# Contacts

A contact is a customer identity — created automatically when someone identifies themselves in the [chat widget](/install), or by hand.

## Identity

Contacts are keyed by **email**: when a widget visitor provides theirs, they become (or match) a contact, and all their conversations link together. An anonymous visitor who later identifies is merged into the same record.

## What a contact carries

- Name, email, and custom fields your team adds
- **Visitor context** from the widget — where they were browsing when they wrote in
- **Conversation history** — every live chat conversation, with outcomes and satisfaction ratings
- **Linked Loops** — internal work opened for this customer

## Where you meet them

- **The Contacts list** — browse and search all customer records.
- **The live chat context pane** — the same record, shown beside the active conversation, so an operator sees history before answering.
- **Search** — contacts surface in [unified search](/search) next to messages, docs, and Loops.