Handoff overview
Understand when and how a conversation moves from the AI to a human agent in Informly.
Handoff is the moment a chat stops being handled by the AI and starts being handled by a person on your team. Some questions are too sensitive, too account-specific, or too ambiguous for an AI to answer well — handoff gives you a clean way to put a human in the loop without breaking the conversation in half.
This page explains what triggers a handoff, what the customer experiences, and what agents see on their end.
What triggers a handoff
Two things can move a conversation from the AI to a human.
The widget includes a Talk to a person button. When the customer clicks it, the conversation enters the handoff queue right away — no questions asked.
You can configure rules per widget so handoff fires on its own. Common triggers include:
- Low AI confidence on the last answer
- Specific keywords in the customer's message (e.g. "refund", "cancel")
- A sentiment drop — the customer is getting frustrated
Configure these at Widgets → (widget) → Handoff.
Configure handoff per widget
Each widget has its own handoff settings. That's deliberate — your marketing-site widget probably handles handoff differently from your in-app support widget.
Go to Widgets → (widget) → Handoff to set:
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Route to department | Which department receives the handoff. |
| Qualifying questions | Questions the AI asks before placing the customer in the queue (e.g. "What's your order number?"). |
| Fallback message | What the customer sees if no agent is available. |
The qualifying questions are useful — they save your agents from typing "Hi! Can you share your order number?" as the first message every time.
What the customer sees
From the customer's seat, handoff feels like a continuous chat.
They click "Talk to a person"
Or the AI tells them it's bringing in a human and asks them to wait.
They wait in the queue
The widget shows a short waiting message. If you've configured a fallback for off-hours, that message appears instead.
An agent picks up
The next message comes from a human, labeled with the agent's name. The conversation continues in the same window.
The agent wraps up
When the chat ends, the customer gets the same feedback prompt described in Conversation feedback.
What agents see
On your team's side, handoff means two new screens to work in: the Queue and My conversations. Those are covered in detail in Agent workspace.
In short:
- A new chat in the queue triggers a notification in-app
- An agent claims it (or it's auto-assigned, depending on your settings)
- The agent replies in real time, with the full customer context next to the thread
Real-time everywhere
The queue updates the moment a new conversation enters it, and new assignment alerts arrive without a refresh. Informly uses websockets (Laravel Reverb) so agents don't need to keep clicking around to stay current.
If you're rolling out live support for the first time, start with one widget and one department. You'll iterate on qualifying questions and routing rules faster with a smaller surface to watch.