Get Started: Beacon with Live Chat
Learn more about Beacon and live chat.
Beacon Feature List
Live Chat
Customers only see a chat interface when they’re connected with someone on your team.
Live chat is available in Beacon on a current Standard or higher plan. Legacy plans and Basic plans do not include live chat. Your Account Owner can upgrade to a new plan at
Available Plans if you would like to add live chat to your Beacon.
Custom Fields
Custom Fields help categorize and prioritize conversations in the mailbox. You can now show your custom fields on the Beacon contact form, allowing customers to categorize their support requests. Custom fields work alongside Workflows, reports, and the API right out of the box. Custom Fields are available on the Plus plan.
Beacon Sidebar App
We made improvements to what the “identify” method can do in Beacon. Fields saved using the
identify method appear in the customer sidebar, and they’ll show up when you load customer conversations. It’s a great way to get valuable customer context into the sidebar, without having to build a
custom app. Eventually these fields will be actionable by Workflows, Report Views, etc.
Beacon Builder
We’ve built a new UI for customizing all of the Beacon settings in Help Scout. You don’t have to mess with JavaScript code to make changes. When you update a Beacon in the UI, changes are pushed to your live Beacon embed right away.
Customer Support History
Beacon includes a basic and secure way to authenticate your customers using a single line of JavaScript and a little server-side code. Your customers will never have to worry about logging in. As soon as they open Beacon, they’re a click away from their support history.
Suggested Content
Suggested content lets you surface specific articles to customers as soon as they open Beacon. For example, if your Beacon is on a pricing page, you might want to show pricing specific help articles right away. You’ll see suggested articles on the Beacon welcome screen.
In-app Notifications
Customers receive a Beacon notification when there's a new chat or email message. They can click the notification to open the conversation in Beacon, taking them to the latest reply.
JavaScript API
Control your Beacon programmatically with the
updated Beacon API.
Mobile SDKs
SDKs (software development kits) allow you to add Beacon directly to your mobile apps. Customers can browse your knowledge base, send an email, or start a live chat through the Beacon SDK on mobile platforms.
Both the Android and iOS SDKs support Docs search and the Beacon contact form currently. Live chat support is available in the Android SDK now, and live chat support for our iOS SDK is due in a future release.
Send us a message to be kept in the loop when more information is available.
Please note: The Beacon SDKs do not support React Native at this time.