Kustomer

Overview

Kustomer is a CRM-powered customer service platform that consolidates support interactions across email, chat, SMS, social media, and voice into a unified customer timeline. Its website widget embeds a live chat interface that routes visitor messages to agent queues in real time. Kustomer was acquired by Meta in 2022 and later divested; it operates independently as a customer service SaaS.

What This Script Does

Kustomer's widget script (widget.kustomer.com) loads a floating chat bubble, typically positioned in the bottom-right corner of the page. When a visitor opens the chat panel and initiates a conversation, several things happen:

Chat session management

• Opens a real-time messaging panel communicating with Kustomer's servers over WebSocket connections
• Sets a kustomer-identity cookie or writes to localStorage to persist the chat session token across page navigations, so a conversation is not lost if the visitor navigates between pages
• The session token allows agents to see the full conversation history if the visitor returns in a future session

Visitor context collection

• Tracks the visitor's browsing path within the session — page URLs visited before and during the chat — and surfaces this to agents as context
• Collects device type, browser, operating system, and referral source
• If the visitor is authenticated on the host application, the host site can pass user identity attributes (user ID, name, email) to Kustomer via the Kustomer.identify() API call, linking the chat session to a known customer record

Agent routing

• Routes incoming conversations to teams or individual agents based on configured business rules
• Supports conversation handoffs between AI-assisted triage and human agents
• Sends system events (conversation opened, message sent, CSAT submitted) to the Kustomer platform

Consent & Compliance

• Category: Functional
• GDPR: Kustomer's chat widget is a functional service tool. It processes visitor data only in the context of providing customer support — which is typically covered under the legitimate interests legal basis or the performance of a contract. Personal data entered into the chat (name, email, order details) is processed per the operator's privacy policy and data processing agreement with Kustomer.
• Data transfers: Kustomer is a US company. Chat data is processed in the US. EU deployments require a DPA and an appropriate data transfer mechanism (Standard Contractual Clauses or EU-US Data Privacy Framework).
• Cookies/storage: kustomer-identity (1st party, persistent session token), localStorage entries for widget state. No advertising cookies are set.
• No ad tracking: Kustomer does not use visitor data for advertising purposes or cross-site tracking. Data collected is used solely to operate the customer support interaction.

Should You Block This Without Consent?

No consent banner required for a pure chat widget used only for customer support. Kustomer's widget is functional — it is required to provide the chat service the visitor is actively using. Under GDPR, functional cookies necessary to deliver a requested service are exempt from the consent requirement. However, if your implementation passes behavioral data beyond what is strictly necessary for chat (e.g., full page event streams), those additional data flows should be disclosed in your privacy policy.