BigCommerce stores add Social Intents through Script Manager - BigCommerce's built-in tool for third-party scripts - in about five minutes. Live chat on an ecommerce store pays for itself in rescued carts: shoppers with a pre-purchase question either get an instant answer or leave.
Install via Script Manager
Copy Your Snippet
In Social Intents, go to Chat Widgets → your widget → Deploy and copy the JavaScript snippet.
Create a Script in BigCommerce
In your BigCommerce admin, go to Storefront → Script Manager and click Create a Script.
Configure the Script
- Name: Social Intents Live Chat
- Placement: Footer
- Location: All pages
- Script category: Essential (chat is a customer-service function)
- Script type: Script - paste your snippet into the contents box
Save and Verify
Save, open your storefront in a private window, and confirm the chat bubble appears. Run the test checklist end to end.
Ecommerce Setup Worth Doing
- Train the AI on your store - Point Knowledge at your shipping, returns, and sizing pages plus your product catalog pages. Pre-sales questions ("does this ship to Canada?") are exactly what a trained bot answers perfectly at 2 a.m.
- Checkout coverage - Script Manager's "All pages" placement includes the checkout on most themes; a question answered at checkout is a sale saved.
- Capture the order number - Add an order-number field to your pre-chat form for support chats so agents skip the lookup dance.
- After-hours leads - Configure the offline experience so overnight shoppers leave an email instead of bouncing.
Troubleshooting
Widget not appearing
Confirm the script's placement is Footer and location is All pages, then clear the BigCommerce storefront cache (Storefront → the theme's Advanced settings) and hard-refresh.
Widget missing on checkout only
Optimized One-Page Checkout restricts scripts by category - make sure the script category is Essential, and note some checkout configurations still limit third-party scripts by design.
Multiple storefronts
BigCommerce multi-storefront: add the script per storefront channel in Script Manager. Use one Social Intents widget for a unified queue, or separate widgets per storefront for separate teams and reporting.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will chat slow my store down?
No - the snippet loads asynchronously after page content and does not affect page speed scores or Core Web Vitals.
Can agents see what the shopper is looking at?
Yes - the current page URL is visible with each conversation, so agents know if the shopper is on a product page or stuck in checkout. See Visitor Information During Chat.
Do I need a developer?
No - Script Manager is copy-paste. No theme file edits are involved, and theme updates will not remove the script.