Handoff: the queue for passing leads from the AI to human service, with the lead dossier

Handoff to a human

When the conversation leaves the AI and goes to a person on the team, how that happens, and what the lead sees on the other side.

No AI closes everything on its own: even when it guides the order all the way to the end, it is a person on the team who confirms it and takes it from here. The point where it hands the conversation to a person is the most delicate moment of the service — and it is what this screen takes care of.

When the conversation is handed over

The lead asked

"I want to talk to someone", "call me", "is there an agent there?" The AI recognizes the request and stops right away, without insisting.

The AI did not understand or the lead got irritated

It did not understand what the person meant, or the lead became frustrated with the service: the conversation comes here before it gets worse. A question it cannot answer does not hand off on its own, and it does not make things up: by default, it says it will confirm that detail with a specialist — a phrase that does not open a handoff, so the conversation does not show up here because of it. With "Conduzir até o pedido completo" (Guide through to the complete order) turned on, it says it does not have the information and asks whether the lead wants to talk to a person; if they ask, the conversation comes here.

The lead heated up or wants to buy

The score reached the "Quente" (Hot) band (75 points or more), or the lead said they want to buy while already "Morno" (Warm) (50 or more) or with everything that the "Qualificação" (Qualification) asks for answered. In "Modo atendimento" (Service mode) (direct sales, in "Configurações" (Settings) → "IA & persona" (AI & persona)), whoever says they want to buy is handed off without waiting for the score. Outside it, purchase intent from a "Frio" (Cold) lead does not hand off: choosing an option or providing a piece of data the AI asked for ("Pix", "the original") is not a purchase request, so it keeps qualifying, and the journey records "Intenção de compra sem evidência" (Purchase intent without evidence). What counts for points is what the "Qualificação" (Qualification) asks for; the lines at 50 and 75 are fixed. Outside business hours, this reason does not interrupt the lead: the conversation enters the queue without notice and the AI keeps going with them until the team opens. If "Conduzir até o pedido completo" (Guide through to the complete order) is turned on (a new account is already created this way), in "Configurações" (Settings) → "IA & persona" (AI & persona), this reason generally does not hand off: the AI continues until the complete order. It only appears here when the AI cannot answer safely to that message (the answer was blocked by the check or the price is not registered): then the conversation comes to the team with this reason.

The order is complete

With "Conduzir até o pedido completo" (Guide through to the complete order) turned on, the message in which the customer answers the last item that the "Qualificação" (Qualification) asks for hands the conversation over to here with the reason "Pedido completo" (Complete order): ticket, alert in the bell and on mobile, and round-robin, like any handoff. The customer reads the order summary written by the AI and that a person on the team will confirm everything with them here. Outside business hours, they do not receive an out-of-hours notice and the conversation waits in the queue for opening. The AI keeps replying until someone takes over.

You stepped in on your own

You read the conversation in the Inbox and decided to take over. No reason is needed.

The sentence the lead reads at handoff

When the AI hands over the conversation, the sentence changes according to the reason. None of them promises a priority or deadline that your team did not set up.

Heated up or wants to buy

"Great! I'll hand the conversation over to a person on the team, who will continue with you from here. Just a moment."

Asked for a person

"Of course! I'll call a person from the team to talk with you. Just a moment."

Got irritated

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience. I'll call a person from the team to assist you. Just a moment."

The AI did not understand

"I'll call a person from the team to continue with you from here. Just a moment."

Outside business hours

"Our team is outside business hours right now, but your conversation has been recorded and a person will speak with you at the next service hours. In the meantime, I can keep helping you here." For someone who got irritated, the sentence starts with an apology. Someone who heated up or wants to buy hears no sentence at all: the AI keeps the conversation going and your team finds the lead in the queue when it opens.

What the lead sees

This is the part that matters most and the one almost everyone gets wrong. When you take over, the lead starts seeing your name. Not the AI's name, not "customer service", not a robot with a human name.

How the name appears depends on the channel. In the Web chat, it sits above the bubble, the same way you see it in the dashboard. On WhatsApp and Instagram there is no sender field — every message arrives from the company's number and account —, so the name goes at the start of the text itself. It is the only way these two channels allow, and it is what prevents the lead from spending an hour chatting without knowing whether they are talking to a person.

WhatsApp

*Luis Roberto:* Boa tarde, Augusto! — in bold, which is the markup WhatsApp understands.

Instagram

Luis Roberto: Boa tarde, Augusto! — Direct has no bold, so the name goes in plain text.

Web chat

Boa tarde, Augusto!, with Luis Roberto at the top of the bubble — the widget shows the name, so it does not need to go in the text.

"E-mail" (Email)

Luis Roberto: Boa tarde, Augusto! at the start of the body. The sender of the email is the company's address, not yours.

In the dashboard nothing changes: you keep seeing only what you typed, with your name outside the bubble. The prefix exists only in the outgoing message.

There are cases where the name does not go along, for lack of a place to write it:

• "Modelo aprovado" (Approved template) — the text is pre-approved by Meta and accepts no additions.
• Voice message — it is audio; if you want to introduce yourself, say so in the recording itself.
• Attachment without a caption — there is no text to write in; a caption that was only your name would be noise.
• SMS — each segment of the message is billed separately, and the segment size changes with accents. Rather than risk doubling the cost of a send, the name is not included in any SMS.
• Message at the channel's size limit — then the signature is dropped so the message fits. Delivering matters more than signing.

Apart from these cases, the name always goes along.

For the person on the other side, the conversation simply continued — only now with a person. There is no awkward announcement of the switch, no repeating of what was already said. The whole history is still there.

The Handoff screen

At the end of the dossier are "Atendente" (Agent) and "Assumir conversa" (Take over conversation). Choose who will handle it and click: the notice right above the button repeats the one rule that never changes — the lead sees the agent's name.

You can also take over directly from the Inbox. The difference is that here the queue comes with the reason, the wait time, and the signals up front — which is what you need to decide the order.

The lead dossier

It is the report that appears next to the queue — and the same one that stays in the conversation panel after you take over. It exists so you walk in informed, without scrolling through the whole conversation for what was already said.

"O que a IA já combinou" (What the AI has already agreed)

One or two sentences about what was agreed in this conversation, plus the suggested next step. It is text written by the AI, not the lead's speech — that is why it appears without quotation marks and signed. What was agreed in an earlier thread of the same lead does not come in here: it would be you demanding today an agreement this conversation did not have. The summary is created at handoff — when the AI decides on its own, when a colleague requests it with the "Gerar handoff para humano" (Generate handoff to a human) button, and when someone takes over a conversation that was still the AI's; that is why the click takes a moment, it is the AI writing. As long as nobody hands off, the block stays empty, and that is expected. After a handoff it can also be empty: when the AI cannot read the conversation in time, it prefers not to write rather than write a generic sentence — the screen says there is no summary instead of making one up.

"Onde ele travou" (Where they got stuck)

The objections they raised, with their literal sentence in quotation marks. They belong to the lead, not just this thread: anything that came from an earlier conversation appears marked that way, because "I think it's expensive" from March still holds today. The type (price, timing, trust…) is the AI's classification; the sentence is the lead's. When there are more than twelve, the list shows the most recent and says how many there are. If the data subject requested removal of the sentence under LGPD, the objection stays listed and the quote disappears — the screen says so.

"Como a nota andou" (How the score changed)

The line shows the score at each measurement, with the warm (50) and hot (75) boundaries marked and numbered. It serves a question the signal list does not answer: did they heat up or cool off, and since when. The score belongs to the lead and adds up all their conversations. With only one measurement, the number appears — a point is not a line. Not every score change becomes a point in the history; when the current score is not the last recorded measurement, the screen shows both.

Pace of the conversation

Messages per day over the last 14 days, split between the lead and our side. A day without messages appears empty on purpose: silence counts. Twelve from our side to two from theirs is a lead cooling off, and that changes the tone of your first sentence.

What the AI kept about this lead

The memory it writes for itself in long conversations. It is also the AI's text, not a quote. It spans all of the lead's threads and is only rewritten from time to time — that is why it comes with the date of the last update, which is usually the oldest fact on the screen.

Which conversation each thing belongs to

Half of the dossier is about this conversation (the AI summary, the lead's mood, the pace, and their last statement) and half is about the whole lead (the score, the objections, the memory, and the notes). Each block says which of the two it is speaking about — an agreement borrowed from another thread would make you demand something nobody promised here.

"Anotações da equipe" (Team notes)

What you write for the next agent. It stays attached to the lead: it is still here tomorrow, in a new conversation thread. "Remover" (Remove) asks for confirmation, and both creating and removing are in the audit trail — which records who, when, and the size, never the text: deleting the note really deletes it. If the data subject requests to be forgotten (LGPD), the notes about them and the AI's memory disappear along with it.

After resolving

• Return it to the AI when the matter that required you is over. It resumes the follow-up and keeps contacting the lead if they go quiet.
• End it when the conversation has truly finished. If the lead writes again, it reopens on its own.
• Move the card in the "Funil" (Pipeline) if the deal moved forward. A proposal that was sent and stays stuck in "Qualificando" (Qualifying) fades from your mind in two days.

When the queue starts to hurt

The queue is always flagged as late

Either the deadline is too short for the size of the team, or your AI is handing off conversations it could resolve. Before hiring people, look at the handoff reasons: if the same topic repeats, the answer is missing from the "Base de conhecimento" (Knowledge base) and the handoff goes away on its own.

Everyone asks for a human right at the start

It is usually distrust, not doubt. A more direct tone and a first reply that already delivers something useful reduce this — the tone is adjusted in "Configurações" (Settings).

I took over the conversation and the lead disappeared

Check the time: if a long time has passed since their last message, the WhatsApp window may have closed and only an approved template can go through. The reply field warns you and offers the templates. See "Modelos de mensagem" (Message templates).

Nobody knows who owns the conversation

"Assumir" (Take over) is what fixes it: until someone takes it, the conversation belongs to everyone and to no one. Take it over before you write, even if you are going to reply within ten seconds.

In the dashboard: "Abrir Handoff" (Open Handoff)