Shoppers can ask your store a question right in ChatGPT or Claude: they mention EPAV Desk and name your store, for example "@EPAV Desk, how much is delivery at Acme?". The question goes to your own bot, and it answers the same way as in the chat on your website. You turn this on in the cabinet; it is off by default and available on every plan.
How it works
The shopper's question goes to the support chat of your site, in a separate channel called ChatGPT & Claude. Your assistant answers it with everything it has on the website chat:
- the same knowledge base and the same bot text;
- ready-made actions, such as the order status after a code from an email or a booking in Cal.com, with the same email check;
- handover to your team when the bot cannot help or the shopper asks for a person;
- the shopper's language.
ChatGPT or Claude then shows the bot's answer to the shopper, sometimes in its own words. Further questions in the same ChatGPT or Claude chat go to the same conversation, so the bot remembers what was said. A conversation can be continued this way for 30 days after its last message; after that, a new question from the same chat starts a new conversation.
Availability right now
EPAV Desk is published in ChatGPT: EPAV Desk in ChatGPT. Once the card is on, shoppers who ask through EPAV Desk in ChatGPT find your store. In Claude, EPAV Desk is still under review in the connector directory. Until it is published there, your store is found in Claude only by people who added the server https://ask.epavdesk.com/mcp themselves: Customize > Connectors > Add custom connector. Once Claude publishes EPAV Desk, shoppers find your store there too, without any extra step from you.
Turn it on in the cabinet
- Open the cabinet, section Site, card ChatGPT and Claude.
- Name shoppers search for already holds your company name from sign-up. Change it to the name shoppers know your store by.
- Your website already holds the address you checked with I pasted it, please check. Shoppers find the store by this address too.
- Press Answer shoppers in ChatGPT and Claude.
Within a minute your store is in the search of EPAV Desk. The name and the website change with Save.
What appears in your panel
Turning it on adds two things to your panel:
- a web chat inbox ChatGPT & Claude under Admin > Inboxes, with the settings of your main web chat: the greeting, the language and AI chat mode;
- a rule that gives new conversations from this inbox to your assistant (Admin > Automations).
Questions from ChatGPT and Claude reach your agents as ordinary conversations of the ChatGPT & Claude inbox, and agents answer them in the panel as usual. The widget code on your site does not change: the main web chat stays the one your site uses.
What shoppers see
- The bot usually answers in 5 to 30 seconds. When the answer takes longer, ChatGPT or Claude tells the shopper that the store is still answering, and the shopper gets the answer by asking again in the same chat whether the store has replied.
- When the bot hands the conversation to your team, the shopper sees the bot's handover message. Your agent's reply from the panel reaches the shopper when they ask in the same ChatGPT or Claude chat whether the store has replied. The shopper sees that the reply comes from your team, not the agent's name: write the name in the reply if you want the shopper to see it.
- In AI chat mode the bot answers on its own, exactly as in the chat on your site.
- There is no pre-chat form and no satisfaction survey in this channel: ChatGPT and Claude have nowhere to show them. The first message with the AI notice and the "Did this help?" question stay in your panel and are not shown to the shopper. Shoppers write text only, without files or voice messages.
What the shopper shares and what it costs
The shopper shares only the text of their messages and their language, and you see the conversation in the panel like any chat conversation. The language reaches your bot the way a website visitor's browser language does, so the bot answers in it. When ChatGPT or Claude does not pass the language, your bot gets English, the same as from a visitor with an English browser, and it still answers a full question in the language the question is written in. EPAV Desk keeps no copy of the messages outside your panel; it keeps only an encrypted record of which conversation a ChatGPT or Claude chat continues, for 30 days after the last message. When a ready-made action needs the shopper's email, the bot asks for it the same way as on the site, and the code goes to the shopper by email.
Conversations from ChatGPT and Claude count as conversations of your plan, like conversations in the chat on your site, and use the same cloud AI budget. The channel has no limits of its own: see Plans, limits and billing.
Turn it off
Press Stop answering there in the card. Within a minute your store is out of the EPAV Desk search, and the ChatGPT & Claude inbox is turned off in your panel. Conversations stay in the panel. Turning it on again uses the same inbox.
Do not delete the ChatGPT & Claude inbox in the panel. If it is deleted, turning on again creates a new inbox, and conversations that shoppers started earlier in ChatGPT or Claude do not continue.
When the bot stays silent in this channel
- Check that the ChatGPT & Claude inbox is turned on in Admin > Inboxes.
- Check that a rule gives its new conversations to your assistant: see Routing a new channel to the assistant.
- Check the same question in the chat on your site: the bot answers both from the same knowledge base.