SaaS Launch Day: How to Get Your Website Chat Ready

On launch day, a crowd of people who have never heard of you arrives at your website at once, from a launch platform like Product Hunt, a newsletter or a post you shared. Many of them have a question before they sign up.

Your team, meanwhile, is replying to comments and watching for bugs. Questions typed into your website chat are easy to miss, and they often come from the people closest to signing up.

Here is how to get your chat ready before launch, run it during the day, and use what it collects afterwards.

Why launch day visitors are different

On a normal day, many visitors already know roughly what you do. On launch day, most do not. They clicked a headline and landed on your homepage with no context, so expect questions like these:

What does this actually do?
How is it different from what I use now?
Is there a free plan or a trial?
Is the launch offer real, and when does it end?

They arrive from many time zones, often on phones, and decide quickly. If nobody answers, they leave and move on to the next launch.

Before launch: teach the chat what is new

Your chat can only answer from what it knows. If your pricing, features or offer changed this week, the chat needs the new version before the traffic arrives.

Update your pages, then refresh. Finish the homepage, pricing page and launch offer page first. Assistly reads your website again every week on its own, but launch day will not wait for that. After your final edits, click Refresh website under Bot knowledge so it reads the new pages right away. If you have a help center or docs site, add it as its own source so the chat can answer how to questions too.

Write answers for the questions you expect. Add your own questions and answers for anything your pages leave unclear: the exact terms of a launch discount, what the trial includes and what happens when it ends. Write them the way a visitor would ask.

Prepare an honest answer for things you have not built. Launch visitors love roadmap questions. "Not today, and we would love to hear how you would use it" beats a vague promise. Never give dates you are not sure of.

Test it. Ask your chat the ten questions you expect most. When an answer is wrong, open the conversation, give that answer a thumbs down and type what it should have said. The bot uses your correction from then on.

Set suggested questions for newcomers

People who know nothing about you often do not know what to ask. Assistly can show up to three suggested questions under the first message, and a visitor taps one to ask it. For launch day, pick questions a newcomer would ask, such as "What does it do?" or "Is there a free plan?". You can also set different questions for up to five pages, so your pricing page can offer "Which plan is right for me?" instead.

Tag your launch links so you know what worked

Add utm tags to every link you share, with a different source for the launch platform, your newsletter and each post.

In Assistly, Results at the top of Insights shows leads by the page the visitor first landed on and by the source that brought them, read from those tags. This part is on the paid plans (Pro and up), and the 30 day free trial includes it. The day after, you can see which channels brought people who actually left their details.

Watch who is on your site and say hello

The Home page in Assistly lists who is on your website right now: the page they are on, how long they have been there, where they came from and whether they are new or returning. Visitors are never named and no IP address is shown.

Next to each visitor is a Say hi button. It sends one hello into that visitor's chat window, from you, with your name, and the AI keeps answering after it, so you do not have to stay.

Use it with care. A hello to someone who has spent a few minutes on your pricing page feels thoughtful. A hello to everyone feels pushy. Keep it short and helpful, like "Thanks for checking us out today. Happy to answer anything about the launch offer."

Say hi is part of the paid plans (Starter and up), and the free trial includes it. A hello only counts toward your monthly chats once the visitor writes back.

Plan who steps in, and when

The AI can answer most launch questions from your pages. Some chats still deserve a person, like a possible partner or a visitor who hit a bug. Decide who covers the chat in each part of the day, and make sure they hear about the chats that matter:

Phone alerts tell you when a visitor leaves their details or asks for a person. They are included in every plan.
Team alerts post new leads, requests for a person, booking requests and thumbs down ratings to a Slack, Microsoft Teams or Discord channel, with a button that opens the chat.
Hot lead scoring marks each chat Hot, Warm or Cold with a one line reason, so you can see who to answer first. It is part of the paid plans (Starter and up).

To step in, open the chat in your inbox and switch Who answers from AI to You. When you are done, switch it back so the AI keeps helping. If the visitor already left and gave an email address, your reply reaches them by email with a link back to the same chat.

Check your chat limit before the traffic arrives

A launch can bring far more conversations than a normal week, so check your plan before the day. In Assistly, the Free plan includes 50 chats a month and Basic includes 500. Starter and up have no monthly chat limit.

When a monthly limit is used up, the chat still greets new visitors and asks for their name and phone number or email, so you keep the leads. But the AI stops answering questions, and you cannot reply from your inbox until you upgrade or the count starts again on the 1st.

The day after: turn launch chats into improvements

In one day you hear what newcomers find confusing, in their own words. Open Insights and look at:

What visitors ask most. The top questions belong on your homepage, not only in the chat.
Questions the AI could not answer. Write the answer once and the chat uses it next time. Each night Assistly also drafts suggested answers from your own website and files, and nothing is used until you approve it.

Then follow up with every lead while the launch is fresh in their mind, and mark each one New, Contacted or Won as you go so nobody is forgotten.

Frequently asked questions

Should I greet every launch visitor automatically?

No. A hello works best when it is personal and well timed. Say hi to people who seem interested, such as visitors who have spent time on your pricing page.

What should the chat say about features we have not built?

The truth. Give it an honest answer to work from, such as "not available today", and invite the visitor to share how they would use it.

How do I know which launch channel brought real leads?

Tag each launch link with utm tags. Results in Assistly then shows leads by page and by source.

Can the chat answer while my team sleeps?

Yes. The AI answers around the clock from your pages and your own answers. When it does not know something, it says so honestly and the question waits for you to answer once.

A launch only happens once. To have your website chat ready for every newcomer, start a 30 day free trial at assistlychat.com, no card needed.