How to let visitors start a chat without registering for an account

You may want users to be able to start a chat as soon as they visit your site or app, without them having to register for an account first. This is where visitor accounts come in.

For TalkJS chat to function, it requires each user to have certain user data:

• an id to uniquely identify that user
• a name to display in the conversation

You can satisfy this requirement for visitors, by creating anonymous visitor accounts with random user IDs that identify the user with TalkJS.

Would you like to ask a user for more information when they’ve joined the chat? You can use HTML panels to prompt the user to fill out their details directly from the chat. For some example code of how you can use panels to ask the user for their email, see:

• How to let visitors join a chat

This example shows you how to allow users to join a chat without registering for an account. Optionally, visitors can provide their email to receive notifications.

Do you have any questions about visitor chats? We’re happy to help! Get in touch.