Step by step
Take over a conversation and return it to the AI
How to reply to a customer yourself, what they notice on each channel and how to pause, resolve or return the conversation to the agent. The AI does not come back on its own.
- Reviewed on
- 7 min read
In this article
To reply to a customer yourself, open their conversation under Conversations, type and send: sending puts you in charge and the AI stops replying in that conversation. It does not come back on its own: when you have finished, press Return to the AI.
Before you start
- Your role. The Member, Admin and Owner roles can reply and change who handles a conversation. With Read only you can read them, but instead of the reply box you see “Your role (Read only) can read conversations, but not reply or change who handles them.”
- Credits. What your team writes uses no credits. The exception is a WhatsApp number supplied by iAgentify: there each message sent costs credits, whether the agent or a person writes it, and the number’s card under Channels says how many. See request a new WhatsApp number.
Who is answering at each moment
The conversation’s status bar always tells you: AI active if the agent is answering, Person in charge if your team has it, Paused if nobody replies automatically, or Resolved if it is closed. Under Person in charge it also shows who is handling it and, if there was a handoff, the “Reason:”.
The buttons on the bar change with the status. On a phone you see one, and the rest are under More actions. What each status means is in the conversations inbox.
Reply and take over
Go to Conversations and open the conversation.
Type in the Your reply box. Above it you will see the notice “Sending puts you in charge of this conversation: the AI stops replying until you return it.”
Press Send, or the Enter key. Shift + Enter starts a new line without sending.
The status changes to Person in charge and, if the conversation was not assigned to anyone, it is assigned to you. Each reply can be up to 4,000 characters long.
If you want the AI to stop replying before you write, for example while you look something up, press Take over. The agent stops at once and the conversation is assigned to you.
What the customer notices on each channel
- In your website chat, the visitor sees the line “A member of the team will reply here.”, in the chat’s language, and receives your replies in that same chat.
- On WhatsApp and Instagram, your reply arrives as one more message from your number or your account, with no special notice.
On the website, your reply only reaches the visitor while they are still on your page. If you step into a conversation the AI was handling, they see it when they send their next message or open the chat again; from then on, the following ones arrive by themselves within seconds. If they have already left, they will find it when they come back to your website from the same browser within the next 24 hours. iAgentify does not send them an email or a message on their phone: if they left their details, you have them in the Contact section of the conversation’s details.
Return to the AI, pause or resolve
The AI does not come back on its own. While a conversation is under Person in charge or Paused, the agent does not reply even if the customer keeps writing, not at night and not at the weekend either. When you have finished, use one of these buttons:
| Button | What it does | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Return to the AI | The status goes back to AI active and the conversation is left unassigned. The agent picks it up with the customer’s next message: it does not answer on its own whatever was left pending | You have finished and the agent can carry on |
| Pause | Nobody replies automatically. The conversation stays Paused until someone picks it up | You want to stop the AI and are not going to reply yet. In the website chat, the visitor sees the same line saying that a person will reply |
| Resolve | Closes the conversation as Resolved and it stops counting as unread. If the customer writes again, it reopens with the AI and unassigned | The matter is closed |
| Reopen with the AI | Puts a resolved conversation back to AI active | You want to reopen it without waiting for the customer to write |
The buttons you see depend on the status:
- Under AI active: Take over, Pause and Resolve.
- Under Person in charge: Return to the AI, Pause and Resolve.
- Under Paused: Take over, Return to the AI and Resolve.
- Under Resolved: Reopen with the AI and Take over.
In a resolved conversation you can also write straight away. The notice on the reply box changes to “Sending reopens the conversation with you in charge: the AI does not reply until you return it.”
When the agent hands over by itself
You do not need to be watching the inbox: the agent passes the conversation to your team in three cases. In all three, the status changes to Person in charge, the bar shows “Reason:” and the team receives the A customer asks for a person notification.
| Case | Reason you will see |
|---|---|
| The customer asks to talk to a person | “The customer asked to talk to a person.”, or a sentence in the agent’s own words |
| One of your rules applies, or the agent sees that it cannot help or that a decision from your team is needed | A sentence from the agent explaining why |
| The agent could not reply because of a technical failure, on WhatsApp or Instagram | “The agent could not answer automatically.” |
The first two cases only happen if the agent has Allow handoff to a person switched on, under Agents › your agent › Behaviour › Handoff to a person. That is also where you write your rules, under When to hand over, and the Handoff message, which is what the agent tells the customer when it passes the conversation on. With handoff off, the agent handles every conversation to the end. See adjust how your agent answers.
The third case does not depend on that setting. The customer receives “I cannot answer right now. A member of the team will continue this conversation here as soon as possible.” and the conversation waits for a person. It is not usually a problem with your account: if it keeps happening, write to us from Support.
Bear in mind as well:
- When it is your team that takes over, the reason recorded is “A team member took over.”
- Without credits there is no handoff. The agent stops replying and nothing else; your team can keep answering by hand. See the free trial and credits.
- To see the conversations waiting for someone, filter the list by the Person status and, under Filters, choose Unassigned for Assignment. More in tags and assignment.
If something does not go as expected
- Your reply stays as Not delivered. The reason is under the message. On WhatsApp and Instagram it is usually the 24-hour window; otherwise, check the connection under Channels.
- The AI is not replying to a customer. Look at the status. If it is Person in charge or Paused, press Return to the AI. If it is AI active, follow your agent is not replying.
- You do not see messages arriving. Look at the live connection indicator.
- You want to know who did it. Every time someone presses Take over, Return to the AI, Pause or Resolve, it is recorded under Settings › Company › Activity log, which admins and owners can see.
Related articles
- The conversations inboxWhat the Conversations screen shows, how to search and filter, what each status means and what each team role can do there.
- Tags and assignment: organising the team’s conversationsHow to tag a conversation, assign it to a person on your team and filter the inbox by both. What assignment does and what it does not do.
- Adjust how your agent answers: tone, languages and instructionsChange your agent’s tone, languages, instructions, handoff to a person and the details it asks for, and bring back an earlier version if you need to.
- WhatsApp’s 24-hour rule in plain wordsWhatsApp only lets a business write to a customer during the 24 hours after their last message. What that means for your agent and your team, and what to do if the time runs out.