How to Enable Customer Service Chat Assistant

10/02/2025

Chat Tool

Summary

What are the main benefits of using the TikTok Shop chat assistant for sellers?

It provides automatic replies during off-hours and high-volume periods, reducing human agent workload and response times.
Quick, accurate responses increase customer satisfaction, boost conversion rates, and encourage repeat purchases, enhancing overall shop performance.

What are the two types of chat assistant tools available and when should sellers use each?

Reply recommendations assist human agents by suggesting or auto-sending answers during busy hours, ideal for live events or campaigns with many inquiries.
Chatbot operates when no human agents are online or all are busy, handling customer queries during off-hours like nights and holidays.

What prerequisites must sellers fulfill to effectively use the chat assistant?

Maintain an accurate, detailed FAQ database tailored to their shop’s common questions and customer service experience.
The chat assistant relies on this database to identify customer intent and provide relevant automated replies.

How can sellers enable and configure reply recommendations and what are the key features?

Main or sub-account admins enable it via Automation Tools; agents can choose auto-send or manual send of recommended replies.
Auto-send replies reduce agent workload by automatically responding to multiple chats; agents can modify replies before sending if needed.

How does the chatbot function and what configuration options do sellers have?

Enabled via Automation Tools, it can run 24/7 (Always-on) or only during off-hours, automatically replying based on FAQ matches when agents are offline or busy.
When unable to answer, it sends a polite fallback message and escalates chats to human agents, ensuring no inquiry is ignored.

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Why use chat assistant?

During off-work hours of human customer service agents (such as at night, holidays, etc.), the chat assistant can automatically reply to customers.
During the working hours of human customer service agents, when there are too many enquiries and it is difficult for agents to respond quickly, the chat assistant can automatically reply to some enquiries, which reduces the pressure of human agents.
On one hand, quick responses to customer enquiries can resolve any doubts, thereby increasing their willingness to buy and this increases conversion rate and GMV. On the other hand, it can improve customers' satisfaction with shop service. Customers who are satisfied with customer service may have a high probability of purchasing products in the shop again.

What is chat assistant?

The customer service chat assistant currently includes two kinds of auto-reply tools, reply recommendations and chatbot. These tools can help human customer service agents handle customer enquiries faster and more efficiently. When a customer asks a question, the chat assistant will accurately identify the customer's intention based on the database and algorithm capabilities, and automatically give an appropriate reply to help complete the reception.

Type 1: Reply recommendations

Sellers have the option to enable/disable it. When a human customer service agent is online, it can recommend an answer to the human agent or automatically send the recommended answer to the customers directly.
Applicable scenarios: It can be used for the scenario that the human agent is online, but the number of enquiries is large, and the human response is slow. For example, during LIVE and major campaigns, it can help human agent reply to high-frequency questions and reduce the waiting time of customers.

Best practice: Recommend based on former high IM satisfaction replies
From FAQ: Recommend based on FAQ settings
TikTok policy: Recommend based on help center articles
Saved reply: Recommend based on agent's personally former saved replies

Type 2: Chat bot

Sellers choose to enable it or not. When the human agent is not online, or when all human agent receptions are saturated and customers are queuing, the chat bot can help reply to customer messages.
Applicable scenarios: It can be used to handle customer enquiries during off-work hours of human agents, such as nights, weekends, holidays, etc.

Prerequisites for using chat assistant

Since chat assistant need to identify customers' intentions based on database and algorithm capabilities, and then automatically give appropriate responses, the chat assistant requires maintaining accurate and detailed FAQs. The platform has preset some common questions and recommended answers in advance, such as general FAQs, order-related FAQs, etc. Sellers can make adjustments and add new ones based on the actual situation of their stores and customer service experience.

For example, if you have the following question and answer configured in your FAQ database:

Question: Is the shipping free?
Answer: The shipping cost is shown on the product details page.

Then when a customer sends a question related to the free shipping of the product, the algorithm will identify that the customer wants to consult the question related to "free shipping". If there are relevant questions and answers in the FAQ database, then the chat assistant will recommend the corresponding reply to the human agent for reference. It can also send the corresponding reply directly to the customer, depending on the seller's configuration.

How to set recommended answer?

When the FAQ database is configured, you can start enabling reply recommendations.

3.1 How to enable it

"Main account" and "Administrator" of sub-accounts can enable reply recommendations under Automation tools. After enabling, when the human agent is online, it can recommend a reply to the human agent or automatically send the recommended reply to the customers directly.

Step 1: Select "Automation tools" on top right corner

Step 2: Toggle On "Reply Recommendations"

3.2 Effect achieved

After enabling [Reply recommendations] to the whole shop, seller can choose whether to automatically send the recommended reply to customers. If seller chooses to send it automatically, it will be enabled for all customer service agents (all customer service accounts) in the shop.

If you turn on [Reply recommendations] but do not select [Auto-reply based on recommendations], when the human agent is online, and when he is replying to a chat, the chat assistant will prompt the recommended reply to the agent based on (1) the content of the message sent by the customer or (2) the keyword entered by the human agent. If there is a suitable answer, the human agent can directly click the "Send" button to send the answer to customers with one click. If the recommended reply needs to be modified a little, you can click the reply, and the reply will be automatically moved to the input box, then the human agent can modify it before sending it.

If you turn on [Reply recommendations] and select [Allow automatic sending], when the human agent is online, if he is replying to a certain chat, the chat assistant will automatically help him reply to other chats which have been allocated to him. The content of the reply is automatically sent by identifying the customer's intention and matching the corresponding reply from the FAQ database.

Please pay attention:

When the human agent switches to this chat window, the chat assistant will stop sending automatically.
For the chat with reply recommendations sending automatically, if the customer does not continue to ask after receiving the automatic reply, the chat will be displayed in the [Unread] list, and the unread red dot prompt will be displayed, but it will not be displayed in the [Unreplied] list, there are no unreplied label prompts. If the customer continues to ask questions, the chat assistant will continue to send replies continuously until it cannot answer.
Human agent can see "Automatically sending" displayed under those messages sent by recommended answer. "Automatically sending" is not displayed on the customer 's side, so customers don't feel that this is an auto reply.
When encountering questions that cannot be processed by the reply recommendation, this chat will be displayed in the [Unreplied] list, and there will be an unreplied label prompt. A related system message will appear on the chat page to remind the human agent to reply as soon as possible.

3.3 Human agents can set up to allow automatic sending by themselves

When the recommended function is enabled in the shop, the human agent (every customer service account) can also choose whether to allow automatic sending on the chat page. It only takes effect for this human agent/this account and does not affect other agents/other accounts.

How to set chat bot?

When the FAQ database is configured, you can start enabling chat bot.

4.1 How to enable it

"Main account" and "Administrator" of sub-accounts can enable chatbot in [Chatbot]. After enabling, when the human agent is not online, or when all human agent receptions are saturated and customers are queuing, the chat bot can help reply to customer messages.

Step 1: Select "Automation tools" on top right corner

Step 2: Toggle On "Chatbot"

4.2 Effect achieved

After the chatbot is enabled, seller can choose the effective time to be [Always-on] or [After business hours only].

If seller selects [Always-on], the chatbot will start to work 24 hours a day when the human agent is not online, or when all human agent receptions are saturated and customers are queuing. By recognizing the customer's chat intent, the chatbot will automatically find a matching answer in the FAQ database and send it to the customer until it can't reply.

If you select [After business hours only], the chatbot will only start to work during the off-work hours set by the seller, and the human agent is not online, or when all human agent receptions are saturated and customers are queuing. By recognizing the customer's chat intent, the chatbot will automatically find a matching answer in the FAQ database and send it to the customer until it can't reply.

Highly suggest to toggle on all activities (Receiving pre-purchase, logistics, and post purchase) to enable weekend extension for 24 hour response rate calculation.

Please pay attention:

When the human agent goes online, the chats answered by the chatbot will still be allocated to the human agent. If the customer does not continue to ask after receiving the auto reply, this chat will be displayed in the [Unread] list, and the unread red dot prompt will be displayed, but it will not be displayed in the [Unreplied] list, and there will be no unreplied label prompt. If the customer continues to ask questions, the bot will continue to send the corresponding content until it can't answer.
For the message sent by the chatbot automatically, the human agent can see "Chatbot" displayed under this message. Customers can see "Auto-reply" displayed under this message
When encountering questions that cannot be processed by the chat bot, the bot will send a brief reply: "Sorry that the human agent is not online at the moment, he will reply to you as soon as he is online." If the customer continues to inquire, an automatic off-work reply set by the seller (if any) will be sent. This chat will appear in the unreplied list with an unreplied label.

FAQs

After the chat assistant is enabled, will it automatically reply to all chats?

No. The chat assistant will only pick up chat with accurate intent identifications to reply to.

If there is a problem that the chat assistant cannot solve, the chat assistant will not automatically reply, and the response from a human agent is required.
If the same auto-reply content appears multiple times in the same chat, it means that the auto-reply may not answer the customer's question, so the chat assistant will stop replying to it, and the response from a human agent is required.
When the chat assistant stops replying, a related system message will appear to remind the human agent.