Overview

Human handoff rules define when your AI Customer Agent should stop handling a conversation automatically and request help from your team.

When a handoff is triggered, the conversation appears as Support Needed in Inbox so a human can review the situation, respond to the customer, and decide when the Agent should continue.

How human handoff works

During a customer conversation, your Agent checks whether the situation requires human assistance.

If a handoff rule is triggered, the Agent stops automatically handling that conversation and marks it as Support Needed. Your team can then open the conversation in Inbox and take over.

After resolving the situation, you can update the Agent’s Knowledge or Strategies if needed and return the conversation to Autopilot.

Default handoff scenarios

Dealism can use handoff rules for situations where human attention may be more appropriate, including:

• Pricing or discount requests that require approval

• Questions about unsupported product capabilities

• Customers ready to make a commitment or take an important action

• Account, payment, or sensitive information

• Links or resources the Agent cannot verify

• Questions not covered by the Agent’s Knowledge

• Explicit requests to speak with a human

• Requests the Agent cannot complete

• Conversations that cannot progress effectively

These rules help prevent the Agent from continuing when it does not have enough information or authority to handle the situation.

View your handoff rules

Go to Agents and select the Agent you want to configure.

Open the Human Handoff or Escalation Rules section to review the available rules and their current status.

From here, you can determine which situations should require human assistance.

Add a custom handoff rule

Create a custom rule when your business has a situation that should always receive human attention.

For example, you might create rules for legal concerns, high-value opportunities, complaints, refund requests, or questions about specific products or services.

Describe the situation clearly so the Agent can recognize when the rule should apply.

Enable or disable a rule

You can turn individual handoff rules on or off depending on how you want your Agent to handle conversations.

Disabling a rule allows the Agent to continue handling that type of situation when it has enough Knowledge and guidance to do so.

You can enable the rule again whenever your workflow changes.

Set the appropriate scope

Handoff rules can be configured for different conversation needs.

A broader rule can apply across your Agents and contacts, while more specific rules can be used for a particular Agent group or individual customer when needed.

Choose the narrowest scope that matches the situation so you do not create unnecessary handoffs.

Manage handoff rules with DealOnca

You can also work with DealOnca to manage your handoff setup using natural language.

For example, ask DealOnca to show your handoff rules, create a rule for a particular customer situation, or change the status of an existing rule.

Review the resulting configuration to make sure it matches how you want your team and Agent to work together.

Handle a Support Needed conversation

When a conversation is marked Support Needed, open it from Inbox and review the customer’s message and conversation history.

Respond manually and resolve the customer’s request. If the handoff revealed missing information, add it to Knowledge. If the Agent needs guidance for handling a recurring situation, create or update a Strategy.

When the Agent is ready to continue, turn Autopilot back on for the conversation.

Keep your handoff rules focused

Handoff rules should protect important customer interactions without sending every conversation to your team.

Review Support Needed conversations regularly to see which rules are useful and which situations your Agent could handle with better Knowledge or Strategies.

As your business and Agent improve, update your handoff rules to keep the balance between automation and human support.