Answer customers the bot hands over to you

Purpose

At eleven at night a customer asks the support bot for a real person, and next morning Neda wants to see exactly what was said and answer it herself. When the bot hands a conversation over, you are told, you read it in an inbox, reply from the same bot and give the conversation back when you are done.

Before you start

Connect the agent to a Telegram or Bale bot first (see "Connect an agent to a Telegram or Bale bot"). Reading the inbox needs permission to use agents; sending a reply or giving a conversation back needs permission to manage agents. Handoffs belong to the member who connected the bot, so other members do not see them. For a message on Telegram or email, link your Telegram account in Settings, "Login options", or verify your email address (see "Notifications").

Steps

1. Know when a handoff happens. The agent hands a conversation to you when a customer asks for a person, or when it cannot answer from its knowledge and instructions (see "Give a customer bot its rules and knowledge"). It tells the customer in one short sentence that you will follow up. This needs no setup and no approval. From then on the bot stays silent in that conversation, and the customer's new messages are held for you.
2. Choose how you are told. Open Settings, then "Notifications", and use the section "Customer handoffs": "In the app", "Telegram" and "Email". You are told at once, never in a batch. The message is "A customer needs you" and never contains the conversation or the customer's name. Its link opens the agent's editor.
3. Open the inbox: "Agents", the agent under "My agents", "Agent actions", "Edit agent", then "Channels" and the tab of the bot (Telegram or Bale). While the bot is connected, "Customer conversations handed to you" appears under the other sections of the tab.
4. Each row shows "Customer" followed by a short number taken from the end of the customer's chat number, the agent's reason or the time, a red "[N] new messages" badge when the customer wrote since your last reply, and the status "With you" or "Given back".
5. Select a conversation. "Reason from the agent" gives the agent's short reason. "Earlier in this conversation" shows the most recent messages, and "Since the handoff" shows what the customer wrote after the handoff. Each message is labeled "Customer", "Agent" or "You". Attachments show as "(attachment)". Select the arrow ("Back to conversations") to return to the list.
6. While the conversation is "With you", write in "Your reply to the customer" (up to 4,000 characters) and select "Send reply". It is sent to the customer from the same bot.
7. When you are done, select "Give back to the agent". The agent starts answering this customer again from their next message. This is the only way the bot starts answering again.

Expected result

You are told at once when a customer needs you, you can read the conversation and reply, and the bot answers again only after you give the conversation back. A conversation you gave back shows "Given back"; if the agent hands the same customer over again, it returns to "With you".

Troubleshooting