Designing the handover from an AI assistant to your staff
An assistant is judged by how it behaves when it should stop. A clean handover turns a difficult moment into a good one; a poor one makes the customer start again.
Decide the triggers in advance
List the situations where a person must take over: the customer asks for one, the customer sounds angry or upset, the topic is a complaint, a refund, health, safety or a legal threat, or the assistant has failed to answer twice in a row. Write them down and give them to the assistant as rules.
Say what is happening
The customer should be told that a member of staff will take over, and roughly when. Silence after a hand-over feels like being ignored. If nobody is available, say when someone will reply and offer to take a message.
Give the staff member the history
The person taking over should see the whole conversation, the customer's details and why the assistant stopped. The customer should not have to repeat anything. This matters most on the phone, where repeating yourself is irritating.
Have an owner and a clock
Decide who is responsible for hand-overs at each time of day, and how quickly they should respond. A hand-over that sits in a queue overnight needs a clear message to the customer and a first task for the morning.
Let the person give control back
Once the issue is resolved, the staff member should be able to return the conversation to the assistant, or close it. Otherwise the assistant stays silent on a customer who needs only a simple follow-up.
Test the path as hard as the answers
- Ask for a person in three different ways, including in Malay.
- Write an angry message and see whether it hands over.
- Raise a refund and check that the assistant does not decide it.
- Time how long it takes for a staff member to see the conversation.
- Check what the customer sees while they wait.
Read the hand-overs weekly
Each hand-over shows either a gap in the knowledge or a case where a person is the right answer. Count them, read a sample and fix the gaps. Floee hands the conversation to your staff with the history attached on WhatsApp, web chat and the phone. See AI customer service chatbots in Malaysia, and try it on the free plan.