When the assistant hands over to a person
Every trigger that moves a WhatsApp conversation from the assistant to your team, what the customer is told, what changes in the inbox, and how the assistant starts answering again.
- Who
- Owners, admins and agents
- Plan
- All plans
- Role
- Agent or above to act on a handed-over conversation
Before you start
- A connected WhatsApp number
- Someone watching the inbox
Some conversations should not be answered by software. When one of the triggers below fires, the assistant stops answering that conversation, tells the customer that a person is coming, and puts the conversation in front of your team.
What a handover is
A handover is a change of state on one conversation. The conversation moves to Waiting for agent, its assistant state becomes Handoff required, a handover record is written with the reason, and — while WhatsApp allows a free-form message — the customer receives a short acknowledgement. Your other conversations are untouched.
What triggers a handover
| Trigger | Reason recorded | What it is matched on |
|---|---|---|
| The customer asks for a person | Agent requested | Wording such as “agent”, “representative”, “real person”, “speak to someone”, and the Hebrew equivalents including נציג and בן אדם. |
| The customer sounds angry | Customer angry | Frustration wording such as “terrible”, “awful”, “scam”, and Hebrew words such as נמאס and גרוע. |
| A sensitive topic | Professional advice | Medical, legal, financial or emergency vocabulary in either language. |
| High-risk wording | Professional advice | Emergency, self-harm, or acute medical and legal phrasing — for example chest pain, an ambulance, a prescription, a lawsuit. |
| The drafted reply fails the safety check | Professional advice | The reply is discarded rather than repaired — see Safety rules and sensitive topics. |
| No AI answers left on the plan, or billing is blocked | Manual handoff | The message is parked with a person instead of being dropped — see Usage and allowances. |
The order is fixed: a sensitive or high-risk topic is checked first, then an explicit request for a person, then frustration. The first four triggers are checked before the assistant writes anything, so a sensitive message never reaches a drafted answer.
What does not trigger a handover
- A question your business information does not cover. The assistant is instructed to ask a short clarifying question or to offer to connect the customer with your team, and it keeps the conversation going.
- Being closed. Outside your opening hours the assistant still answers — see Business hours and after-hours replies.
- A long or repetitive conversation. Length is not a signal. A runaway loop is stopped by a different mechanism, described in Pause and resume the assistant.
- A reply you send yourself. Replying from the inbox does not hand the conversation over, and it does not stop the assistant answering the customer’s next message.
What the customer is told
The acknowledgement is fixed text — it is not written by the model — and it is sent in the reply language resolved for that conversation.
Thanks! I'm connecting you with a team member who will get back to you shortly.
תודה! אני מעביר/ה אותך לנציג/ה מהצוות שיחזור/תחזור אליך בהקדם 🙏What you see in the inbox
- The conversation carries the status Waiting for agent and appears under the Handoff filter.
- Its assistant state reads Handoff required in the contact panel.
- A banner at the top of the thread says the conversation is waiting for a human agent.
- The acknowledgement, when it was sent, appears in the thread as a message from the assistant.
The organization owner also receives an email with the subject A customer is waiting for a reply. It deliberately carries no customer name, phone number or message content — only that a conversation needs a person, and a link to the inbox that the recipient has to sign in to open.
Does the assistant stop?
Yes, in that conversation. While it is waiting for an agent the assistant does not answer any further message from that customer, including messages sent hours later. It keeps answering every other conversation normally. Because your team is told about the handover, the assistant does not quietly take the conversation back on its own — a person has to release it.
How answering resumes
Step 1 Open the conversation from the inbox — the Handoff filter lists conversations waiting for a person, together with those a colleague has already taken over.
Step 2 Reply to the customer yourself in the composer, as you normally would.
You should see: Your reply is delivered and appears in the thread. The conversation stays in Waiting for agent and the assistant stays silent.
Step 3 Press Take over to record that you are handling this conversation.
You should see: The conversation is assigned to you, the banner changes to say a human agent is handling it, and a Resume AI button appears.
Step 4 When you want the assistant to answer this customer again, press Resume AI.
- Resume AI only appears once the assistant is paused or a person has taken over. If you skipped Take over, press Pause AI first and Resume AI will appear in its place.
You should see: The assistant state returns to AI active, the status returns to Open, and the next message from the customer is answered by the assistant.
The other way out is Mark resolved. A resolved conversation gets no further assistant replies, and the customer’s next message opens a brand-new conversation that the assistant answers from the start.
Handover reasons in reports
The Handoff reasons panel on the reports page breaks down escalations by reason for the period you selected, which is the fastest way to see whether your team is being pulled in by sensitive vocabulary, by frustration, or by customers asking for a person. The panel lists more reason names than the assistant can currently produce, so several of them will always show zero. The reason is not shown inside the conversation itself.
A customer asked about a contract and was handed over immediately. Why?
Sensitive-topic detection matches words, not intent, and contract sits in the legal list. If your business sells contracts, loans or medical services, expect regular handovers on ordinary questions — see Safety rules and sensitive topics.
Can I switch a particular trigger off?
No. The triggers are not configurable, and the safety-related ones fire in every configuration.
Does a handover use one of my plan’s AI answers?
No. The acknowledgement is not an AI answer, and when a handover happens because the allowance is exhausted no answer is consumed either.
Nobody is watching the inbox at night. What happens?
The conversation waits. The assistant will not resume it by itself, so the customer receives the acknowledgement and then nothing until someone opens the conversation.
Where do I see who took a conversation?
Pressing Take over assigns the conversation to the person who pressed it; the assignment is shown in the contact panel and can be changed there.