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Human handover

What is human handover

Human handover controls how a conversation moves from AI to your team. It is split into two clear parts:

• When should AI hand off to your team? — the situations that start a handover
• Where does the customer go? — what happens to the conversation once AI hands off

Keeping these separate makes it easy to decide when AI should step back and where each customer should land, without mixing the two.

How does this help with

• Catching the right moment: AI hands off on its own when a customer needs a human, instead of waiting to be asked
• Information gathering: Collect context from customers before a human agent joins
• Team assignment: Route handed-off conversations to the right team members
• Continued support: Let AI keep helping customers while they wait for an agent
• Self-service fallback: Capture customer details for follow-up when no one is available

When should AI hand off to your team?

There are two ways to decide when AI steps back: auto-triggers and intent rules.

Auto triggers

AI detects customer behavior and hands off automatically. Turn on the triggers that fit your team:

• Customer asks to talk to a person — Always on. AI detects intent such as "talk to human", "speak to agent", or "real person".
• AI cannot answer — auto hand-off after 2 consecutive low-confidence responses.
• Customer repeats question — auto hand-off when the same question is asked 2+ times.
• Negative sentiment — auto hand-off on frustration or anger, detected from wording, ALL CAPS, repeated punctuation, negative emojis, or 2+ thumb-down reactions on AI replies.

The first trigger stays on so customers can always reach a person on request.

Intent rules

Use intent rules to define topics that should hand off immediately, with no AI response first. AI semantically matches the topic (covering keyword variations) and transfers right away.

Click Add rule, give the topic a name (for example Wholesale inquiry, Custom order, or Partnership), and save. Avoid after-sales topics that are already handled separately.

Where does the customer go?

Once AI decides to hand off, choose where the conversation lands. AI writes its own transfer reply to fit each situation, so you no longer set fixed pre- or post-transfer messages.

Pick one of three destinations:

Transfer to human in Chatty inbox Recommended

The agent joins the chat directly and the customer stays in the same window, with no friction. Agent routing is managed in your auto-assignment settings, and working hours come from your Chat availability settings.

When your team is offline, show customers:

• Leave a message — we'll follow up — AI collects the customer's email and issue description, and your team follows up when back online. Set the response-time promise shown to the customer (for example Within 24 hours).
• Show contact methods — AI shows the contact methods configured in your Chatbox settings so the customer can reach out while your team is away.

While the customer waits for your team, let AI keep replying:

• Don't allow — AI stops replying once the customer is waiting for an agent.
• Allow only outside business hours — when your team is offline, AI keeps handling the conversation instead of handing off.
• Allow all the time — AI keeps replying while the customer waits, even during business hours.

Collect info & follow up by email

No live agents needed — AI collects the customer's details and sends a summary to your support email address (set under AI settings) for follow-up. Set the response-time promise shown to the customer (for example Within 24 hours).

Show contact methods

AI shows the contact methods configured in your Chatbox settings (phone, WhatsApp, email, contact form, and more) and lets the customer pick how to reach out.

How to set up human handover