Gladly

Overview

Gladly is an enterprise customer service platform that reimagines support around people rather than tickets. Instead of creating a new ticket for each support interaction, Gladly builds a single lifelong conversation timeline for each customer, unifying voice calls, email, live chat, SMS, WhatsApp, Twitter/X DMs, and Facebook Messenger into one continuous view. It is used by consumer brands — particularly retail, e-commerce, and subscription services — that handle high contact volumes and want to eliminate the frustration of customers repeating themselves across channels. Gladly's scripts appear on customer-facing websites as live chat and messaging widgets embedded in branded support portals.

What This Script Does

Gladly's scripts load a messaging widget on customer-facing websites:

Widget initialization:

• Loads the Gladly SDK (cdn.gladly.com/gladly/chat-sdk/widget.js) on pages where customer support access is configured — typically help centers, order status pages, checkout flows, and account pages
• Initializes the widget with the brand's configuration: widget appearance (colors, logo, greeting message), available channels (chat, email, SMS), and operating hours

Chat and messaging:

• Renders a chat icon or embedded messaging interface that visitors can click to start a support conversation
• When a visitor initiates chat, the script opens a WebSocket connection to Gladly's messaging infrastructure to enable real-time message delivery between the visitor and a support agent
• Transmits messages, attachments, and any contextual information the visitor provides to Gladly's servers

Visitor context collection:

• Captures the visitor's current page URL and passes it to the connected agent so the agent can see what the customer was looking at when they initiated contact
• For authenticated customers (logged into an account), the site can pass identity signals (customer ID, email, name, order context) to Gladly via gladly.setUserToken() or similar initialization calls, pre-populating the customer's support timeline for the agent
• This identity handoff is configured by the implementing organization — Gladly does not independently identify anonymous visitors

Session persistence:

• Sets gladly_session (first-party, session cookie) to maintain the active conversation state across page navigations during the visit
• May set gladly_cid (first-party, persistent, up to 1 year) to recognize returning visitors and reconnect them with their previous conversation history on the same device

Real-time agent routing:

• Routes incoming conversations to available agents based on configured skill routing, queue depth, and operating hours
• Displays queue position and estimated wait time to visitors when agent capacity is limited

Consent & Compliance

• Category: Functional
• GDPR: Customer support chat is a user-initiated service directly supporting the contractual relationship between the organization and its customers. Under GDPR, this processing can be justified under "contract performance" (Article 6(1)(b)) or "legitimate interests" (Article 6(1)(f)). Gladly acts as a data processor; a DPA is required. The gladly_session cookie is strictly necessary for the chat service. The gladly_cid persistent cookie enables conversation history continuity for returning visitors — this serves a clear functional purpose for users who return with follow-up questions.
• ePrivacy Directive: Session cookies for maintaining the support conversation are strictly necessary for the service the visitor explicitly requests. The persistent gladly_cid cookie serves a legitimate functional purpose (conversation continuity) rather than tracking for marketing.
• CCPA: Support conversation data constitutes personal information. Disclose Gladly's use in your privacy policy. Gladly is a US company (San Francisco) — EU data transfers use Standard Contractual Clauses.
• Authenticated context: When Gladly receives customer identity information (name, email, order history) passed from the host site on login, this enriches the support timeline. This processing is part of the service delivery and covered by the organization's customer relationship privacy disclosures.

Should You Block This Without Consent?

No. Gladly provides customer support functionality that visitors explicitly initiate. The cookies set are necessary for maintaining chat sessions and enabling conversation continuity for returning customers. Blocking this script would prevent customers from accessing support, which is a core customer service function.