Frequently asked
questions

Most teams are live the same day they sign up. Connect your email inbox or live chat widget, import your help center content, and TheHelpFlow's AI begins drafting replies within minutes. There's no professional services requirement, no lengthy onboarding call — just a guided setup wizard that takes most teams under two hours.

TheHelpFlow runs entirely in your browser. There's no software to install. Your agents access the inbox from any modern browser, and you can optionally install our desktop companion app (Mac & Windows) for native notifications. Mobile apps for iOS and Android are included on all plans.

Yes. Our guided importer brings over your full ticket history, customer contacts, canned responses, and macros from Zendesk, Intercom, Freshdesk, Help Scout, Gorgias, and Zoho Desk — with zero downtime. Most imports complete in under 20 minutes.

Invite agents from Settings → Team → Invite. You can assign roles (Admin, Agent, Viewer), organise agents into groups or teams, set working-hour schedules, and configure per-agent permission sets. There's no limit on admin seats.

Every plan includes a 14-day free trial with full access to all features, including AI capabilities, all channel integrations, and analytics. No credit card is required to start. At the end of the trial you choose a plan, or your account moves to a read-only state — your data is never deleted.

TheHelpFlow unifies email, live chat (web widget), WhatsApp Business, Instagram DM, Facebook Messenger, SMS (via Twilio), and voice (via Twilio Voice / Amazon Connect). All conversations arrive in a single threaded inbox with shared customer history. Additional channels — including Twitter/X DMs and WeChat — are on the roadmap.

Yes. Multiple agents can view any conversation simultaneously. Only one agent holds the active compose lock at a time to prevent double-replies, but others can add internal notes, @-mention teammates, or reassign. Collision detection shows a live avatar whenever a colleague is actively typing.

Conversations are assigned by round-robin, load-balanced, or skills-based routing rules you define. You can also build Automation workflows that route by language detected, keyword, sentiment score, topic tag, channel, or customer tier. Manual assignment is always available. SLA breach warnings fire before — not after — a ticket goes overdue.

Absolutely. Agents can create personal saved views with any combination of filters: assignee, status, tag, channel, priority, SLA status, conversation age, and custom attributes. Team leads can publish shared views to the whole team. The inbox layout (list vs. split pane) and conversation sort order are per-agent preferences.

Paste a single JavaScript snippet into your site to enable the widget. Customise colours, launcher icon, greeting message, and business hours directly from the dashboard — no code changes required. The widget supports proactive messages triggered by URL pattern, time-on-page, or scroll depth.

The AI Resolution Engine does three things: (1) drafts accurate, on-brand replies for agents to review and send with one click; (2) resolves clearly repetitive tickets fully autonomously — password resets, order status, return requests — without any agent involvement; (3) summarises long threads so agents can get up to speed in seconds. It also detects sentiment and urgency to surface tickets that need immediate human attention.

Point the AI at your help center articles, PDFs, and previous resolved tickets. It ingests them automatically and uses retrieval-augmented generation to ground every response in your specific content. You can also define brand-voice guidelines, prohibited phrases, and escalation rules in plain English through the AI Settings panel.

Only if you explicitly enable Autonomous Mode for specific topics (e.g. "order status", "business hours"). By default, all AI-drafted replies sit in an Awaiting Review queue. You control the confidence threshold above which the AI can send independently. Every autonomous reply is logged and auditable.

A visual, drag-and-drop workflow canvas where you connect Triggers (new conversation, tag applied, SLA at risk, customer replied, etc.) to Conditions (channel, topic, sentiment, customer tier, keyword) to Actions (assign, tag, send reply, close, escalate, fire webhook, create Jira ticket). No code required. Workflows run in real time, typically within 200 ms of an event.

Yes — via integrations. Once you connect Shopify, Stripe, or your own API, the AI can look up order status, issue refunds up to a configured limit, update subscription plans, and more. Each action type requires explicit enablement and an approval threshold. All actions are logged in the conversation audit trail.

TheHelpFlow offers three plans: Starter (for small teams up to 5 agents), Growth (for scaling teams, unlimited agents, full AI access), and Enterprise (custom SLA, dedicated infrastructure, SSO, HIPAA BAA). All plans are billed monthly or annually — annual plans save 20%.

Starter and Growth plans are priced per agent seat per month. You only pay for agents who have logged in during the billing period — adding a new agent mid-month is prorated. The AI Resolution Engine, all channels, and core automations are included; there are no usage-based AI surcharges on any plan.

Yes, at any time. Upgrades take effect immediately and are prorated. Downgrades take effect at your next renewal date. You'll never lose access to existing data when downgrading — the workspace shifts to the feature set of the new plan.

We accept all major credit and debit cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover) via Stripe. Enterprise customers can pay by wire transfer or ACH on annual contracts. All transactions are in USD; EUR and GBP invoicing is available for Enterprise.

Yes. Registered non-profit organisations receive 40% off all plans. Qualifying early-stage startups (< 2 years old, < $5 M raised) receive 50% off Growth for the first year. Contact support@thehelpflow.com with documentation to apply.

Yes. TheHelpFlow is SOC 2 Type II certified, audited annually by an independent third-party auditor. Our report covers the Security, Availability, and Confidentiality trust service criteria. Customers on Growth and Enterprise plans can request a copy of the report under NDA via their account manager.

By default, data is stored in AWS US-East-1 (Virginia). Enterprise customers can elect EU data residency (AWS eu-west-1, Ireland) or APAC residency (AWS ap-southeast-1, Singapore) at no additional cost. Data never leaves your selected region without explicit consent.

All data is encrypted in transit using TLS 1.2+ and at rest using AES-256. Encryption keys are managed via AWS KMS with automatic annual rotation. Enterprise customers can bring their own encryption keys (BYOK) for an additional layer of control.

Yes. SAML 2.0 SSO is supported on Growth and Enterprise plans, with certified connectors for Okta, Azure AD, Google Workspace, OneLogin, and Ping Identity. SCIM-based automated user provisioning and de-provisioning is available on Enterprise.

Yes. Upon cancellation you have 60 days to export all tickets, contacts, and attachments in JSON or CSV format from the dashboard. After 60 days, all data is permanently and irreversibly deleted from our systems, including backups, within 30 additional days. We can provide a deletion certificate on request.