Announcements and Warnings in the Support Widget: When and How to Use Them

It is 10 a.m. and your store's payment gateway is misbehaving. The tech team is investigating, but customers are still on the site and open the chat widget one by one to ask "why won't my payment go through?". Agents type the same answer over and over, and everyone else waits in the queue knowing nothing.

The simpler way is to tell customers before they ask. Hodhod lets you show up to two announcements at the top of the widget for each website inbox: a yellow box for ordinary news or a red warning for an urgent problem. This article shows where an announcement lives and how to build one, what to write in it, and three ready-made examples.

What exactly is a widget announcement?

It is a box that sits at the top of the widget when it opens, so the visitor sees it before typing a first message. Its features:

• Up to two announcements per website inbox, each with its own on/off switch.
• Two levels: an "Announcement" (yellow, with an info icon) for ordinary news and a "Warning" (red, with a warning icon) for urgent problems.
• Text with bold parts and links on part of a sentence, plus one image if you need it.
• Closable by the visitor, if you want.
• Optional schedule with a start and an end time.
• Live preview on the same inbox settings page.

The announcement appears on the widget's home screen and on the pre-chat form, and, when the inbox is in "ticket only" mode, on the ticket screen that acts as the home screen. It is not shown inside the conversation that is already open. The same announcements are shown automatically in the Android SDK from version 1.0.0-beta04 on.

When should you post one?

An announcement is for news that matters to most visitors and is better seen before a conversation starts:

• A problem in progress: the payment gateway, verification code or login is broken and the tech team is looking into it.
• A change of response hours: holidays or different working hours. For the automatic message outside working hours, see out-of-office message templates too.
• Planned maintenance: the system is unavailable for a few hours.
• A foreseeable delay: for instance, busy sales days. The peak-season support checklist helps you plan for them.

And what to avoid: permanent promotions (customers learn to ignore them), news most customers don't care about, and answering one particular customer's problem, which belongs in the conversation itself.

Announcement or warning?

A simple rule: if the customer has to stop or change what they are doing right now, post a warning; otherwise an announcement.

Step by step: your first announcement

1. In the dashboard go to "Settings → Inboxes" and open the website inbox. This setting is for administrators.
2. On the "Settings" tab, go to the "Widget announcements" section. It also appears in the page's section list as "Announcements".
3. Click "Add announcement" and choose the level (announcement or warning).
4. Write the text. Press Enter for a new paragraph; select part of the text and make it bold or give it a link.
5. If needed, add an image.
6. Decide whether visitors can close it.
7. If needed, set a start and end time.
8. Check the preview, save your changes and open the widget on your site to see the result.

The text: bold and links

• The text can have up to 6 paragraphs; each paragraph at most 600 characters and the whole text at most 1,500 characters. A counter under the text box shows how much you've used.
• Use bold for one key phrase (for example "card payments"), not for the whole text.
• Put the link on part of a sentence, such as "service status page", rather than on a long raw address. The address must start with https://, http://, mailto: or tel:.
• The text is stored as simple structured text, not HTML, so no code or script can end up in it.

The image

Each announcement can have at most one image. You can upload it (PNG, JPG, WebP or GIF, up to 2 MB) or give an https:// address. Always write the image description (alt): screen readers read it to blind users (120 characters at most). You can also link the image to an address. An image that fails to load is hidden, so no broken icon is left behind. The widget has little room; a small, simple image beats a busy banner.

Closable or fixed?

When a visitor closes an announcement, that announcement stays hidden for them in that same browser. If you change the text, the level or the "Visitors can close it" option, it is shown again; changing the schedule or switching it off and on does not do that. Keep a non-closable announcement for something the customer is hurt by not seeing, and remove it once the problem is fixed.

Schedule

Start and end are both optional, and you can set only one of them. If you fill in neither, the announcement is shown from the moment you save until you switch it off or delete it. Notes:

• The end must be after the start; otherwise it won't save.
• You enter the date and time with the browser's own control, based on your device's clock. How the date is displayed depends on your browser and system, so read it once more before saving.
• With the "Show in widget" switch you can turn an announcement off without deleting it, for example to write the text in advance and switch it on when needed.

Three ready-made examples

The texts are examples. Replace the words in square brackets with your own details, and don't promise anything you won't stand behind.

1. Payment gateway problem (warning)

Card payments are currently failing. The tech team is looking into it. If your payment didn't go through, please try again in a few minutes. Live status: [service status page]

Level: warning. Schedule: none; switch it off or delete it once the problem is fixed. Leave "Visitors can close it" on unless not seeing it would really hurt the customer. Put the link on the words "service status page".

2. Holiday hours (announcement)

Our response hours change during the holidays. From [start date] to [end date] we reply only between [start time] and [end time]. Leave your message or ticket now and we'll answer in order.

Level: announcement. Start: a day or two before the holidays. End: the end of the holidays. This announcement does not replace the inbox's working hours setting; configure that separately.

3. Planned maintenance (announcement)

Tonight the system is unavailable for a while because of planned maintenance. From [start time] to [end time]. Please save your important work before then.

Level: announcement. Start: a few hours before the maintenance. End: shortly after it finishes. If something unexpected also happens that night, keep the second slot for a warning.

A few rules for good text

1. Keep it short: one to three sentences. Customers only glance at the top of the widget.
2. Impact first, cause second: "card payments are failing" matters more to the customer than a technical explanation.
3. Say what the customer should do: wait? try later? follow up another way?
4. If you have a status page, link to it. The latest details go there, and the announcement stays short and stable.
5. Spend red sparingly. If there is always a red warning, a real one goes unnoticed.
6. Don't promise a time you aren't sure of. If you don't know when it will be fixed, write when you'll update them next.
7. Remove the announcement when the problem is solved. A stale announcement damages trust. If you know the end time, set it from the start.
8. Check the text in the preview and on the real widget, ideally on a phone.

One limit to keep in mind: an announcement belongs to an inbox, not to a language. All visitors of that inbox see the same text; if your site is multilingual, keep the text short and make it bilingual if needed.

Widget announcement or issue banner?

Hodhod already had one way to inform customers: the customer notice banner of an issue. The two tools complement each other and don't replace one another:

If you track the problem as an issue and want an automatic banner that goes away when the occurrence ends, use the issue banner. If you need a link to a status page, the warning colour, an image or a schedule, or your news isn't an issue at all (like a holiday), the widget announcement fits better. You can have both at once; announcements appear first and the issue banner after them. It is better not to repeat one message in both. To track recurring problems, read issue tracking for support teams.

Common mistakes

• An announcement that stays for weeks. Customers realize nobody is looking after it.
• Several news items in one announcement. One piece of news per slot, and there are only two slots.
• A long raw address instead of a link on a phrase.
• A wrong date or time in the schedule. Read it again before saving.
• Internal information or technical detail the customer doesn't need.

Frequently asked questions