# Chat (/en/businesses/customers/chat)

Chat is where your customers talk to you and to each other inside Thril. A customer messages your venue in the app or on the web instead of calling. Every event and course gets a chat for its participants, and you can open group chats for your community. Staff answer everything under **Chats**. To reach every customer at once, post an [announcement](/businesses/marketing/announcements) or send an [email](/businesses/marketing/emails).

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## What venues use chat for [#what-venues-use-chat-for]

**A support line that says when you reply.** Customers message your venue from your venue page. A **Chat notice** at the top of their chat tells them what to expect, such as "We reply on weekdays 9 to 17. For bookings today, call 040 123 4567."

**An announcement channel for a league.** Turn on **Announcement channel** in a league's or an event's chat. Only your staff post, and the players read and react. Schedule changes reach everyone without fifty replies.

**A community group.** **New group chat** creates a chat such as "Morning yoga regulars". With **Show on venue page**, customers find it on your venue page and join it themselves. **Also show at these venues** puts the same chat on other venues of your company.

**A thank-you after every visit.** A [workflow](/businesses/marketing/workflows) can send a chat message from your venue when a visit ends, also to a customer who has never written to you.

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## The chats your venue has [#the-chats-your-venue-has]

Your venue has a chat with each customer who writes to you, and a chat for every event and tournament, course group, league and league group, and service booking. Participants join an event chat when they sign up and leave it when they cancel. Group chats are the ones staff create.

Each customer has one chat with your venue, and a new message continues the earlier conversation. The chat belongs to the venue. Anyone on your staff who can open **Chats** sees it and can answer.

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## Who can post [#who-can-post]

**Who can post** has a setting for each kind of chat, from customer messages to service bookings. Each has one of three values:

| Value                   | What it means                                                                                               |
| ----------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Everyone can post**   | Customers and staff write                                                                                   |
| **Only staff can post** | Customers read and react. In customer messages, customers cannot start a new chat or write to you           |
| **Off**                 | Nobody posts or reacts. Chats with messages stay readable, and empty ones are hidden until chat is on again |

Thril sets these for each venue. To change them, ask [support@thril.fi](mailto:support@thril.fi). Another venue of your company can work differently.

A single chat can be stricter than the venue setting. **Announcement channel** in a chat's details makes that one chat staff-only. An event whose participants are fully hidden always has a staff-only chat.

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## The chat notice [#the-chat-notice]

The **Chat notice** shows at the top of every chat customers start with your venue. Use it for reply times, the phone number for urgent matters, or a plain "We don't reply in chat. For bookings, call or email us." The notice shows while customer messages are set to **Everyone can post**.

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## Hearing about new messages [#hearing-about-new-messages]

[**Notify about new chat messages**](/businesses/getting-started/company-and-venue#notifications-for-your-staff) emails your notification addresses when a customer writes to your venue. Thril gathers the messages of a busy evening into one email.