Your website should say hello first

Hosted by Mrs. NetShow.

Walk into a good shop and someone looks up and says hello. Open most websites and nothing happens. The page waits. Somewhere in a corner a small box offers to take a typed question, and most people scroll past it.

A NetShow agent changes that first moment. Your agent can greet the people who visit your own website, with its face and its voice, and it can speak first. This post is about why that matters and what a visitor actually meets.

The silent page and the waiting box

A silent page asks the visitor to do all the work. They have to find the answer, or find the contact page, or decide that a typed chat box is worth the effort. A typed box is better than nothing, but it still waits for them.

When your agent speaks first on your site, the page stops waiting. A face appears, a greeting is already there, and the visitor has someone to answer. That is the whole idea: the first move is yours, not theirs.

You can see the same thing on our own site. Open any page of the NetShow help centre and Mrs. NetShow is there in the corner: "Your first hello at the NetShow door: tell me what you came for and I will point you to the right next step." Under it, "Tap to talk", and the line "You can type, or tap to use your microphone."

What a visitor meets on your site

Here is what happens on your website once your agent is set to speak first, step by step, as our guide walks it.

A face in the corner. A panel docks at the bottom right with your agent's face, and the greeting appears as a caption straight away. Nobody has to find a button to learn that someone is there.

The greeting, out loud, from the first tap. Browsers keep a page silent until the visitor taps or presses a key, so the greeting is spoken out loud from their first tap. Nothing blares at someone who has not touched the page yet. The words are on screen from the start; the voice arrives the moment they engage.

Your agent's own voice. Your agent speaks with the voice you pick for it in the agent editor, under Realtime Voice. It is the same voice you hear when you press Talk there to try it.

The microphone only when they say yes. The browser asks the visitor's permission before the agent can hear them, and it listens only if they allow it. A visitor who would rather not speak does not have to.

Typing is always there. The panel's Menu holds Chat for typing instead, Mute replies and Stop listening. The × in the corner closes the panel and brings the chat bubble back. Nobody is forced into a conversation they did not want.

You choose the first words

The greeting is not ours. It is yours.

In the agent editor, under Personality, there is a Welcome Message. Turn on Enable Welcome Message, which the page describes as "Automatically send a greeting when a user starts a session", write the line, and press Save. The Deploy page also lets you change the welcome line before you copy the tag for your site.

A good first line is short, says who is talking and asks one easy question. Our guide gives this example:

Hi, I'm Maya from Riverside Dental. Are you booking a visit or asking about one?

Keep it to one or two sentences. A visitor decides in seconds whether to answer, and a long opening gets talked over.

Speaking first is a switch, not a default

Speaking first is something you turn on for each website, and you can turn it off again.

With it off, visitors see a chat bubble in the corner of the page and the agent waits for them to open it. With it on, they meet the face and the greeting described above. Once your site's address is verified on the embed page, a switch appears beside it: Speak first on this site. Press it to turn it on; press it again to turn it off. If you do not see the switch, speaking first is not switched on for your account yet, and the chat bubble still works.

Two conditions come first, and both protect you. Your agent has to be public: if it is not, the switch tells you "Make your agent public so it can speak." And your site has to be verified as yours. Until it is, the chat bubble on your site tells visitors the door is closed instead of replying.

Why start with a greeting

We built NetShow agents to talk. A NetShow agent has a voice of its own, it can open the conversation with a first line you write, and a visitor can answer out loud or in writing. Our guide puts it in one line: an agent that waits in silence feels like an empty shop.

A greeting does three jobs at once. It tells the visitor someone is there. It tells them what kind of help is on offer. And it asks one question they can answer without thinking. None of that needs a sales script; it needs a face, a voice and one good sentence.

FAQ

Will my agent start talking the moment someone lands on my page?

No. The greeting appears as a caption straight away, but browsers keep a page silent until the visitor taps or presses a key. The greeting is spoken out loud from their first tap.

Does my agent listen to visitors without asking?

No. The browser asks the visitor's permission before the agent can hear them, and it listens only if they allow it. The panel's Menu also has Stop listening.

Can visitors type instead of talking?

Yes. The panel's Menu holds Chat for typing instead. The × in the corner closes the panel and brings back the chat bubble.

Can I change what it says first?

Yes. Write the line under Welcome Message in the agent editor's Personality tab and press Save. The Deploy page also lets you change the welcome line before you copy the tag.

Can I turn speaking first off again?

Yes. On the embed page, press Speak first on this site again to turn it off. With it off, visitors see a chat bubble and the agent waits for them to open it.

Put your agent on your website

Everything above happens on a website you own once three things are done: your agent is published, one tag is pasted into your site, and your site is verified as yours. Our step-by-step guide walks the embed page that hands you both the tag and the proof, then shows where the Speak first on this site switch appears and how to take the agent off your site again. It takes about five minutes to read, and nothing breaks if you paste the tag before you verify.