Handing a chat to a person

Handoff lets a real person step into a conversation when an expert cannot help. Someone asks for a person, the request lands in a queue, one of your team takes it, and the two of them talk in the same conversation. While a person has it, the expert stays quiet.

It works in two places. Your own signed in colleagues can ask an admin from the chat. Visitors on your website widget, Telegram, WhatsApp or Microsoft Teams can ask for a person too. Both kinds of request are handled by the same people, though the queue keeps them apart, as described below.

Who can answer

The queue is open to admins who hold the Answer handovers permission, and to agent only accounts, who see this page and nothing else in the admin area. The owner always holds the permission. See Account types.

Setting it up

Handoff is set up one expert at a time. Open Handoff under PEOPLE in the sidebar, then Settings beneath it. The page is headed Handoff settings. The list on the left holds your experts. Experts that nobody can ask a person through are dimmed. Click one to change its settings.

1. Switch on People can ask an admin through (expert name). While it is off, the expert never offers a person.
2. Under Who gets told, say how your team hears about a request. Fill in Email, Webhook or both. If you set both, both are used.
3. Under What the expert says back, write the message a person sees right after asking. If you leave it empty, the expert says a short default, telling them someone from your team will pick it up shortly. The message can be up to 2000 characters.
4. Click Save changes. A note reading Unsaved changes shows until you do.

About the two ways to be told:

• Email takes one address. A shared inbox is a better choice than a personal one, because it still works when one person is on leave.
• Webhook takes a web address that starts with https://. A Microsoft Teams or Slack incoming webhook works as it is. Aimy Expert only accepts https here, because the conversation text travels in the request.
• The On and Off switch beside Who gets told keeps your addresses saved but stops the alerts. With it off, requests still arrive in the queue, and nobody is told.
• Send test sends a sample alert to what you have saved, so you can check it arrives. Turn handoff on and save first, and add an email address or a webhook.

How a conversation is handed off

In the chat app, a colleague opens the + menu beside the message box and chooses Ask an admin. A small Asking an admin label appears and the box changes to read What do you need help with? An admin will see this chat. The next message they send goes to your team instead of the expert, and covers one message only. If the expert has handoff off, the menu item is dimmed and says Your admin has not turned on asking a person for this expert.

The same happens when someone writes that they want a person, in the chat app, on your website widget, on Telegram, on WhatsApp or on Microsoft Teams. Messages such as "I want to speak to a human", "get me a live agent" or "talk to someone" count, and so do similar phrases in Malay. On Telegram and WhatsApp the commands /human, /agent and /support work too. If the expert has handoff off, the expert answers as usual.

The website widget has no button for asking for a person. Visitors get a person only by writing that they want one, in their own words.

Once a request is made:

1. The person sees the message you wrote under What the expert says back.
2. The conversation, with the question that triggered it, lands in the Handoff queue, and your email or webhook is told.
3. From then until the request is closed, the expert does not answer in that conversation. Anything the person types is passed to your team.

When your team member replies, the person sees it as an ordinary message in the same conversation. In the chat app and on the website widget, the page checks for new replies every few seconds while the tab is open, so a reply can take a moment to appear. On Telegram, WhatsApp and Microsoft Teams the reply is sent to the person on that channel.

Working the queue

Open Handoff in the sidebar. The page refreshes itself every few seconds while you have it open. On the left are two lists that narrow what you see.

• Expert shows All experts and each expert with its number of requests. A dimmed one has handoff off. All experts lists every request: your colleagues in the chat app and your customers on your channels. A customer's request carries the channel beside the expert's name, for example Website widget or WhatsApp. Each expert's own row lists only your colleagues' requests to it. From channels at the bottom narrows the list to customers on your website widget, WhatsApp, Telegram and your other channels.
• Status shows Waiting (nobody has it yet), With you (you took it), Taken (a colleague has it) and Closed, plus All. Empty statuses other than Waiting and All are hidden.
• Settings opens the settings page described above, for admins.

The table lists What they asked, From, Expert, Asked (how long ago) and Status. Click a row to open the whole conversation underneath it. Below the table, a count such as Showing 3 of 12 tells you how many requests match the status you chose, out of everything in the expert or channel list you are looking at.

To reply, take the request first. Until you do, the box shows Take this one to reply. Type your message and press Enter to send it, or Shift and Enter for a new line. Your message reaches the person in the same place they were chatting. A colleague sees it in the chat app, and a visitor sees it on the channel they used. If a channel refuses a message, it is marked Not delivered with the reason.

A few habits that help

• Turn handoff on only for experts where someone will really be watching the queue, and set an email or webhook so they hear about requests.
• Write the reply message so it sets the right expectation, for example when you answer.
• Close a handoff when you are done. Until then the expert stays silent in that conversation.