Picture this: A visitor checks in to see your employee Contact, Mira. Mia is wrapping up a meeting when she gets the notification and wishes she had some way of letting her visitor know she'll be there in about ten minutes. Two-Way Chat can do just that!

Two-Way Chat is a feature that allows your employee contacts to chat with visitors here to see them. When your Contacts are notified, they can send messages that will appear on the iPad for their visitor to read. Like most of our features, this setting is controlled per-button.

To turn this feature on, start on the Buttons page on the web portal. Then, select 'Existing Buttons' and click "Edit" on the relevant Check-In button. Scroll to the bottom of the page to turn on or off Two-Way Chat. Remember to save! Turning off the chat feature does not prevent check-in notifications from being sent; it only means that employees and visitors cannot chat via The Receptionist app.

Contacts notified via SMS can send a text message back, and that message will appear for visitors on the iPad. Contacts notified via most other methods will need to click on the link included in their notification to type a message to the visitor.

If you want to set up easy, pre-set replies for your contacts (such as "On my way!" or "Be there in five!") for Contacts use without needing to type, check out our Quick Replies feature.

If you want visitors and Contacts to have more or less time to chat, you can change that with our Visitor Timeout setting.

Please note that Two-Way Chat is only available for Check-In Buttons, and messages from Contacts can only be sent to the iPad, so Contactless check-ins won't have the chat option.