Handoff to a person
When your seller hands a conversation off to your team, what the customer sees, how you find out, what happens with the pause and when the chat leaves Unattended.
On this page
What it is
When a customer needs a person, your seller flags the conversation in your conversations so you can take over and, depending on your settings, pauses or keeps replying until someone on your team steps in. If you set up alert emails, it also writes to you.
When it hands off
Your seller hands a conversation off to a person in three cases: when something in your Handoff situations happens, when an If … Then … condition in Advanced human handoff instructions is met, or when a flow takes it to the handoff stage.
Handoff situations
Cases you write or pick.
Suggested Payment issue, Out of stock, Return, Serious complaint, Product not found
Advanced instructions
If … Then … conditions
Flows
A stage that leads to the handoff.
There is no switch that turns handoff off. With no Handoff situations and no advanced conditions, your seller does not hand off for them, not even when the customer asks to talk to a person. Some flows can still lead to the System handoff stage.
The System handoff stage is where a handoff to a person ends. It is a system flow: only its name can be changed.
What your customer sees
On handoff, your customer gets your Handoff message exactly as you wrote it. If you leave it empty, they get: “Thank you! A human agent will continue this conversation shortly.”
How you find out
When your seller hands off, the chat shows Handed off to a human and moves to Unattended. The Conversations menu shows how many chats are waiting for your team (on your phone, unattended).
- The chat shows Handed off to a human
- The chat moves to Unattended
- The Conversations menu adds one to the chats waiting
- An Escalation email goes to your alert emails, if you have them
- If you route handed-off chats with Advisors, it is offered to an advisor
If your account has alert emails, each one gets an Escalation email with the customer’s name, phone, the Reason your seller wrote and the conversation ID. Tests in Test your seller send no email.
The pause on handoff
In Seller settings → Pauses and reactivation, under On human handoff, you choose what your seller does after a handoff. If it does not pause, it keeps replying in that chat until someone on your team steps in. If it pauses, it stops replying in that chat entirely. And you choose when it comes back: When the customer writes again, in a new conversation, or Never (manual only), when someone removes the pause. Either way the chat moves to Unattended.
Keeps replying
Your seller replies until someone on your team steps in.
The seller pauses
It stops replying in that chat entirely.
When it replies again
When the customer writes again
It turns back on by itself, in the customer’s next conversation.
Never (manual only)
It stays paused until someone removes the pause.
When it leaves Unattended
A chat leaves Unattended when someone on your team unchecks Unattended in that chat.
Handoff with Advisors
If you use Advisors and route Handed off by the assistant or Handed off and with a sale, each handed-off conversation is offered to an advisor on your team, by their capacity and working hours.
In the test chat
In Test your seller, a handoff shows The seller handed off the conversation. and the seller stops replying in that test. No alert email arrives and it does not show in Unattended; to keep testing, you start another test.
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