For years, live chat widgets have followed roughly the same formula: a small bubble sits at the bottom of a website, a visitor clicks it, types a message, and waits for someone to respond.
Live chat has traditionally been simple: a visitor opens a widget, sends a message, and waits for a reply.
With Ruut Live Chat 2.0, we wanted to make that experience much more useful.
The new widget is not just a place to start a conversation. It is now a complete customer engagement layer for your website — combining messaging, help content, announcements, product cards, availability, and ongoing conversations in one place.
The idea is simple:
**Your live chat should help customers do more than just send a message. **
A new Home experience
The biggest change in Live Chat 2.0 is the new Home screen.
Instead of opening directly into an empty chat, customers are welcomed into a branded experience where they can quickly understand who they are speaking with, whether your team is available, and what they can do next.
From Home, they can:
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Start a conversation
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Return to existing messages
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Access help content
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View important updates
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Discover products, offers, or announcements
It makes the widget feel more like a small customer portal than a traditional chat box.
Cards for announcements, products, and updates
Businesses can now use Cards inside the widget to highlight important information.
A card can include an image, title, description, and call-to-action.
You can use this to promote a new product, announce a feature launch, share an event, communicate an outage, highlight an offer, or guide customers through onboarding.
For example:
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This turns your website traffic into another communication channel for your business.
Messaging is still at the centre
Customers can easily choose Ask a question and start a conversation with your team.
But they are no longer forced into chat immediately.
They can first explore information, find an answer themselves, or return to an existing conversation.
That creates a much cleaner experience for customers who may not necessarily need to speak with an agent.
Persistent conversations
The new Messages section gives customers a dedicated place to return to previous conversations.
A customer can send a message, leave your website, and come back later without feeling like they are starting from zero.
This makes Live Chat 2.0 feel less like temporary website chat and more like ongoing business messaging.
Help directly inside the widget
Not every question needs a support agent.
The Help section gives customers direct access to useful support content from inside the widget.
Instead of searching through your website or opening another page, customers can find answers where they are already asking for help.
The flow becomes simple:
Find an answer yourself when possible.
Start a conversation when you need someone.
Clear team availability
Customers can also immediately see whether your team is currently available.
Messages such as “We are away at the moment” help set the right expectations while still allowing customers to leave a message.
Your support experience does not have to disappear simply because your team is offline.
Built around your brand
Live Chat 2.0 is also designed to feel like part of your website.
Businesses can shape the experience using their own:
Logo, business name, colours, welcome message, background imagery, cards, calls-to-action, and customer-facing content.
The customer should feel like they are interacting with your business, not someone else's software.
More than customer support
The new widget can support much more than support conversations.
Support teams can answer questions and share important updates.
Sales teams can turn website visitors into conversations.
Marketing teams can highlight campaigns and launches.
Product teams can promote new features.
Operations teams can communicate service changes.
One widget can now play several roles depending on what your customer needs.
The beginning of a bigger Ruut experience
Live Chat 2.0 also creates a stronger foundation for the rest of Ruut.
A customer might first contact your business through Live Chat, continue through WhatsApp, receive an email, and later call your team.
Those should not feel like completely separate interactions.
They are all part of one customer relationship.
That is the direction we are building toward with Ruut.