Human Handoff

The Human Handoff extension enables seamless transfers from your AI agent to a human operator. When a conversation requires a personal touch — a complex question, a frustrated user, or an explicit request — the agent hands the conversation to a real person.

This page covers how to configure the extension. For how handoff works from the operator’s perspective, see Operator Handoff.

Setup

1. Navigate to your agent’s Extensions page.
2. In the Explore tab, find Human Handoff under the Operator category.
3. Click the card and then Enable to activate it.

Once enabled, you’ll see the configuration panel with three sections: Working Hours, Triggers, and Fallback Strategy.

Working hours

Working hours define when human operators are available to receive handoff requests. Outside these hours, the fallback strategy takes effect.

Always available

Toggle Always Available to make handoff available 24/7. When enabled, the schedule editor is hidden and handoff can be triggered at any time.

Custom schedule

When Always Available is off, you configure a weekly schedule:

Setting	Description
Timezone	The timezone your schedule is based on. Defaults to your browser’s timezone. Choose from any standard IANA timezone (e.g., America/New_York, Europe/London).
Day toggles	Enable or disable each day of the week individually.
Start / End time	For each enabled day, set the hours when operators are available (e.g., 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM).

The default schedule is Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, with weekends disabled.

Tip

Set your working hours to match your team’s actual availability. If no operators are online during “available” hours, the fallback strategy still applies — but the user experience is better when the schedule reflects reality.

Triggers

Triggers control what causes a handoff to happen.

On user request

When enabled, the agent will transfer the conversation to a human operator whenever the user explicitly asks to speak with a person. Common phrases that trigger this include:

• “I want to talk to a human”
• “Can I speak to someone?”
• “Transfer me to support”

The AI agent detects this intent automatically from the conversation context.

Note

You can also configure handoff triggers through the Triggers page for more advanced conditions like keyword matching or sentiment detection.

Fallback strategy

The fallback strategy determines what happens when handoff is triggered but no operator is available (either outside working hours or when all operators are offline).

Strategy	Behavior
Continue AI	The agent continues the conversation, letting the user know that a human is not available right now. The agent can collect contact information or offer to follow up later.

The agent adapts its behavior based on your system prompt. For example, you can instruct the agent to:

“If a handoff is requested but no operator is available, apologize and ask the user for their email address so someone can follow up.”

How it works

1. Trigger — the user asks for a human, or a trigger condition fires.
2. Availability check — the system checks if the current time is within working hours and if any operator is online.
3. Handoff or fallback — if an operator is available, the conversation is transferred. If not, the fallback strategy activates.
4. Operator responds — the operator sees the full conversation history and replies directly. The user receives the response in their original channel (WhatsApp, Instagram, or Live Chat).
5. Resolution — the operator resolves the issue and can hand the conversation back to the AI or close it.

Configuration example

A typical setup for a business with support hours:

• Always Available: Off
• Timezone: America/Sao_Paulo
• Schedule: Monday–Friday, 9:00–18:00
• On User Request: Enabled
• Fallback: Continue AI

With this configuration:

• During business hours, users can request a human and get connected immediately.
• Outside business hours, the AI continues the conversation and can collect the user’s contact info for follow-up.
• On weekends, the fallback strategy handles all handoff requests.

Saving and disabling

• Click Save to persist your configuration. Changes take effect immediately.
• Click Disable to remove the extension entirely. Handoff will no longer be available until re-enabled.

Best practices

• Match schedule to reality — if your team only works weekdays, don’t set Always Available. Users waiting for an operator who never comes online creates a poor experience.
• Train your prompt — add handoff instructions to your system prompt so the agent knows when to proactively offer a transfer.
• Monitor handoff conversations — review Conversations with the HUMAN_ASSISTANT message type to understand common handoff reasons and improve your knowledge base.
• Pair with triggers — use Triggers for automated handoff rules (e.g., always escalate when “refund” is mentioned).

Next steps

• Operator Handoff — understand the handoff process from the operator’s perspective.
• Operators — invite team members and manage access.
• Roles & Permissions — understand Admin vs. Operator capabilities.
• Triggers — automate handoff rules based on conversation conditions.
• Configure behavior — fine-tune the system prompt for handoff instructions.