Agent Handover¶

Human support Agent Handover is a critical tool for incorporating virtual agents into existing contact center workflows. Direct communication between virtual agents and human agents will enrich the experience of a customer beyond the capabilities of a Conversational AI.

Handover Processes¶

If a request from a user is an edge case that is just too specific to be handled by the Bot, the bot can offer the user to be forwarded to a support agent, a real human, that can intercept the conversation and help the customer manually without the need to change channels.

Agent Handover Processes can be integrated in a Flow by using the Handover to Agent Node. If this Node is triggered, a Handover request from the customer is sent to the Contact Center Service that has been configured in the Endpoint Handover Settings. A human agent can then intercept and take over the conversation from the virtual agent.

Once a Handover has been initiated, the normal execution of the Flow is paused until the customer who is waiting for a support agent cancels the request, or until an agent finishes the conversation. Before the conversation with an agent has started, the customer can cancel the request and go back to the normal flow execution by triggering a selected intent or a dedicated quick reply.

New Handover Node

The old Handover Node has been replaced with a Handover To Agent Node. The content below is only applicable to the new Handover to Agent Node

When the Handover is finished, the Flow execution will continue below the Handover to Agent Node. A handover property will be added to the input object, which exposes information about why the handover was finished. The object that is exposed has the following structure:

{
    "handover": {
        "status": "completed"
    }
}

The status can have the following values:

Handover Status	Description
completed	The Handover was finished by the agent
cancelled	The user has cancelled the Handover request
error	An error occurred when requesting the Handover

In case of an error, the handover object is extended to contain additional information:

{
    "handover": {
        "status": "completed",
        "error": {
          "reason": "unsupported",
          "message": ""
        }
    }
}

The error reason can either be unsupported in case the user channel does not support doing a Handover, or error if something went wrong when contacting the Handover Provider.

There is also a Handover Status Token which can be used to access the handover status in the Flow.

Handling the Handover Status¶

To configure different behavior of the Virtual Agent based on the Handover status, you can use a Lookup Node to handle the different possible outcomes of a Handover. In the Lookup Node you can select to lookup on the Handover Status.

Handover to Agent Node¶

The Handover to Agent Node has both general and specific settings for each handover provider.

The General settings are described below and the specific settings you can find in the Handover Providers Overview.

Handover Accepted Message¶

Parameter	Type	Description
Handover Accepted Message	CognigyScript	The message to output if the Handover was requested
Repeat Handover Accepted Message	Toggle	Whether to re-output the Handover Accepted Message when the user sends a message while waiting in the queue for an agent.

Cancel Handover Options¶

Parameter	Type	Description
Cancel Intent	CognigyScript	The intent the user has to trigger to cancel the Handover request
Cancel Button Text	CognigyScript	The text for a quick reply button that cancels the Handover request when clicked.

On Resolve Options¶

Parameter	Type	Description
Flow Continuation	Selector	- Below this Node - the user will be taken to the node below the Handover node once the agent resolves the conversation. In this case, the user would continue in a different flow, but the starting point would be the node below the Handover node. - At current AgentInject Entrypoint - the user will continue the chat at the current agent inject entrypoint. This option allows the agent to guide the user to a specific part of the chat and then give control back to the user.
Send resolve event to Virtual Agent	Toggle	Sending an event when the virtual agent resolves a conversation.

Event Settings¶

Parameter	Type	Description
Send Queue Event	Toggle	Sending an event to the Flow once the Handover is queued.
Send Active Event	Toggle	Sending an event to the Flow once the Handover is active.

Handover Providers¶

For a list of supported Handover services, refer to the Handover Providers Overview.