Bot-to-human handover
Handover is the transfer of a conversation from the automated assistant to a human agent. It happens when the request exceeds the bot's capabilities, when the customer explicitly asks, or when the lead is ready for negotiation. A well-designed handover also transfers the context: the agent sees the entire previous conversation and doesn't force the customer to repeat themselves.
The four most used handover triggers: the customer's explicit request to speak with a person; bot failure, when it doesn't understand or doesn't have the answer; the value of the conversation, such as a qualified lead ready to buy; and the sensitivity of the topic, complaints or personal data. The system must recognize these signals and switch modes without restarting the conversation from zero.
A good handover is transparent and tracked: the customer knows they're being passed to an agent, the agent sees the history and the data the bot collected, and the system stops replying automatically on that conversation until the human releases it. After hours, handover becomes deferred pickup: the bot collects the request and the agent picks it up on return. Measuring how many conversations go to a human shows where to improve the automation.
In SendApp you can pause the AI on a single conversation and have an agent continue from the same screen, with the full history visible; when done, you reactivate the assistant with one click.
Frequently asked questions
From theory to practice
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