SemAgentHuman handoff
When a widget visitor wants to talk to a person, the conversation moves to your team: the AI goes quiet and your agent takes over in the panel. This page covers how a handoff starts, working hours, teams, notifications and reports. Most settings live on the Widget Settings screen; the WhatsApp line is set up on Business WhatsApp and people's phone numbers on Users.
How does a handoff start?
| Path | What happens |
|---|---|
| The visitor's button | The widget menu, its home screen and the message box all have a Talk to a person button. If the conversation hasn't started yet, the visitor's first message goes straight to the team without the AI. |
| An explicit request | Messages like "I want to talk to a human" or "I need a real person" hand off before the AI even runs. Product questions such as "how does the handoff feature work?" don't count. |
| The AI's offer | If the knowledge base has no answer for two questions in a row, or the visitor is upset, a "Shall I pass you to our team?" card appears (Yes, pass me on · No, continue). If the visitor says no, the AI doesn't insist. |
| The AI's promise | If the AI says "I'm transferring you to an agent", the handoff really happens — the visitor never waits for someone who isn't coming. |
| Your rules (Pro+) | Keyword, page, topic and order total rules — below. |
The AI stays silent in a handed-off conversation. The visitor's new messages go to the team and the panel is notified. The agent clicks Take over on the Conversations screen and replies; when done, Mark resolved or Release (the conversation goes back to the AI). The handoff card shows the reason, what the visitor left and a summary of the conversation.
Working hours
In Widget Settings, the working hours editor sets the weekly schedule: open or closed per day, several ranges a day (e.g. a lunch break), 24 hours, presets (weekdays, Mon–Sat, 24/7…) and applying one day's hours to weekdays or every day. Holidays and special days are a single day or a date range, closed or with special hours, optionally repeating every year. Add Turkish public holidays brings in the fixed-date public holidays in one click; religious holidays move every year, so add them year by year.
| Situation | What the widget says |
|---|---|
| Within hours, someone in the panel | That the team is online; on handoff, that someone will be with the visitor shortly. |
| Within hours, nobody in the panel | The expected reply time, e.g. that the team usually replies within a few hours. |
| Outside working hours | That the team is outside working hours and when it's back (e.g. Monday 09:00) — even if someone has the panel open. |
The expected reply time (a few minutes · an hour · a few hours · one business day) is the promise shown to visitors during working hours when nobody from the team is in the panel. Outside working hours the day and time the team is back is shown instead. The schedule itself is never sent to the widget; visitors only see the outcome.
Email: replies don't get lost
- Email on handoff: when nobody from the team is in the panel (including outside working hours) the widget asks the visitor for an email address; when an agent is there it is optional.
- Replies by email too: if the visitor doesn't see the agent's reply in the widget within 45 seconds, it is also sent to the address they left. The Email follow-ups screen lists these conversations.
- Support email: where unassigned handoffs are announced, and the Reply-To address of replies sent by email. If left empty, the account owner's address is used.
Teams, assignment and rules
- Team: a name, members, notification channels and round-robin assignment (in turn, among members online in the panel). Everyone appears in the member list; people who can't manage the inbox or haven't accepted their invitation can't be picked, and the reason is shown next to them.
- Default assignment (Pro+): the team or person a handoff goes to when no rule matches.
- Handoff rules (Pro+): keyword and page rules run before the AI; a topic rule is added to the AI's instructions; an order total rule (e-commerce widget only) hands off when a verified order is over the threshold. The RAG and e-commerce widgets have separate rules.
- Internal notes and tags: notes are visible to your team only (never to the widget, emails or the AI); tags filter the conversation list.
- Waiting alert (Pro+): if a handed-off conversation stays unanswered for the time you choose, the assignee (otherwise their team, otherwise you) is alerted through the team's notification channels, plus a panel notification. No alerts outside working hours; the time then counts from opening. The wait ends when an agent writes.
Notifications: email, WhatsApp, SMS
Each team chooses the channels that announce its handoffs; unassigned handoffs use the general channels and a fallback number. The default is email only; the waiting alert uses the same channels.
| Channel | How it works |
|---|---|
| To the assignee or their team's members; for unassigned handoffs, to the support email. | |
| SMS | Through your own SMS provider: Netgsm, İleti Merkezi, Verimor, Twilio, Vonage, Infobip, Plivo or a custom HTTP endpoint. At most 60 SMS per hour per account. |
| From your company's WhatsApp Business line, connected on the Business WhatsApp screen: Meta WhatsApp Cloud API, 360dialog, Twilio or Infobip. The agent's WhatsApp (connected with a QR code) is not used for this. At most 60 messages per hour per account. |
- Phone numbers belong to people: entered with a country code when you add, invite or edit a user on the Users screen. Turkish numbers must be mobiles (WhatsApp and SMS don't reach landlines).
- WhatsApp template: WhatsApp only delivers business-initiated messages with an approved template. The Business WhatsApp screen shows per-provider setup steps and the single-variable template body to get approved in the Utility category.
- Secret keys are stored encrypted and never sent back to the panel; leave the field empty to keep the saved one.
- Test message: sends a test to a number with the saved settings (at most 5 in 10 minutes).
A notification never disappears silently. If none of the chosen channels gets through (no number, no line set up, the provider refused), the same notification goes out by email.
Who takes over?
The inbox is managed by roles whose Conversations row is set to "edit" in Roles & Permissions: by default Owner, Admin, Editor and Support agent; custom roles too. The Support agent role is made for this: it sees every Publishing screen and takes over and answers conversations, but can't change widget settings, rules or canned responses (it can use canned responses in chats).
Reports and learning
- Reports → Human handoff: how many widget conversations went to a person, how many the AI resolved alone, and how long the first human reply took. RAG and e-commerce are shown separately, and the first reply within and outside working hours; auto-closed conversations don't count as resolved.
- Article suggestions: handed-off questions and questions the AI couldn't answer from the knowledge base show up as suggestions on the Articles screen; the article you publish becomes the AI's answer next time.
- Suggested canned responses: replies your agents often write appear as suggestions in Widget Settings; none is added until you save it.