# Set up your customer's chat experience in Connect Customer
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You can provide a chat experience to your customers by using one of the following methods: 
+ [Add a chat user interface to your website hosted by Connect Customer](add-chat-to-website.md). 
+ [Customize chat with the Connect Customer open source example](download-chat-example.md). 
+ [Customize your solution using Connect Customer APIs](integrate-with-startchatcontact-api.md). We recommend starting with the Connect Customer ChatJS open source library when customizing your own chat experiences. For more information, see the [Connect Customer ChatJS](https://github.com/amazon-connect/amazon-connect-chatjs) repo on Github. 

## More resources to customize the chat experience
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+ Interactive messages provide customers with a prompt and pre-configured display options that they can select from. These messages are powered by Amazon Lex and configured through Amazon Lex using a Lambda. For instructions about how to add interactive messages through Amazon Lex, see this blog: [Set up interactive messages for your Connect Customer chatbot](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/contact-center/easily-set-up-interactive-messages-for-your-amazon-connect-chatbot/).

  Connect Customer supports the following templates: a list picker and a time picker. For more information, see [Add Amazon Lex interactive messages for customers in chat](interactive-messages.md). 
+  [Enable Apple Messages for Business with Connect Customer](apple-messages-for-business.md) 
+  [Connect Customer Service API Documentation](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/connect/latest/APIReference), especially the [StartChatContact](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/connect/latest/APIReference/API_StartChatContact.html) API.

  The following example uses the AWS CLI to start a chat contact. The response returns the `ContactId`, `ParticipantId`, and `ParticipantToken`. Your back end uses these values to connect the participant by calling the Connect Customer Participant Service [CreateParticipantConnection](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/connect-participant/latest/APIReference/API_CreateParticipantConnection.html) API.
**Call StartChatContact from a trusted back end**  
The `StartChatContact` API uses AWS Signature Version 4 signing. Call it from your trusted back end (for example, an Lambda function), not directly from a customer's browser or mobile app. The following command is useful for testing and administration. For production chat integrations, use the Connect Customer ChatJS library. You can also use the `startChatContactAPI` back-end example in the [Connect Customer Chat SDK and Sample Implementations](https://github.com/amazon-connect/amazon-connect-chat-ui-examples/) on the GitHub website.

  In the following command, replace `{{instance-id}}`, `{{contact-flow-id}}`, and `{{aws-region}}` with your own values:

  ```
  aws connect start-chat-contact \
      --instance-id "{{instance-id}}" \
      --contact-flow-id "{{contact-flow-id}}" \
      --participant-details DisplayName="{{Jane Doe}}" \
      --initial-message ContentType="text/plain",Content="{{Hello, I need help}}" \
      --region "{{aws-region}}"
  ```

  The command returns the following response:

  ```
  {
      "ContactId": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",
      "ParticipantId": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",
      "ParticipantToken": "a-long-participant-token"
  }
  ```
+  [Connect Customer Participant Service API](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/connect-participant/latest/APIReference/Welcome.html). 
+  [ Connect Customer Chat SDK and Sample Implementations](https://github.com/amazon-connect/amazon-connect-chat-ui-examples/) 
+  [Connect Customer Streams](https://github.com/aws/amazon-connect-streams). Use to integrate your existing apps with Connect Customer. You can embed the Contact Control Panel (CCP) components into your app. 
+  [Enable message streaming for AI-powered chat](message-streaming-ai-chat.md)