How To Use the External Chat

External Chat is the guide you meet when you visit a skilly link, on a website, in an email, or on a QR code. It is built to answer your questions in real time, point you to the right resource, and connect you with a person when that is what you need. This guide covers how to get the most out of it, including the accessibility features built in for keyboard and screen reader use.


Before You Begin

Before your conversation starts, you may see a welcome screen introducing skilly with a short greeting. From here you have two options: select "Start Chat" to begin talking right away as a guest, or select "Create a free account" to sign up in about 20 seconds so you can save, export, and manage your conversations later. Creating an account means agreeing to the Terms and Conditions.


Starting A Conversation

When you open External Chat, you will see a short greeting and a handful of suggested questions. You can select one of these, or simply type your own question into the message box at the bottom of the screen and press Enter or select the send button. If you'd rather not type, select the microphone icon to ask your question by voice instead. To start over at any point, select the “New Chat” icon below the message box to clear the conversation and begin fresh.



Suggested Questions

After every response, a new set of suggested questions appears above the message box. These are generated based on the conversation so far, and are meant to help you go deeper on a topic without having to think of the exact right phrasing yourself.



Citations And Sources

Many answers include small citation icons next to the text they support. Selecting one opens a short preview of the source. Selecting "Read More" opens the full source content in a separate window, so you can always see exactly where an answer came from. If you want to save or share a response, select the copy icon below the answer to copy the text to your clipboard.



Each response also includes an "Explore Further" tab you can select to dig deeper into a topic beyond the initial answer.



Reviewing Past Conversations

Select the menu icon (three horizontal lines) in the top left corner, then "Chat History," to see a list of your recent conversations. Selecting any entry reopens that conversation where you left off.



From this History panel, select "View All History" to open your full consumer view, where you can see and search every conversation you've had across all agents, not just this one.



Browsing Privately

If you would rather not have a conversation tied to your account history, select "Go Incognito" in the top right corner. A banner will confirm the conversation is now private. You can exit this mode at any time using the same button. For details on how your data is handled in this mode, see our Privacy Policy on privacy and de-identification.



Sharing Feedback

Select "Provide Feedback" at the bottom of the screen at any time. You can rate your experience on a simple five point scale and add a note if there is anything you would like the team to know.




Accessibility

External Chat is built to work for everyone, including people using a keyboard alone or a screen reader:

  • Every button, link, and message can be reached and activated using the Tab and Enter keys.
  • Focus is always visible, so you can see exactly where you are on the page as you move through it.
  • Screen readers announce messages, buttons, and source citations using descriptive labels.
  • Text and color contrast meet WCAG 2.1 AA guidelines, and the page reflows cleanly at larger text sizes.

If you run into anything that does not work well with your assistive technology, please let us know at Accessibility@AskSkilly.com so we can take a look.


Last updated on July 8, 2026