How website live chat works: from bubble to reply

Live chat can feel like magic to a visitor — they click a bubble and a person answers. Underneath, the journey is simple enough for a small business to understand in one read. Here's the whole path, including what happens when you're not around.

Step 1: the chat bubble on your site

The visitor sees a small chat bubble in the corner of your site. That bubble is real code: a script tag — GreetMode's https://www.greetmode.com/widget-1.js with your site id in data-site — pasted once into your pages. There's no plugin to maintain and no rebuild; if you can paste text into your site's HTML, a WordPress footer, Squarespace Code Injection, or Wix Custom Code, you can install chat. Most owners finish in about five minutes per site, and full steps live at /install.

The bubble knows whether you're open: your open/closed hours drive what visitors see — a live greeting when you're on duty, an offline message form when you're not. It also inherits your chosen color, so it looks like part of your site rather than a bolt-on.

Step 2: the backend stores the thread

When a visitor types, the message travels from the widget to the backend — the servers that hold your site's data in a database. The backend keeps each conversation as a per-site thread: who said what, when, and which site the conversation belongs to. Nothing runs on the visitor's computer beyond the chat window itself.

Step 3: the inbox on your side

The same backend feeds your owner inbox — a web page that works in any browser, on a laptop or a phone, with no app to download. New messages appear as live threads, and the inbox checks for new messages every few seconds, so a visitor's question surfaces within moments of being typed. Unread badges and reply alerts make sure you notice — nothing waits in a corner unnoticed.

Step 4: the reply

You type an answer in the inbox and send. It flows back through the backend to the widget, and the visitor sees your reply in the chat window seconds after you hit send. Because the exchange is stored as a thread, the conversation continues naturally: the visitor replies, you reply, as if you were texting. You can also reach for canned replies — saved answers to your repeat questions like “Do you deliver?” — to answer in one tap.

That's the whole loop: widget → backend → inbox → reply → widget. It's the same pattern whether the visitor is on a phone or a laptop, and the same whether you're answering from your desk or your van.

Step 5: the offline path (when you're not there)

You can't be online at midnight, so the flow has a second, deliberate path. When you're closed, the widget shows an offline message form instead of a live greeting, and the visitor's message is stored with the rest of the thread. In the morning, the inbox shows it as a new thread with an unread badge — plus a banner and an alert, so the first thing you see is who needed you. The visitor got to leave a question instead of bouncing, and you got a lead that arrived while you slept.

What it costs to run

The infrastructure — widget, backend, database, inbox — is included in the flat monthly plan: Standard $14.99/month for up to 3 sites, Multi $19.99/month for 4–6, custom via /contact for 7+. There are no per-agent fees, no per-conversation fees, and no infrastructure add-ons to size. Your only ongoing cost is the one flat bill, and your only setup task is the snippet.