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Human handoff

Hand a conversation from the agent to a person: when it happens, how requests reach a pool, how the team accepts and replies, and how the owner assigns them.

3 min readWhat the agent does for customers →

What you need first

  • Human handoff on your plan.
  • At least one pool with members in it — see Team and roles.
  • A Human Handoff step in the agent's workflow, pointing at that pool — see Workflows.
On this page
  1. When a chat is handed over
  2. Set it up
  3. Answer from the Handoff Inbox
  4. Watch and assign (owner)
  5. Website and WhatsApp

When a chat is handed over#

  • The workflow reaches a Human Handoff step.
  • The customer asks for a person in so many words — "team se baat karao", for example.
  • The agent offers a call back, the customer says yes, and the workflow has no Lead Capture step to take their number.

Good to know: The agent does not hand over just because it is unsure. When it cannot tell what the customer means, it asks a short clarifying question; when your content does not cover the question, it says so and offers your menu.

Set it up#

  1. Step 1: Create a pool

    Under Teams, open Pools and press Add Pool. Give it a Pool Name and Description, choose the agent, and press Create Pool.

  2. Step 2: Put people in it

    On Add Member, or when editing a member, choose the pool under Pool (optional). A member belongs to one pool at a time.

  3. Step 3: Point the workflow at it

    In the Human Handoff step, choose the Handoff Pool and write the Customer Message.

Tip: Members of a pool get the Handoff Inbox automatically. If someone was added while signed in, it appears within a few minutes — or as soon as they come back to the tab.

Answer from the Handoff Inbox#

  1. Step 1: Watch for the alert

    A new request alerts the pool's members in the panel (the bell). Turn on Enable push notifications in the notification inbox to get browser notifications as well.

  2. Step 2: Open Handoff Inbox and press Accept request

    The chat opens with everything said so far, so the customer does not have to repeat themselves. Reject request leaves it for someone else.

  3. Step 3: Reply

    Type in the message box and send. Only the member who accepted can reply; Refresh reloads the chat.

  4. Step 4: Press Resolve when you are done

    The customer sees "Human support has left the chat." and the agent carries on with the workflow.

Good to know: If everyone who could take a request rejects it, the customer is told "Team unavailable, please try later." and the agent takes the chat back.

Watch and assign (owner)#

The workspace owner does not have an inbox. Handoff Requests lists every request instead, filtered by status — Waiting (shown first), Accepted, Rejected, Resolved — by agent, or by search.

  1. Step 1: Choose a waiting request

    Press its assign button, or open it and press Assign to reply.

  2. Step 2: Pick the person

    Available member lists the members of that request's pool, whether each is idle or busy, and who rejected it earlier. Add a Note if it helps, and press Assign.

  3. Step 3: They take it from there

    It lands in their Handoff Inbox marked "Assigned to you by admin".

Good to know: By default, if nobody takes a request within 2 minutes, the owner is alerted in the panel. Members cannot pass requests to each other — the owner assigns.

Website and WhatsApp#

On the website, the person replies live in the same chat window. On WhatsApp the customer gets the handoff step's message, but your team's replies are not delivered to WhatsApp — they appear only in the website chat.

Depends on your plan: Handoff requests are counted each month against your plan's limit. Without handoff on the plan, the customer is told the team is not available. Compare plans.

Related guides

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