Human Takeover and Escalation for AI Chat

No AI should handle every conversation. Escalation is how you decide when a chat should involve a person and what happens then. Both are configured per agent, so each business can pick the approach that matches its staffing: a live human joining the chat, an email to the team, or just a polite message.

The three outcomes#

Action	What happens	Needs
Live takeover (`takeover`)	The conversation appears in the dashboard inbox flagged as needing attention. A teammate joins, the AI stops replying, and the teammate chats with the visitor directly.	A plan with human takeover (Starter and above) and someone watching the inbox.
Email handoff (`email`)	The transcript and any details collected are emailed to your configured recipients, and the visitor is told the team will follow up by email.	At least one recipient address and working outbound email.
Both (`both`)	Live takeover is requested and the email is sent too, so nothing is missed if nobody is online.	Takeover plan feature plus recipients.
Message only (`message`)	The visitor is shown the rule's message (or a default) and nothing else changes: the AI keeps answering. Use it for things like pointing people to a phone number.	Nothing else.

Plan gate Rules that use live takeover (takeover or both) cannot be published on the Free plan. Publishing fails with a message suggesting the email or message action, or an upgrade. If a plan loses the feature after you published (for example, after a downgrade), the handoff falls back to the email action instead of failing. See Billing and plans.

Escalation rules and triggers#

Escalation is on by default. You can add up to 12 rules, each with a trigger type, an action and an optional message shown to the visitor. Rules are checked in the order listed and the first one that matches applies. Rules that look at the visitor's message are checked before the AI answers; the failed-answers rule is checked after each AI reply.

Trigger	Fires when	Settings
`visitor_request`	The visitor asks for a person, for example "talk to a human", "I want to speak to someone", "agent please". Recognised by pattern matching on common phrasings.	Optional extra keywords. The default rule uses this trigger with live takeover.
`keyword`	The visitor's message contains one of your keywords or phrases, such as "refund", "cancel" or "lawyer" (case-insensitive substring match).	Up to 30 keywords.
`failed_answers`	The AI has replied that it could not help, in a row, a set number of times ("I'm not sure", "I don't have that information", and similar).	Threshold from 1 to 20 (consecutive unanswered replies).
`sentiment_negative`	The visitor seems upset: a simple word-based check counts negative messages among the last few and fires when the threshold is reached.	Threshold from 1 to 20. It is a heuristic and does not read tone like a person does; test it against your own transcripts.
`outside_hours`	Not a trigger by itself. While your business is closed, any handoff uses this rule's action and message instead of the original rule's. See Business hours.	Action and message.

The AI can also escalate on its own: the built-in escalate tool lets it hand over when its instructions say so. See Built-in tools. Whichever way a handoff starts, the same settings below decide what the visitor sees and what you receive.

Visitor messages and collected details#

Waiting message (default "I've let a teammate know. They'll join this chat shortly."): shown when live takeover is requested.
Email-only message (default "Thanks! I've sent your request to our team and they'll follow up by email."): shown when the action is email.
Email recipients: up to 10 addresses that receive handoff emails. If you leave this empty, SiteTrellis uses the lead notification addresses, and failing that the owners and admins of the account. The email contains the reason, the page, what is known about the visitor, the transcript so far, and a link to open the conversation in the inbox. If the visitor gave an email address, replying to the handoff email goes to them.
Collect fields: details to ask for before handing off, such as email and reason. When a required field is still missing, the chat shows a short inline form first ("To connect you with our team, I need a couple of details."), and the handoff completes as soon as it is submitted. The default asks for a required email, so you can reply even if the visitor leaves the page. Fields are defined like lead capture fields. The message-only action skips this step.

Write the waiting message to match reality. Telling visitors "a teammate will join shortly" at 3 a.m. when nobody is awake is worse than saying you will reply by email in the morning.

The operator inbox#

Everyone with the Agent, Admin or Owner role can work the inbox (agents only see workspaces they belong to). Open Conversations:

Conversations awaiting attention are flagged. The list refreshes automatically every few seconds while the tab is open and pauses when the tab is in the background.
Open a conversation to read the full transcript, the visitor's page and attributes, and the AI's activity.
Click Take over. The conversation switches from AI mode to human mode and is assigned to you. The visitor sees a system note such as "Sam joined the chat" and your name on your replies. The AI no longer answers.
Type your reply. The visitor sees a typing indicator while you write.
When finished, either Hand back to AI to return the conversation to the AI, or Close conversation to end it. Use Mark resolved to tidy your inbox once a conversation has been dealt with.

You can also work the same inbox from your computer with the desktop app, which adds native notifications for chats that need a person, or from your phone with the mobile app.

Takeover requires a plan that includes it. There is no automatic routing or round-robin: any permitted teammate can pick up a flagged conversation, so agree who is on duty.

Best practices#

Match the action to your staffing. Live takeover only for hours when someone is really watching; email handoff otherwise. Combine them with outside_hours.
Always collect an email before handing off, so there is a way back to the visitor.
Give the AI a clear policy in its prompt: which topics must always go to a person (payments, cancellations, complaints, legal).
Test every rule in the playground and once on the live widget. Check the email arrives and the inbox flags the chat.
Notice the handoff rate. Frequent handoffs on the same topic mean your agent needs better knowledge for it.
Set expectations in the widget header and offline copy. See Widget customization.
Notify the team where they work. Subscribe a webhook to handoff.requested to ping a chat or ticketing tool. See Webhooks.