Human handoff

The Human handoff page controls what happens when the AI cannot resolve a conversation on its own. Once configured, the agent recognises the right moments to call for human help — and your team steps in without having to monitor every thread.

You’ll find the page in the side menu, under SETUP, in Human handoff.

What human handoff is

When handoff is enabled, the AI agent monitors each conversation and detects when it should pass the conversation to a person. Examples of when this happens:

• The customer explicitly asks to speak to a human.
• The question is too complex for the AI to answer safely.
• The customer shows frustration or dissatisfaction.
• The situation requires a decision outside the AI’s scope.

A conversation can also go to your team when the customer sends several messages in a row that we can’t read (for example, an unsupported file format) or when the AI can’t reply because of a temporary problem.

When a handoff occurs, the conversation is marked as Needs human and enters the Needs you queue in the Inbox. The AI stops replying in that conversation until a team member hands control back to the AI.

Enable or disable handoff

At the top of the page, the Human support switch is Enabled by default. This means that right from account creation, the AI is ready to transfer conversations when needed.

If you prefer the AI to handle 100% of conversations without ever escalating, turn the switch off. When it is Disabled:

• The AI never automatically transfers a conversation to a human.
• Even if the customer asks to speak to a person, the AI keeps responding.
• Messages we can’t read and temporary AI failures don’t pass the conversation to your team either — the agent stays responsible for it.

Your choices of who receives and how to distribute are kept for when you turn handoff back on.

Note

Disabling handoff does not prevent you or a teammate from taking over a conversation manually in the Inbox. It only blocks automatic escalation.

1. Who can receive

With handoff enabled, the 1. Who can receive section lists your team members. Select one or more people to receive the AI’s transfers.

If nobody is selected, transfers go to the store owner (or, if the owner is inactive, to the longest-standing team member). That person is shown with the default badge and can only be deselected after at least one other team member is selected.

2. How to distribute

In the 2. How to distribute section, choose a single routing method:

Option	How it works
Automatic	Each new transfer goes to whoever has the fewest conversations in progress at that moment.
By percentage	You set each team member’s share of new transfers. The total must add up to 100% — use Split equally to divide evenly. Available when at least two people are selected.
By topic	You create topics (for example, “Exchanges and returns” or “Wholesale”) and choose who receives each one. The AI identifies the topic from the conversation context, without asking the customer to choose.

With any option, a conversation that already has a responsible team member stays with that person when the customer writes again.

Distribute by topic

1. In 2. How to distribute, select By topic.
2. Click Add topic.
3. Fill in the Topic name and explain in When should the AI use this topic? the situation it applies to.
4. Under Who receives, select one or more people — the list only shows the people you selected in 1. Who can receive.
5. Click Done to save the topic.

Changes to a topic only take effect when you click Done — until then, the rules in use stay the same. To change a topic later, click Edit; to delete it, use Remove topic.

When a topic has more than one person, whoever has the fewest conversations receives it. If the AI doesn’t identify any topic, the transfer happens anyway: the conversation goes to whoever has the fewest conversations among the people selected in 1. Who can receive.

How it will work

Next to the options, the How it will work summary shows, step by step, the path a transfer takes with the current configuration — what makes the AI transfer, how the person is chosen and what happens when no topic is identified.

Automatic saving

There is no save button: general settings are saved automatically as soon as you change something. The top of the page shows the progress — Saving changes…, Configuration saved or, if something goes wrong, a message with Try again.

If a setting is incomplete (for example, percentages that don’t add up to 100% or a topic with no recipient), it stays as Unsaved changes and the rules in use keep working until you complete the highlighted fields.

Conversation visibility

Note

This setting is available to administrators only.

Under Conversation visibility, the Team access field controls which conversations team members with the attendant role can see in the Inbox:

Option	What the attendant sees
All conversations	All of the store’s conversations (default)
Only their conversations	Only conversations where the attendant is the assignee

This setting doesn’t change who receives transfers. Use Only their conversations when your team is large and you want each attendant to focus only on their own conversations.

Automatic closing

Note

Available for e-commerce stores. Only the owner and administrators can configure it.

Automatic closing moves handled WhatsApp conversations to Resolved when the customer stops replying. This way the open queue only shows what still needs attention.

1. Choose the Time since the customer’s last message: 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours or 7 days.
2. Click Analyze open conversations. Infynia counts how many conversations already match the rule — nothing changes in your Inbox at this step. If the analysis is interrupted, use Continue analysis.
3. Check the preview with the number of conversations that can move to Resolved.
4. Click Review and enable and confirm with Enable automatic closing.

Once enabled, the rule also applies to future conversations. To change the period, choose another time and use Review new period and Save new period. To stop, click Disable.

How it works:

• The conversation history stays available and no message is sent to the customer.
• If the customer writes again, the conversation returns to the queue.
• In the conversation, the entry Automatically resolved after the service period shows it was closed by the rule.
• These stay open: conversations that still need a team reply, conversations you started or resumed without a customer reply, conversations marked as Waiting, conversations reopened by you and conversations with negative feedback.

How to take over a conversation manually

Even with automatic handoff enabled, administrators and the owner can join any conversation at any time. Attendants can too — except when team access is set to Only their conversations: in that case, the attendant can only see and take over conversations they are already assigned to.

To take over:

1. Open the conversation in the Inbox.
2. Click Take over conversation at the top of the panel.
3. The AI stops replying in that conversation while you are the assignee.
4. When you’re done, click Hand back to AI to reactivate the agent — or click Resolve: the conversation also returns to the inbox’s AI agent (if there is one), which replies if the customer writes again.

To learn more about navigating and replying to conversations, see Inbox.

Related pages

• Inbox — view all conversations and take over.
• AI agent — how the agent converses and when it decides to transfer.
• Attendance metrics — track transfers and your team’s response time.
• Team — manage your store’s users.