# Visitor Says (flow trigger)

Section: Flows

Description: How the Visitor says trigger starts a Flow when a visitor's message is similar to your phrases, in nine languages, and how to set it up.

Verified against Tidio panel 12.304.0

Last updated: 2026-11-06

Source: https://help.tidio.com/articles/visitor-says-flow-trigger/

When creating a flow in Tidio, the **Visitor says** trigger allows you to trigger flow responses based on the messages sent by your website visitors during a conversation. In this article, we will explore the functionality and benefits of the Visitor says trigger.

 

**In this article, you'll learn:**

 

- [How the Visitor says trigger works](<https://help.tidio.com/articles/visitor-says-flow-trigger/#what-is-nlp>)
- [Why you should consider the Visitor says trigger](<https://help.tidio.com/articles/visitor-says-flow-trigger/#h_01GKVCWYR34Z0MRSW5J52CGEJJ>)
- [How to add the Visitor says trigger](<https://help.tidio.com/articles/visitor-says-flow-trigger/#add-nlp-to-your-bot>)
- [How Visitor says works with tickets from the widget](<https://help.tidio.com/articles/visitor-says-flow-trigger/#visitor-says-and-offline-tickets>)
- [How Visitor says works in conversations](<https://help.tidio.com/articles/visitor-says-flow-trigger/#nlp-chatbots-in-a-conversation>)
- [How to use Visitor says with unsupported languages (keywords matching) ](<https://help.tidio.com/articles/visitor-says-flow-trigger/#h_01GKVFBRX3NWRX27GFSVW6FXTD>)



[Video](<https://help.tidio.com/article-media/visitor-says-flow-trigger/walkthrough.mp4>)



Silent walkthrough. Create a flow with the Visitor says trigger: pick the language and a conversation topic, add custom phrases, connect a chat message and activate it.

 

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**Visitor says supports** English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Greek and Turkish.

 

## Visitor says - how does it work?

 

The **Visitor says** trigger uses **Natural Language Processing**. [Natural Language Processing](<https://www.tidio.com/blog/chatbot-marketing-terms/#nlp>) (or NLP) is one of the forms of artificial intelligence that aims at recognizing and understanding the natural language used by us daily. Thanks to NLP, flows can reply to users' questions based on phrases typed in by users. That's exactly what the **Visitor says** trigger does.

 

One **Visitor says** trigger is meant to handle one question or topic. That means you may need to create a few flows with the **Visitor says** trigger to cover and automate a number of the most common topics, such as refunds, orders, shipping, etc.

 

Please note that when you create a Flow with a trigger or action node that works on multiple channels, it will be active across all those channels.

 

So, if you create a Flow with the **Visitor says** trigger and a visitor uses the specified word on Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger, the Flow will be triggered on all platforms if a visitor triggers it. It is not possible to restrict it to only one of the channels.

 

## Why should you consider the Visitor says trigger?

 

The **Visitor says** trigger allows the flow to work based on real, user-typed messages instead of pre-made and selectable options, making the interaction less restricted.

 

The flow can react with a specific message based on the context of the customer's question. E.g., if the person asks "I want to return a product," - the flow can recognize the similarity to the trigger phrase "how to process a return?" and trigger the appropriate reaction to it.

 

Without the **Visitor says** trigger, your flow would have to rely solely on the pre-made decision tree flow, forcing users to choose one of the pre-defined answers.

 

The **Visitor says** trigger compares your customers' messages with your trigger phrases and automates conversations with questions similar to your phrases.

 

![A diagram links different visitor refund questions to similar custom phrases in the English "Visitor says" trigger.](<https://help.tidio.com/article-media/visitor-says-flow-trigger/legacy-6916042068508.webp>)

 

In the more natural example you see above, the **Visitor says** trigger recognizes the refund question and can reply with the corresponding answers.

 

![Refund trigger phrases appear beside a chat where a request for money back receives return policy information and a refund form link.](<https://help.tidio.com/article-media/visitor-says-flow-trigger/legacy-21359210158620.webp>)

 

**Visitor says** allows your flow to trigger if a visitor's message is similar to the phrases you set inside the trigger. The trigger and the visitor's messages don't need to match perfectly - think of it as more human-like reasoning.

 

To make the **Visitor says** trigger work even more like a human - you may need to set up trigger phrases in a more natural way, with full-length sentences/questions and their variations. You will see the best results by adding phrases that your visitors actually use when chatting.

 

Don't worry if the phrases don't seem especially accurate or if they contain mistakes (grammar or typos). The **Visitor says** AI model will try to understand the visitor's message and compare it with your trigger phrases.

 

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**Please note:** if you [enable **Lyro** ](<https://help.tidio.com/sections/lyro-ai-agent/>), any **Visitor says** flows you currently have **will be disabled**. This is to make sure visitors' messages do not interfere with how Lyro works in general, and how Lyro **tasks** trigger. However, you can enable your **Visitor says** flows back again anytime, even if Lyro is active.

 

## Adding Visitor says to your flow

 

To add the **Visitor says** trigger, [create a flow from scratch](<https://help.tidio.com/articles/flow-editor-triggers/#adding-a-trigger>) or [edit an existing scenario](<https://help.tidio.com/articles/edit-initial-message/>). Then drag and drop the **Visitor says** trigger onto the flow's editing map and connect it to the appropriate action.

 

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**Please note:** the **Visitor says** trigger isn't included in every plan. If it's not in yours, you can still add it to the board, but clicking it shows "This trigger isn't available on your plan." instead of its settings, together with a short list of what it does.

 ![The Visitor says trigger selected in the flow editor of a project whose plan doesn't include it: the settings panel on the right shows the illustration and "This trigger isn't available on your plan. Upgrade today and enable Tidio to:" with the list of benefits](<https://help.tidio.com/article-media/visitor-says-flow-trigger/71.1.png>) 

Once you add the **Visitor says** trigger - you will need to select the language you want for this particular flow.

 

Pick it in the **Conversation language** field. At this moment, we support the following languages: *English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Greek and Turkish.*

 

![The Visitor says trigger selected in the flow editor, with the Conversation language list open on the right showing English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Greek, Modern and Turkish](<https://help.tidio.com/article-media/visitor-says-flow-trigger/71.2.png>) 

Once the language is chosen - you can manually set up the questions and phrases (keep **Custom** in the **Conversation topic** field), or pick one of our pre-defined datasets (templates) there, such as: order status, discount codes, and shipping details. With a dataset picked, you'll see "Good work, the trigger is set." - and you can still click **Add custom phrases to increase effectiveness** to add your own.

 

![The "Visitor says" conversation topic menu offers Custom, order status, discount, shipping details, Greetings, and Gratitude.](<https://help.tidio.com/article-media/visitor-says-flow-trigger/legacy-13306007384732.webp>)

 

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As far as possible, please make sure to add full sentences; this allows the system to work best. A single word (or even two words) may not be enough, as that is often used in many different contexts and could trigger the wrong response from your flows.

 



 

In the last step - you'll be asked to add your own questions or phrases, based on what you expect your users to write.

 



 

![The English "Visitor says" trigger contains three custom refund phrases, including "How to request a refund?" and "I need a refund".](<https://help.tidio.com/article-media/visitor-says-flow-trigger/legacy-13305992675484.webp>)

 



 



 

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### Feeding your Visitor says trigger

 

Adding just a single word to **Visitor says** trigger is not normally enough. With only one word in the list, your visitor would have to put in the exact same word for the flow to trigger. However, this can work well if you are actually planning to use **Visitor says** for detecting specific, unique keywords\!

 

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**One Visitor says trigger = one language **

 

Remember that you can use **only one language** in one **Visitor says** trigger. If you wish to trigger one flow using phrases in different languages, create separate **Visitor says** triggers for other language versions or create a separate flow entirely.

 



 



 

![The English "Visitor asking about order status" topic is configured successfully, with fields available for additional custom phrases.](<https://help.tidio.com/article-media/visitor-says-flow-trigger/legacy-13306007386780.webp>)

 



 



 

You can add multiple sentences to train the **Visitor says** trigger engine. Phrases added to those fields will trigger a flow response. The more phrases we add, the greater the chance your flow will recognize what the visitor has written. We suggest using at least 3 phrases - but the more, the better\!

 

![The "Visitor says" trigger lists four different delivery questions and connects to a chat message action.](<https://help.tidio.com/article-media/visitor-says-flow-trigger/legacy-13306007391900.webp>)

 



 

Because we have implemented so many phrases, our flow will recognize what we want even if we are not using the exact phrases:

 

![Delivery trigger phrases appear beside a chat where a differently worded delivery question receives a response about arrival within five business days.](<https://help.tidio.com/article-media/visitor-says-flow-trigger/legacy-21359220719900.webp>)

 

## Visitor says and tickets from the widget

 

If **Let visitors create ticket when offline** is turned on in **Settings \> Live Chat \> Appearance**, the trigger shows a warning at the top: "Activating Flow with Visitor says trigger will disable creating tickets from widget when agents are offline." When you hit **Activate**, Tidio asks you to confirm - click **Activate Flow** to go ahead, or **Cancel** to keep things as they are.

 ![The confirmation window shown after clicking Activate on a flow with the Visitor says trigger, with the text "Activating Flow with Visitor says trigger will disable creating tickets from widget when agents are offline" and the Cancel and Activate Flow buttons](<https://help.tidio.com/article-media/visitor-says-flow-trigger/71.3.png>) 

## 

 

## The Visitor says trigger in a conversation

 

The **Visitor says** trigger will only work in conversations that are **not assigned** to any agent. We designed them that way to avoid any unnecessary and annoying interruptions; after all, if an agent is already chatting with the visitor, that means they are available to answer their questions.

 

## Unsupported languages - using keyword matching

 

If your language is not on the list of supported **Visitor says** languages, you can still use **keywords** with the trigger's exact match capabilities. The **Visitor says** trigger will match your visitors' messages with the keywords that you listed inside the trigger.

 

### Using Visitor says with keywords

 

Start with the simplest (most common) example, like conversations about discount codes. In general, most of the visitors' questions will share the same keywords ("discount," "coupon," etc.), so there is no risk in creating such flows. Use short, common keywords and phrases that you are certain will come up in the chat. Watch out not to add any keyword that is too general, as it could trigger the **Visitor says** flow in a completely different topic, not one appropriate for the context.

 

Short phrases can also be useful. For example, specific keywords like product names, model numbers, codes, or the most common phrases are the best options in general.

 

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Remember to check all your added phrases for spelling mistakes - or include the misspelled phrases in addition to the correct version, if you think the visitors can make the same mistakes. E.g., if a visitor writes "Hi, can I get a discounts?" and the only trigger phrase is "discount code" - the flow will not trigger.

 

To learn more about the basics of editing a flow, look at our [flows guide](<https://help.tidio.com/sections/flows/>).

 

## Further reading

 

- [Flow editor: Triggers](<https://help.tidio.com/articles/flow-editor-triggers/>)
- [Create an FAQ Flow](<https://help.tidio.com/articles/create-an-faq-flow/>)
- [Create a Flow in Multiple Languages](<https://help.tidio.com/articles/glossary/#conditions->)
- [The Handoff Metric](<https://help.tidio.com/articles/handoff-metric/>)
