# First steps with Customer Support

Connect your first channels, bring in your agents and answer your first customer from one inbox. A checklist for your first day.

Customer Support puts every message from your customers in one shared inbox: chat on your website, Zalo, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, Telegram, LINE, X and email. This checklist takes you from an empty inbox to your first answered conversation. You need to be an owner or admin, or have **Customer Support: Manage**.

Before you start, make sure **Customer Support** is on in **Settings → Business settings → Modules** ([Turn modules on and off](https://hatang.dev/help/getting-started/modules)).

## 1. Add your website

Conversations belong to a **website** in Ha Tang, even those that come from Zalo or Facebook: it decides which reports, distribution rules and automation apply. So add your website first, even if you will not put the chat widget on it yet.

1. Open **Customer Support → Channels**.
2. Click **Add channel**, then **Website**.
3. Follow [Install the chat widget](https://hatang.dev/help/widget/install-widget) to put the chat bubble on your site. If your site has sign-in, ask your developer to also [recognise logged-in users](https://hatang.dev/help/widget/identify-users) so they show as **Verified** in the Inbox.

![Customer Support → Channels → Add channel](https://hatang.dev/help/img/en/getting-started/add-channel.webp)

## 2. Connect the channels your customers use

Back in **Customer Support → Channels → Add channel**, connect the accounts where customers write to you today. Each one has a step-by-step guide:

| Channel | Guide |
|---|---|
| Zalo Official Account | [Connect a Zalo OA](https://hatang.dev/help/channels/zalo-oa) |
| A personal Zalo account | [Connect personal Zalo](https://hatang.dev/help/channels/zalo-personal) |
| Facebook Page and Instagram | [Connect Facebook and Instagram](https://hatang.dev/help/channels/messenger-instagram) |
| TikTok and TikTok Shop | [TikTok](https://hatang.dev/help/channels/tiktok), [TikTok Shop](https://hatang.dev/help/channels/tiktok-shop) |
| A support mailbox such as `support@shop.vn` | [Connect a support mailbox](https://hatang.dev/help/channels/email-channel) |

New messages from a connected channel arrive in the inbox from then on. See [How channels work](https://hatang.dev/help/channels/channels-overview) for what each channel supports.

## 3. Invite your agents

Open **Settings → Employees → Invite employee** and invite each person who answers customers. The **Support** template gives them **Customer Support: Work**: they can reply and take conversations but cannot change channels or settings ([Invite employees](https://hatang.dev/help/account/invite-employees)).

## 4. Decide who answers what

- Set up [distribution rules](https://hatang.dev/help/automation/routing-rules) so new conversations go to the right person automatically, or let agents take them from the inbox.
- Write [canned responses](https://hatang.dev/help/inbox/canned-responses) for the questions you answer every day: prices, opening hours, shipping fees.
- Optional: let the [AI assistant](https://hatang.dev/help/ai/set-up-ai) answer first, from your own knowledge, and hand over to your team when it should.

## 5. Answer your first conversation

1. Send yourself a test message, for example from your phone to your Zalo OA or through the chat bubble on your website.
2. Open **Customer Support → Inbox**. The conversation is at the top of the list.
3. Click it, type your reply and press Enter.

The reply reaches the customer in the channel they wrote from. Learn the rest of the inbox in [The inbox](https://hatang.dev/help/inbox/inbox-overview).

## 6. Get notified

So that no customer waits, turn on browser push and sounds in your [notification settings](https://hatang.dev/help/account/notifications), and install the [Ha Tang app](https://hatang.dev/help/getting-started/mobile-and-desktop-apps) on your phone.