A live-agent takeover is not a fallback message. It is an operating commitment: a visitor sees a route to a person, the right colleague sees enough context to help, and the business does not leave either side waiting for a service it is not staffing.<\/p>\n
Define the reasons a conversation should reach a person before enabling the option. Good candidates include account-specific requests, order disputes, negotiated pricing, legal exceptions, sensitive situations and questions outside the approved knowledge. A chatbot can explain a published policy; it should not decide an exception to it.<\/p>\n
Also decide what stays automated. Repeated factual questions with a clear source are often better answered in the widget. Sending every simple question to a person creates queues and hides the gaps that the knowledge base could solve. The handover rule should name the decision, owner and urgency, rather than simply saying \u201cescalate complex matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Set service hours by the people actually available. Name a primary and backup operator, the maximum queue you are prepared to accept, and the contact route outside those hours. Test the result at opening, mid-shift and after close. A visitor who receives a contact form outside staffed hours has a clear next step; a visitor promised \u201can agent is joining\u201d without an operator has been misled.<\/p>\n
RobiFox says its live chat can be offered only when the team chooses, with set hours; outside those hours the visitor is offered a contact form. Its panel also shows waiting conversations, those assigned to you and those with other colleagues. Treat those features as a reason to define a queue owner, not as a replacement for one.<\/p>\n
An agent should begin with the conversation, cited source and the visitor\u2019s request for help. That avoids the frustrating \u201cplease explain again\u201d moment and lets the agent see whether the bot correctly refused, retrieved the wrong source or encountered a genuine exception. RobiFox\u2019s live-chat screen describes the same conversation continuing in one window and shows the visitor language; it also warns that agent messages are not translated. Staff accordingly: language coverage is part of routing readiness.<\/p>\n Give operators a short first-response pattern: acknowledge the request, state what they are checking, and set an expectation only when they can meet it. Train them not to overrule a stated policy casually in the chat. If an exception is needed, they should follow the same internal approval route as email or phone support.<\/p>\n RobiFox\u2019s console permits an operator to take a conversation and later hand it back to the robot. It also prevents a colleague from taking over when another colleague has written recently. These are useful safeguards, but teams still need a documented ownership rule for absences and unresolved conversations.<\/p>\n Each handover reveals something. Was the question intentionally outside the knowledge base? Did a policy fail to explain an ordinary scenario? Was the source missing, stale or not retrieved? Categorise the outcome after the conversation rather than assuming every handover is a bot failure.<\/p>\n RobiFox keeps the question, answer and cited source in its conversation record, and surfaces unanswered questions separately. That supports a weekly review of handovers, unresolved queue items and recurring gaps. For setup context, see How it works<\/a> and the live-chat features<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n
\n \nArea<\/th>\n Decision to make<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n \n Eligibility<\/td>\n Which topics require a human, and which remain with the assistant?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Hours<\/td>\n Who is staffed, who covers absences and what happens when closed?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Ownership<\/td>\n Who takes a waiting conversation, and who may take over an assigned one?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Context<\/td>\n Which transcript, sources and visitor language does the operator see?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Closure<\/td>\n When is the conversation handed back to the assistant, closed or turned into follow-up work?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/figure>\n Prepare agents for a change of mode<\/h2>\n
Review handovers as product feedback<\/h2>\n