Handover Modes Reference
Each Agent Stack has one handover mode controlling whether and how the AI hands off conversations to humans. The mode is set on the Handover → Triggers sub-tab (off/on switch) and refined on the Delivery sub-tab (which mode and which team).
The three modes
never— The AI never hands off — Stays in the stack until resolved or the customer leavesby_description— When trigger conditions match (frustration, legal threat, escalation request, stall, “ask for a human”) — A team derived from conversation context (channel, topic, language, pre-chat details)explicit_team— When trigger conditions match — A single team you pick from a dropdown
When to use each
never
Use never only for stacks that handle a single, narrow, closed task where there’s no meaningful human fallback — a sandbox stack, an internal-only stack, a survey collector. For real customer-facing stacks, leave handover on. Customers will eventually need a human, and never means they leave instead.
When the Allow handover to humans switch on the Triggers tab is off, the Prerequisites and Delivery tabs are greyed out — they only apply when handover is enabled. The never mode is unchanged by fallback routing behavior: it does not hand over.
by_description
The default. The AI decides which team picks up based on conversation context — what topic the conversation is about, what channel it came in on, what language it’s in, and any pre-chat survey answers the customer provided, such as installed country, product, or issue type. When the customer provides this information before chat, the AI treats it as stronger evidence than page language, embed market, or name/language inference. Pair this with the Handover instructions (optional) text on the Delivery tab to steer the AI’s choice.
In normal handover, by_description still tries to derive a team before committing the handoff. Guardrail forced fallback is not a handover mode: it sends the fallback reply, records the fallback outcome, and keeps the AI on.
This mode is most useful when you have multiple specialist teams (Billing, Tier 2 Support, Returns) and the topic of the handed-off conversation should determine who takes it.
explicit_team
Every handover goes to one specific team. Pick the team in the Which team? field on the Delivery tab. The Save button stays disabled until a team is chosen. Use this when:
- Your stack only covers one functional area, so one team always picks up.
- Your team structure is small and routing-by-description would be overkill.
- You want predictable, auditable routing for compliance reasons.
Triggers (when handover fires)
Regardless of mode, handover triggers when any of these are detected:
- The customer explicitly asks for a human (“can I talk to a person?”).
- The sentiment-and-risk infrastructure agent flags the conversation as risky (frustration, legal threat, churn risk, escalation request).
- The orchestrator detects a stall — the conversation has stopped progressing.
- A prerequisite check completes (for stacks where the AI’s job is to gather and hand off).
Required information
Before handing off, the AI tries to collect everything in the Prerequisites sub-tab. Each prerequisite has an always or when condition, and the AI asks the customer for any missing fields before triggering the handoff. If the customer refuses or stalls, the orchestrator can still trigger handover under risk logic.
Delivery options
All four options live on the Delivery tab, below the mode picker, and appear once the mode is anything other than Never.
- Check opening hours before handing over — off — If the destination team is closed, keep the conversation with the stack and offer the customer options instead of handing off
- Offer email follow-up — on — AI asks for the customer’s email so the team can reply during opening hours
- Offer to close and reach out later — off — Lets the customer close the conversation and try again during opening hours
- Ask the customer to confirm before handing over — off — The stack explains the transfer and waits for confirmation, in the customer’s language
Only the two middle options are outside-hours options. Offer email follow-up and Offer to close and reach out later are nested under Check opening hours before handing over and are shown only while it is on. Ask the customer to confirm before handing over is an independent toggle that applies to every handover, in hours or out — do not read it as an outside-hours choice.
Both outside-hours options can be on at once; the AI presents them as choices to the customer.
Handover instructions
The free-form Handover instructions (optional) text on the Delivery tab (up to 15,000 characters) is appended to the AI’s prompt when it’s deciding how to hand off. Use it for:
- Tone for the handoff message (“apologize for the wait if the conversation lasted more than 5 turns”).
- Information to always include in the handoff pack (“mention loyalty status if it’s Gold or Platinum”).
- Things to never reveal in the handoff message (“don’t tell the customer which team is picking up”).