Documentation

How to set up and use Parlour. If something here does not match what you see, email parlourai@mise-os.app.

Getting started

Parlour puts a chat window on your website, gives your team one inbox to reply from, and keeps customer feedback in one place. An optional AI assistant can answer first, using only the information you give it.

Create your account

Go to parlourai.app and choose Start free.
Enter your name, your business name, your work email and a password of at least 10 characters.
Confirm your email using the link we send you, then sign in.

The Free plan needs no card.

Set up in three steps

When you first sign in, Parlour walks you through three steps:

Name your business.
Add chat to your website. Copy the snippet and paste it into your site. You can skip this and do it later from Settings.
Add what you know, such as opening hours and common questions. This is only used if you turn the AI assistant on. You can skip it.

Joining someone else's team

If you were invited, open the link in the invitation email. Sign in, or create a login with the email address the invitation was sent to, and you join that team.

Add chat to your website

The chat window is added with one line of code, called the snippet. It works on any website that lets you add your own code.

Go to Settings, then Widget and AI agent.
Add a privacy link. It must be a full address starting with https://. Chat cannot be switched on without one.
Under Add chat to your website, choose Copy snippet.
Paste the snippet into your website just before the closing </body> tag, on every page where you want chat to show. Many website builders have a box for custom code in the footer or before </body>. That is the right place.
Switch on Chat on your website and choose Save changes.
Open your website, start a chat and send a test message. It appears in your inbox.

The snippet looks like this. Yours already contains your own key, so copy it from Settings rather than typing it out:

<script src="https://parlourai.app/widget.js" data-key="YOUR-KEY" async></script>

If someone else looks after your website, copy the snippet and send it to them.

Turning chat off

Switch off Chat on your website and save. Visitors then see nothing.

Rotating your key

The key in the snippet is public by design. If it is being misused, choose Rotate key. The old key stops working straight away, so paste the new snippet into your website.

If your website has a content security policy

Allow https://parlourai.app for script-src, frame-src and connect-src.

Customise the chat window

Owners, Managers and Admins can change these in Settings, then Widget and AI agent. Choose Save changes when you are done.

Name shown in the widget: up to 60 characters.
Welcome message: up to 200 characters.
Notices: two short notices, Order and booking notice and Notice for visitors, shown before a visitor starts. Use them for anything visitors should know before they write. Up to 400 characters each.
Privacy link: shown to visitors as Read the privacy notice.
Widget colour: choose a preset colour or enter a hex code, such as #0F6B63.
Powered by Parlour: on Free this line stays on. On paid plans you can switch it off.
Away mode: when your team is not around, visitors leave their email instead. You can write the away message (up to 300 characters).

On a larger screen, a preview beside the form shows the name, welcome message and colour.

The inbox

Every chat arrives in the inbox. It has two views: Live and History.

Live chats

Needs a person: chats waiting for someone on your team.
Mine: chats you have claimed.
Open: every live chat, including ones the AI is handling.
Escalated: chats escalated to a manager. Owners and Managers see this view.

Nothing is assigned automatically. Whoever is free claims the chat.

Claiming and replying

Choose Claim chat to take a chat. The visitor sees your photo and first name. Once a person has claimed a chat, the AI stops replying in it.

Handing a chat on

Pass to a teammate: give the chat to a teammate.
Release to Needs a person: put the chat back in Needs a person.
Escalate to a manager: if you hold a chat and are not a Manager or Owner, you can escalate it with an optional note.
Take over: Owners and Managers can take over any chat. Admins can take over once the visitor has been waiting more than 5 minutes.

Closing a chat

Choose Close chat when the conversation is finished, or Reopen chat to bring it back. The person holding the chat can close it, and so can an Owner or Manager. An Admin can close a chat nobody holds, or one where the visitor has waited more than 5 minutes. A chat with no messages for an hour closes on its own.

Chat details

Each chat shows who is handling it, why it came to your team (the visitor asked for a person, the AI could not answer, or it was handed to the team), and the visitor's email, location, page and device where known. The visitor's email is shown to your team only. It is never sent to the AI. On a phone, these are under Details and actions.

Blocking a visitor

Owners, Managers and Admins can block a visitor who is misusing the chat, and unblock them later.

Saving a chat as feedback

Choose Move to Feedback to save what the customer said as a feedback item linked to the chat.

History

History lists closed chats. Owners, Managers and Admins see the whole team's history and can filter by who handled each chat. Teammates see the chats they looked after. On Free, the list shows the last 30 days. Owners and Managers can choose Export history to download a CSV file.

The AI assistant

The AI assistant is included on the Parlour and Parlour AI plans. It is not on Free. It is off until you turn it on.

Turning it on

Go to Settings, then Knowledge and AI. Switch on AI answers and choose Save changes. To choose the name visitors see when the AI replies, go to Settings, then Widget and AI agent, and set the Agent name (up to 40 characters).

What the AI knows

The AI answers only from what you give it, never from the open internet. In Knowledge and AI you can fill in:

Prices
Opening hours
Policies
Common questions and answers

Write it the way you would brief a new member of staff.

Documents

You can also upload documents such as price lists, policies or FAQs: PDF, Word (.doc or .docx), .txt, .md or .csv. Each document shows Being read, In use, or Could not be read. If you remove a document, the AI stops using it straight away.

Handing over to your team

A visitor can choose Talk to a person at any time.
After an answer, the AI asks Did that answer your question. Yes, thanks ends the chat. Talk to a person passes it to your team.
If the AI cannot answer from your information, it passes the chat to your team.
The AI sends up to 10 replies in a chat, then passes it to your team.

Monthly AI chats

Parlour includes 100 AI chats a month and Parlour AI includes 300, counted in the UK calendar month. A chat counts once, when the AI first replies, however many replies follow. When the month's AI chats are used up, new chats go straight to your team. You are not charged extra.

What the AI sees

The AI sees the information you give it and the chat it is answering. It never sees the visitor's email. AI replies are provided by Google (Gemini).

Feedback

Feedback keeps what customers tell you in one place, wherever they said it. Everyone on the team can use it.

Adding feedback

Choose Add feedback and fill in:

What did they say: up to 500 characters.
Source: End of chat, Email, Phone call, In person, Social or Other.
Date.
Status: New, Reviewing or Done.
Internal note: seen by your team only, up to 1,000 characters.

Do not include names, contact details or health information. Choose Save and add another to enter several in a row.

Feedback from chats

When a chat ends, the visitor is asked How did we do, with Good, OK or Not great and an optional comment. This reaches your team as feedback. You can also save a chat as feedback with Move to Feedback.

Keeping track

Filter the list by status and source, and open an item to change its status or note. Owners, Managers and Admins can open the feedback report from here.

Feedback is deleted after 12 months on every plan. Only monthly totals are kept.

Reporting

Owners, Managers and Admins can see Reporting.

On Free, Reporting shows the last 30 days: chats started and the median time to a first reply. The full report is on the paid plans.

On Parlour and Parlour AI you can choose the last 7, 30 or 90 days and see three reports:

Chat and AI: chats started, chats the AI completed on its own, chats handed over to a person, replies from your team, median first reply, and chats per day.
Feedback: feedback collected, by status and by where it came from, and feedback per week.
Team performance: median first response from your team, chats claimed, and who picked up the chats.

Team and roles

Inviting someone

Go to Settings, then Team. Enter their email, choose a role and choose Add invite. They get an email, and join by signing in or creating a login with that address. Until they join, they show as invited, not joined yet. Owners and Managers can remove an invite.

Owners and Managers can invite Managers, Admins and Teammates. Admins can invite Admins and Teammates.

Seats

Free has 1 seat, Parlour up to 10 and Parlour AI up to 30. If your plan has no free seats, remove someone or change plan before inviting.

Changing roles and removing people

Only the Owner can change roles or remove people. Someone who is removed loses access straight away. Chats they claimed stay in history.

Who can do what

Owner

Chats: all chats, full history, export chat history (CSV), and export or delete a visitor's data.
Reporting: all reports, including team performance.
Settings: everything, including plan and billing. The Owner is the first account.

Manager

Chats: all chats, full history and export chat history (CSV).
Reporting: all reports.
Settings: everything, including plan and billing.

Admin

Chats: all chats and full history.
Reporting: all reports.
Settings: widget and AI agent, knowledge and AI, team, and their own profile. No plan or billing.

Teammate

Chats: Needs a person and Mine, and the history of their own chats.
Reporting: none.
Settings: their own photo, display name, password and sign-out.

Your profile and notifications

Open the account menu by selecting your name at the bottom of the sidebar, or your photo at the top on a phone. Teammates choose Your profile. Owners, Managers and Admins choose Settings, then Profile.

Your photo: shown to visitors when you claim a chat.
Your name.
Sign-in email: never shown to visitors. To change it, enter the new email and verify it.
Business name: Owners and Managers can change it here.
Password: enter your current password and a new one of at least 10 characters.

To sign out, open the account menu and choose Sign out.

Notifications

Owners, Managers and Admins can choose which emails they get in Settings, then Notifications, such as when a chat needs a person or is passed to them. The options shown depend on your role. Your choices apply as each notification becomes available.

Plans and billing

Owners and Managers manage the plan in Settings, then Plan and billing.

Plans

Free, £0: 1 seat, 50 chats a month (after that, visitors leave a message), no AI assistant, history on screen for 30 days, basic reporting. The Powered by Parlour line stays on.
Parlour, £12 a month or £120 a year: up to 10 seats, unlimited chats, 100 AI chats a month (up to 10 AI replies each), full reporting, and you can hide the Powered by Parlour line.
Parlour AI, £19 a month or £190 a year: up to 30 seats, unlimited chats, 300 AI chats a month (up to 10 AI replies each), full reporting.

Every plan covers one website. One price for the business: no charges per person, per chat or per AI reply. Yearly billing gives you 2 months free. We are not registered for VAT, so no VAT is charged.

Changing plan

Choose Monthly or Yearly, then Choose plan (or Change at renewal if you already have a paid plan). Payment is taken securely on the same page by Stripe. Changes and cancellations apply at renewal, and you can undo a scheduled change before then.

Moving to Free

You keep your paid features until the end of the period you have paid for. If you move from a paid plan to Free, chats closed more than 12 months ago are deleted at the next overnight clean-up. Parlour shows you how many before you confirm.

Payment method and invoices

Choose Manage billing details to update your card. Your invoices are listed with View invoice and Download PDF.

If a payment fails

Workspace access is paused until payment succeeds. Owners and Managers can update the payment method or choose Retry payment from Plan and billing.

Data, privacy and retention

How long we keep chats

We keep chats for 24 months on paid plans and 12 months on Free, counted from when the chat closes, then delete them automatically. On Free, History shows the last 30 days.

Customer feedback is deleted after 12 months on every plan. Only monthly totals are kept.

Visitor data requests

If a visitor asks for their data, the Owner can open one of their chats and, under Data requests, choose:

Export visitor data: downloads their chats as a file.
Delete visitor data: removes their chats and messages. This cannot be undone.

Exporting chat history

Owners and Managers can download chat history as a CSV file from History.

Spam checks

If there is unusual traffic, visitors may be asked to complete a quick check before chatting.

Closing your account

Email parlourai@mise-os.app from the account's email address.

For full details, read our privacy policy and terms.

Connections

Parlour connects to your website through the chat snippet. It works on any website or website builder that lets you add your own code before </body>.

Payments for your Parlour plan are handled by Stripe, and AI replies are provided by Google (Gemini). There is nothing for you to set up for either.

Parlour does not have plugins for website builders or integrations with other apps.

Help and contact

Help us improve Parlour

Open the account menu and choose Help us improve. Pick Feedback, Feature request or Problem, write your note, and say how important it is if you like. This goes to the Parlour team, not into the feedback you collect from your customers.

Contact

Email parlourai@mise-os.app.