Human handoff and escalation

The agent is built to know when it is not the right answer. It hands a conversation to your team on its own judgment, the moment a visitor asks, and whenever something goes wrong. Your team is emailed, and picks up in the inbox with the whole conversation already there.

Conversation statuses

Your team can move a conversation between statuses from the inbox. Setting an escalated or resolved conversation back to unresolved puts the agent back to work in it.

When the agent escalates by itself

• The visitor asks for a person, for example "I want to talk to a human". The agent escalates immediately.
• The visitor accepts an offer of help. When the agent cannot find an answer in your content it says "I don't have specific information about that in our knowledge base. Would you like me to connect you with a human support agent?" A yes escalates.
• Something failed. If a tool or the model itself fails, the agent apologises and escalates rather than leaving the visitor hanging. If a reply cannot be generated at all, the visitor sees "Sorry — I'm having trouble replying right now. A member of our team will follow up here as soon as possible."
• A frustrated visitor is offered a person; the choice stays with them.
• The Free plan's monthly AI replies are used up. New conversations are escalated with "Thanks for your message! Our team will reply to you right here as soon as possible."

Replying to an unresolved conversation from the inbox also escalates it, so the agent does not talk over a colleague.

With lead capture set to Before handing off to the team, the agent asks once for the visitor's contact details before it escalates, and escalates whether or not they answer.

Outside business hours

When business hours are on and your team is offline, the agent still escalates, but it stops promising that a teammate will pick up shortly. Instead it tells the visitor your Away message, or the automatic line "Our team is offline right now and will be back Monday at 9:00 AM (Europe/Berlin)." with your real day, time and zone. Inside your hours it says a teammate will pick up the conversation shortly. The widget's home screen shows the same online or offline state.

Your team is emailed; visitors are not

Every member of the workspace gets an email when the agent escalates: subject "A visitor needs a person - <workspace>", with the visitor's name and email when known, the reason ("The visitor asked for a person.", "The agent could not find an answer or failed." or "The plan's monthly reply allowance is used up."), the last three messages and an Open conversation button that lands on the conversation, switching workspaces for you if needed.

• A conversation triggers at most one email every 6 hours, so a visitor who asks for a person again does not page the team twice.
• Escalations your team causes, by changing the status or by replying, send nothing.
• Each member can opt out on Profile → Notifications with the switch Email me when a visitor needs a person. New members are opted in.
• In a very busy hour a workspace's escalation emails are capped; the conversations still show as escalated in the inbox.

Visitors get no email when you reply. A visitor who leaves the page sees your reply when they open the chat again in the same browser, within their 24-hour session; if the page is still open with the chat closed, the launcher shows a red badge with the number of replies waiting. Once the conversation is resolved, a visitor who has verified their email can tap Email me this conversation to receive the transcript. For anything time-sensitive, ask for an email address in your reply, switch on lead capture, or connect an integration such as Zendesk or Slack so the follow-up happens where your team already works.

What each side sees

In the widget, escalation is quiet by design: the typing indicator stops, the agent stays silent, and the visitor can keep writing. Your replies appear live in the same chat window under your display name, with an avatar made of your initials in your brand color; the agent's replies keep the logo avatar. Set your name on the Profile page so visitors know who they are talking to.

In the inbox, the conversation moves to escalated, the preview reads "Conversation escalated to a human operator", and the full transcript is there to read before you answer. Use Assigned to in the header to hand it to a specific teammate, and the Note toggle to leave a note the visitor never sees. See The team inbox.

Resolving

The agent resolves a conversation when the visitor signals they are done ("That's all, thanks"), with a short goodbye. Your team can resolve from the inbox at any time. A resolved conversation shows "How was this conversation?" with 👍 and 👎; the votes feed Analytics. Under the vote, a visitor with a verified email sees Email me this conversation; anyone else sees "Verify your email to get a copy of this conversation", which opens the verification screen.