Fresh Chat
Connect Fresh Chat for live chat automation on Freshdesk
Automate live chat conversations through Freshdesk's Fresh Chat widget — your agent responds to customers in real time.
Fresh Chat is a channel within the Freshdesk integration — not a standalone integration. You must connect Freshdesk first before setting up Fresh Chat.
What you can do
Automatically respond to customers in Fresh Chat live conversations
Hand off to a human agent when the issue needs a personal touch
Group conversations so follow-up messages from the same customer continue in one thread
How it's different from Freshdesk tickets
The standard Freshdesk integration handles email-based tickets. Fresh Chat handles live chat conversations through the Freshdesk chat widget embedded on your website.
Channel
Email tickets
Chat widget
Response style
Asynchronous
Real-time conversation
Actions
Reply, tag, assign, close, etc.
Reply, transfer to human
Best for
Email support automation
Live chat automation
Connecting Fresh Chat
Prerequisites
An active Freshdesk integration (OAuth) on your eesel dashboard
Fresh Chat enabled in your Freshworks account
Setup
On the eesel dashboard, go to your agent's Integrations section and click Freshdesk.
Click on Fresh Chat under the Triggers section to open the setup form.
In your Freshworks admin panel, go to Settings > API Settings > API Details for Chat and copy the API key. Paste it into the API Token field.
Copy the webhook URL shown in the form. In your Freshchat admin, go to Settings > Webhooks, paste the URL, and save.
After saving the webhook in Freshchat, an Authentication section will appear with an RSA public key. Copy the full key (including the
-----BEGIN RSA PUBLIC KEY-----and-----END RSA PUBLIC KEY-----lines) and paste it into the form.
Click Connect Fresh Chat. eesel AI will validate your API token and save the connection.
Test the connection by opening the live chat preview in your Freshchat admin. Go to Settings > Messenger > Web and click Preview to start a test conversation with your agent.
Actions
Chat Reply
Send a reply to the customer in the live chat conversation
Hand Off to Human
Transfer the conversation to a human agent
Customizing the chat widget
Fresh Chat's widget appearance and behavior are configured in your Freshchat admin panel, not in eesel AI. To customize:
In your Freshworks admin, go to Settings > Web Widget > Appearance.
Tips
Set clear expectations. Update the widget's welcome message in Freshchat admin so customers know they're chatting with an AI assistant. Something like "Hi! I'm Acme's AI assistant. How can I help you today?"
Configure handoff rules. Always define when the agent should hand off to a human — for example, when the customer explicitly asks for a person, or when the issue requires account-level changes. Add this to your agent's instructions.
Set up business hours. Configure business hours in Freshchat admin so the widget only appears when your team (or AI agent) is available, or shows an offline message outside those hours.
Test the full flow. Test both the AI response and the human handoff in a real Fresh Chat conversation to make sure the transition is smooth.
Troubleshooting
Fresh Chat not appearing as a channel?
Ensure you have an active Freshdesk integration connected via OAuth
The Fresh Chat channel only appears after the Freshdesk integration is connected
Setup form showing again after connecting?
Both the API token and the webhook public key must be saved. If either is missing, the setup form will show again. Re-run the three-step setup.
Agent not responding to chats?
Verify the Fresh Chat trigger is enabled on your agent
Check that the webhook URL is correctly configured in your Freshchat admin panel
Confirm the API token is valid — go to Freshworks admin > API Settings > API Details for Chat
Handoff not working?
Ensure you have human agents available in your Freshchat account to accept conversations
The agent routes the conversation to the assigned group, or the default group if none is set
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