Integration
How to connect your CRM help docs to a chat widget
How to connect your CRM help docs to a chat widget — answered from your own docs. See how CRM teams use Chatref (knowledge-base, website-widget) to solve it. St
When you connect your CRM's help center to a Chatref widget, you give the AI agent access to your own how-to articles, guides, and setup docs. Customers type questions into the widget on your website and get precise answers drawn only from that material, while your team is freed from repeat requests.
What connects to what
On one side, you have your CRM platform's help center – a collection of articles, tutorials, and reference docs that explain things like import procedures, permission models, and integration steps. On the other, a chat widget sits on your CRM website or web app, ready to answer visitor questions the moment they arrive.
Chatref bridges these two. You provide the help center content as a source – by pointing to its public URL or sitemap – and Chatref builds an AI agent grounded in that material. The website widget becomes the agent's front end: it accepts visitor questions and responds from inside the same set of docs your support team already maintains. For CRM platforms, this setup answers the heavy repeat questions – import processes, permission setups, and integration steps – that drain admin hours.
How to set it up
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Get a public view of your help center. Locate the URL for your help center's article listing page, or find its sitemap (often at
/help/sitemap.xml,/articles/sitemap.xml, or similar). If you use a hosted knowledge base like Intercom or Zendesk, the sitemap should be available in its settings. Any public article inside that sitemap will be ingested. -
Add the content in Chatref. Create a new agent (or open an existing one). In the agent's Content section, choose to add a source by URL or sitemap. Paste the help center URL and confirm. Chatref scans all reachable articles, splits them, and builds the agent's knowledge base in a few minutes.
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Test with real questions. Before placing the widget on your live site, use the Playground inside the Chatref app. Type questions your CRM users actually ask: "How do I bulk-import contacts?", "What permissions does the sales rep role have?", "Can I connect my Outlook calendar?". Compare the answers against your source articles. If an answer misses an important detail, check that the relevant article is public and included in the sitemap.
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Copy the widget snippet. Go to the Widget tab for the agent and copy the provided JavaScript snippet. Add the domain where you plan to install it to the allowed-origins list – this prevents others from embedding your widget.
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Paste the snippet into your CRM platform. Add the snippet to your CRM's website or application, usually inside the
<head>tag or just before the closing</body>tag. Consult your platform's documentation for custom code placement. Most site builders, headless CMS setups, and app frameworks let you inject a script globally; if your CRM is a hosted platform, check for a "custom code" or "header Scripts" setting. -
Verify the widget appears. Load your CRM's public-facing page or app where the snippet was pasted. You should see the chat launcher. Click it and ask a test question. The answer should arrive within a few seconds, and the widget should include a "Source" link to the article it used.
What users see
A user visiting your CRM site sees a small chat bubble in the lower-right corner – styled with your brand color and logo if you customized them. When they type a question, the widget loads a response directly from your agent. The answer appears in seconds, often with a linked citation to the specific help article it pulled from.
The conversation stays inside the widget. If the agent cannot fully resolve the issue – or if a customer explicitly asks for a person – the widget can offer a human handoff. Your team, logged into the shared inbox, sees the full thread and can take over without switching tools. This keeps the support experience consistent: answers from your own docs first, then your team steps in only when it adds value.
Troubleshooting
Widget does not appear on the site.
Check that the snippet was pasted exactly as provided. Common mistakes include pasting it inside a non-rendering element, adding it to a page template that is not deployed, or missing a required closing tag. Also review the allowed-origins list in the widget settings: if your live domain is not listed, the widget stays invisible. Add your exact domain (including the subdomain) and save the change.
Answers do not match your help docs.
The agent answers only from the content you added. If a missing article means the answer falls short, re-check your source. A sitemap might exclude certain pages; you can add an additional URL for a specific article or upload a PDF export of your help center. After updating the source, wait for the reprocessing to finish and test again in the Playground.
Answers are stale after you updated your help center.
Chatref does not detect live changes to your help center automatically. After you publish new CRM help articles or modify existing ones, return to the agent's Content section and re-add the same source (or use the refresh option if available). This triggers a new scan and re-index. For frequently changing docs, set a weekly calendar reminder to refresh the source.
Widget loads slowly or shows errors.
The widget loads asynchronously; a very slow page load on your site can delay it. Ensure your own pages are not blocking third-party scripts. If the widget icon appears but chat messages fail to send, check the browser console for network errors that might indicate a domain mismatch or a CSP (Content Security Policy) restriction on your site that blocks the widget's requests.
FAQ
Can a widget read my help center?
The widget itself does not crawl your help center live. You first add your help center as a content source in Chatref – by providing a URL, sitemap, or file upload – and the platform reads and processes those articles once. The widget then answers visitor questions from that processed snapshot. It reads your content during setup, not on every customer request.
How do I keep chat answers up to date?
Whenever your CRM help center changes, you need to inform Chatref. Inside the agent's Content settings, re-add or refresh the same source (for example, re-enter the same sitemap URL). Chatref re-scans the articles, and the widget will serve answers from the updated material within a few minutes. A monthly or bi-weekly refresh cadence, aligned with your content publishing schedule, keeps the answers current.
Related guides
Put this into practice
Chatref answers your customers from your own content, day and night. Add it to your site and go live in minutes – free to start.