Recipe: Two-Team Handover Routing by Description
To route AI handoffs to two different customer service teams — billing issues to one, technical issues to the other — set the handover Mode to By description and describe the routing rules in the Handover instructions field. This recipe gives the exact copy-paste values for a Billing Team + Tech Support Team split, including the prerequisites the AI gathers before handing off and the outside-hours behavior.
If you only have one destination team, use Graceful handover to a team instead — it uses the simpler Explicit team mode.
What you’ll end up with
- Handover on, mode
by_description, routing between Billing Team and Tech Support Team. - Two prerequisites: account email (always) and order/invoice ID (when relevant).
- Outside-hours email follow-up enabled.
Before you start
- A stack with at least one specialist configured — this recipe pairs with Recipe: A Billing + Tech Support Stack.
- Two teams created: Billing Team and Tech Support Team, each with at least one member and Opening Hours configured.
Configure handover
- Open Settings → Agent Stacks → [stack] → Handover → Triggers → toggle Allow handover to humans on.
- Switch to the Delivery sub-tab:
Mode: By description
Handover instructions: “Route refund approvals over $500 and subscription disputes to the Billing Team. Route hardware failures, data loss, and unresolved technical issues to the Tech Support Team.”
Check opening hours: on
Outside-hours options: Email follow-up (on); Close and return (off); Ask confirmation (off) - Switch to the Prerequisites sub-tab. Add:
Account email — Field: built-in Email address — Always — Ask: “What’s the email address on your account?”
Order or invoice ID — Field: conversation.orderId — When: “the conversation is about a specific transaction” — Ask: “What’s the order or invoice number this is about?”
The built-in Email address field stores the value as a contact address for follow-up, while order and invoice IDs should still use conversation or custom fields. 4. Save.
Verify it worked
- The Delivery tab shows
Mode: By descriptionwith your routing instructions. - In a test conversation (Testing tab, mode: Stack), send “I need a refund for my last invoice” and signal it’s over $500 — the AI should ask for the account email and invoice number first, then hand off to the Billing Team.
- A technical handoff (e.g. a hardware failure) routes to the Tech Support Team instead.
Troubleshooting
- Symptom: The AI hands off too aggressively even on simple questions. Fix: review the Handover instructions — make sure they’re scoped to genuinely complex cases, not catch-all phrases like “anything technical.”
- Symptom: Handoffs go to the wrong team. Fix: make the routing descriptions more concrete — name the issue types explicitly (refunds, disputes, hardware failures) rather than broad labels like “billing stuff.”