1) Create the bot
Message @BotFather on Telegram, create a bot, and copy its token.
Connect the bot you created in @BotFather to SupportHQ. It answers private chats right away, follows your rules in groups and topics, replies in the customer's language, and hands off to your team with a summary.
One agent and one knowledge base, with behavior that fits each kind of chat.
Every message is for the bot. It answers what it can and escalates the rest.
It follows your rules: reply when mentioned or asked a product question, stay out of member chat.
It replies inside the right topic, and each topic becomes its own conversation in your inbox.
Setup
No code and no migration. Your docs are the setup.
Message @BotFather on Telegram, create a bot, and copy its token.
Paste the token into your project's integrations tab and save. SupportHQ sets the webhook for you.
Upload your FAQ, price list, and policies, or sync your website.
Share the bot's t.me link for private chats. Add it to the groups where customers ask.
Full answers in private chats. In groups, reply when mentioned, replied to, or asked a clear product question.
Send handoff alerts to your team in Telegram, by email, or by SMS.
Chat types
A Telegram chatbot that answers every group message gets muted fast. Private chats are the opposite: every message is a question for you. The agent treats them differently.
| Aspect | Private chat | Group | Group with topics |
|---|---|---|---|
| When it replies | To every message it can answer, unless your rules say otherwise. | Only when your rules say so, for example when mentioned or replied to. | Same rules as a group. The reply goes into the topic where the question was asked. |
| Suggested rule | "Answer every question about our product and policies." | "Reply only when mentioned, replied to, or asked a clear product question." | "Answer product questions. Stay out of member-to-member chat." |
| In the inbox | One conversation per customer chat. | One running conversation for the group. | One conversation per topic. |
One Telegram detail matters in groups. By default, Telegram does not deliver every group message to bots. If you want the agent to read all group messages and apply your rules, turn off privacy mode for the bot in @BotFather, or make the bot a group admin.
In depth
An AI Telegram bot is only useful if it stays accurate, stays quiet when it should, and gets a person when it must.
The agent answers from the sources you approved: uploaded files, your website, articles you write, and past conversations you turned into knowledge. A customer who asks about delivery at 2 a.m. gets your actual delivery policy, not a guess.
It replies in the language the message arrives in, with no setup. It reads text messages and the captions on photos and files. While it writes, the chat shows the bot as typing, just like a person.
Response rules decide whether the agent replies. For Telegram, it checks each message with the chat type, the group title, whether the bot was mentioned, whether the message is a reply, and the recent conversation as context.
Channel instructions shape how it replies. You can add instructions that apply only to groups or only to private chats, for example: keep group answers to two or three sentences. Read when your AI agent should stay quiet for rules that work in busy groups.
The agent escalates when it is not confident, when a customer asks for a person, or when the request needs an action it cannot take, such as a refund or an account change. It writes a reason, sets an urgency, and summarizes the chat.
Your team can get the alert in Telegram itself, or by email or SMS. A teammate replies from the SupportHQ inbox, the reply reaches the customer in the same chat, and the agent pauses on that conversation. In a group without topics, the whole group is one conversation, so the agent stays paused in that group until you resume it. Use topics if you want handoff per question. See how human handoff works.
Telegram support often lives on one person's phone. With SupportHQ every chat lands in the unified inbox with full history, next to your website widget and Discord conversations. Anyone on your team can read and reply.
The inbox shows the customer's Telegram name and username, and their phone number if they share their contact. The overview lists recent handoffs with the agent's reason and summary. Those reasons show what to add to the knowledge base next.
Start in private chats, where expectations are simple. Watch the inbox for a week and step in freely. Fill the gaps its handoffs reveal. Then add the bot to your group with a mention-only rule, so members learn that mentioning it gets a real answer.
The full rollout plan is in an AI support agent for Telegram. If your whole business runs on Telegram, see SupportHQ for Telegram-first businesses.
It is a support agent for conversations, not a marketing or sales bot.
Create a bot with @BotFather and copy its token. Paste the token into your project's integrations tab and save. SupportHQ sets the webhook for you. No code is needed.
With privacy mode on, which is the Telegram default, a bot in a group gets only some messages, such as commands and replies to the bot. The agent can only answer what Telegram delivers. Turn privacy mode off in @BotFather, or make the bot a group admin, and the agent sees every group message and applies your rules to each one. After you change the setting, remove the bot from the group and add it again.
Yes. In a forum-style group the bot replies inside the topic where the question was asked, and each topic is its own conversation in the inbox.
Yes. Paste its token into SupportHQ and save, and SupportHQ sets the bot's webhook. A Telegram bot has only one webhook, so this replaces any webhook or polling setup the bot used before. If your current bot must keep running elsewhere, create a second bot for support.
Open the conversation in the SupportHQ inbox and reply. The customer gets your reply in the same Telegram chat, and the agent pauses on that conversation. In a group without topics, the whole group is one conversation, so an inbox reply pauses the agent in that group until you resume it. Use topics for per-question handoff. Handoff alerts can arrive in Telegram, by email, or by SMS.
Yes. One project uses one knowledge base and one inbox across the website widget, Telegram, and Discord.
Telegram is included on every plan. Starter is $29 per month with 2,000 conversations. Growth is $49 per month with 3,000 conversations. No per-seat fees, no per-resolution fees, and a 7-day trial to start (card required).