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Human handoff

Some questions need a person. Handoff makes that path explicit rather than leaving the visitor to close the widget and go looking for a contact form.

Enabling it​

In Chatbot Settings:

  1. Turn on human handoff
  2. Enter the email address that should receive notifications

Use an address someone actually monitors. A handoff request that lands in an unread inbox is worse than no handoff at all — the visitor was told help was coming.

What triggers it​

The chatbot watches for an explicit request to speak to a person: "can I talk to someone", "I want a human", "get me a real person".

It deliberately does not fire on ordinary requests for assistance. "Can you help me with pricing?" is a normal question and gets a normal answer — otherwise every second conversation would raise a false alarm.

What happens​

When a genuine handoff request is detected:

  1. The visitor gets an acknowledgement. The chatbot says it will connect them with a human and asks them to hold on.
  2. The conversation is flagged and appears as a handoff request in your dashboard.
  3. An email is sent to your notification address — once per conversation, so a visitor asking three times does not send you three emails.

Responding​

Open the live inbox, find the flagged conversation, and take it over. The bot goes quiet and you reply directly as a named agent. When you are done, end the takeover and the bot resumes.

If nobody is available, the visitor is not stranded — the conversation history is waiting for you in the dashboard, and if they left contact details you can follow up later. Turning on lead capture alongside handoff is a sensible pairing for exactly this reason.

Set expectations honestly​

The acknowledgement message says a human is coming. If your team is only around on weekdays, say so — put it in your welcome message:

I'm the Northgate assistant. I can help with orders, delivery and returns. Ask for a human any time and someone from the team will pick it up — we're here Monday to Friday, 9 to 5.

A visitor who knows they will hear back tomorrow morning is satisfied. One who expects an instant reply at 11pm on a Sunday is not.

If notification emails do not arrive​

Check, in this order:

  1. Human handoff is enabled on the chatbot
  2. A notification email address is set and spelled correctly
  3. The visitor actually made an explicit request — vague requests for help do not trigger it, by design
  4. The message is not in a spam or junk folder
  5. Only the first request in a conversation sends an email; subsequent ones are intentionally suppressed

The flagged conversation appears in the dashboard whether or not the email is delivered, so the inbox is the reliable source of truth.

Turning it off​

Switch it off in settings. Existing conversations are unaffected, and the chatbot stops offering the handoff path on new ones. Consider whether your welcome message still promises something you no longer deliver.