if the AI Module hands the conversation off to a human agent or if no AI Module is configured for the inbox.
Visitor experience
When a visitor leaves the chat session and an agent subsequently replies, the platform sends an email containing a summary of the conversation along with the agent's response. The visitor can reply directly to this email. Their reply is routed back into the original conversation thread — no new conversation is created, and no context is lost.
This is especially important in regulated environments where conversation history must remain intact for audit and compliance purposes. A telecom customer who closes their browser mid-complaint receives the agent's follow-up in their inbox and can continue the exchange at their convenience, with the full thread preserved.
Agent experience
From the agent's perspective, email continuity is transparent. When a visitor replies via email, the message appears in the existing conversation thread on the agent's dashboard. An email indicator icon on the message bubble identifies that the reply originated from email rather than the live chat widget.
Agents do not need to switch tools or open a separate email client. The conversation remains unified in the dashboard regardless of which channel the visitor used to respond.
Configuration
Conversation continuity via email requires a functioning email channel configuration on the Support Portal instance. For self-hosted deployments, ensure that outbound email delivery is properly configured before relying on this feature.
Verify the following operational requirements:
| Requirement | Details |
|---|---|
| Email channel | An active email sending configuration must be in place for the workspace. |
| Contact email address | The visitor's email must be captured through one of the three methods described above. |
| Inbox assignment | The conversation must belong to an inbox that supports live chat. Email continuity applies to the website live chat channel. |
For self-hosted deployment configuration, consult your infrastructure documentation or contact Altores support.
Relationship to other features
Email continuity interacts with several other platform capabilities:
- Business hours — When agents are unavailable outside business hours and the visitor leaves a message, email continuity ensures the agent's eventual reply still reaches the visitor. See Business Hours.
- Automation rules — Automation can apply labels or reassign conversations based on whether the visitor has an email address on file, enabling differentiated handling for identified versus anonymous visitors. See Automation.
- CSAT surveys — Customer satisfaction surveys sent after conversation resolution rely on the same email address used for continuity. Ensuring accurate email capture improves CSAT response rates. See Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Surveys.