Escalations

What are escalations?

Even though the agent is extremely capable — it can browse the web, run code, process files, and much more — there are situations where a human touch is needed. A sensitive complaint, a negotiation, a decision that requires authority. When that happens, the conversation can be escalated to a human team member.

An escalation pauses the AI agent for that specific conversation and puts it in a queue for your team to handle manually.

How escalations get triggered

Escalations can happen in several ways:

• The AI decides to escalate — If you've included instructions in your system prompt like "escalate to a human when the customer asks for a refund," the agent will do so automatically.
• A customer asks for a human — If someone says "I want to talk to a person" or similar, the AI recognizes this and escalates.
• You escalate manually — You can escalate any conversation from the Chat page.

The escalations page

Open Escalations from your instance sidebar. The page has three sections:

My Queue

Conversations assigned to you. These are the ones you're actively responsible for.

Waiting in Queue

Conversations that have been escalated but aren't assigned to anyone yet. Any team member can pick these up.

Teammates

Conversations assigned to other team members on your organization.

Each escalation in the list shows:

• The contact's name or phone number
• The reason for the escalation
• How long ago it was escalated
• The current status
• Who it's assigned to (if anyone)

Handling an escalation

Taking a conversation

1. Find the escalation in the Waiting in Queue section
2. Click Take (or select it and click the Take button in the header)
3. The conversation moves to your My Queue
4. You can now see the full message history and reply to the customer

Replying to the customer

Once you've taken a conversation, use the chat composer to type and send messages. Your replies go directly to the customer's WhatsApp — they see them as normal messages from your number.

The AI agent stays silent on this conversation while it's escalated. Your replies are the only ones the customer receives.

Returning to the AI

When you've resolved the issue and want the AI to take over again:

1. Click Return to bot
2. The conversation is de-escalated
3. The AI agent resumes responding to future messages in that conversation

Closing an escalation

If the issue is fully resolved and doesn't need the AI to continue:

1. Click Close
2. The escalation is marked as closed
3. The AI can resume on future messages

Escalation statuses

Tips for effective escalations

Write clear escalation instructions in your system prompt

The more specific you are in your system prompt about when to escalate, the better:

Escalate to a human when:
- The customer asks for a refund or cancellation
- The customer is angry or using aggressive language
- The customer asks to speak to a manager or human
- You don't have enough information to answer their question
  after checking the Knowledge Base

Respond to escalations promptly

Customers are waiting for a human response. Check the escalations page regularly or set up notification preferences so you don't miss them.

Give the AI enough context to avoid unnecessary escalations

If your agent is escalating too many conversations, improve its Knowledge Base or system prompt. Many escalations can be prevented by giving the AI better information to work with.

Next steps

• Contacts & Audiences — Organize your contacts into groups
• Scheduling & Broadcasts — Send scheduled messages to your contacts