Live inbox
Set up and use the live inbox to handle human handoffs and join conversations in real time.
How handoff works
Human handoff is triggered in three ways:
1. Visitor requests it — the visitor says "I want to talk to a person", "agent", or similar
2. Bot escalates — the bot detects repeated failures to answer and proactively offers to connect a human
3. System prompt rule — you configure the bot to escalate specific question types automatically
When a handoff is triggered, what happens next depends on your chosen handoff destination (see below).
Handoff destination
Choose where a handoff goes under Settings → Handoff → Handoff destination.
Open Handoff settings in adminLive Inbox (default). The conversation appears in your Inbox immediately and the visitor sees a "Connecting you with our team" message while they wait. Your team replies from the dashboard, and (if enabled) agents are notified by email. This is the right choice when someone is watching the dashboard. The rest of this page covers the Live Inbox flow.
WhatsApp redirect. Instead of queuing in the dashboard, the widget shows an engaging message and a Chat on WhatsApp button. When the visitor taps it, WhatsApp opens with a pre-filled message addressed to your number — and the conversation continues there as a normal WhatsApp chat. This is ideal for a solo founder or small team who'd rather answer from their phone than sit in a dashboard.
To set it up, pick WhatsApp redirect and fill in:
- WhatsApp number — country code + number, digits only (e.g.
918882207545). This is just the number visitors are sent to; it does not need to be connected via the WhatsApp bot channel. - Button text — the label on the widget button (e.g. "Chat on WhatsApp").
- Engaging message — the bubble shown above the button.
- Pre-filled message — the text WhatsApp opens with. Use
{bot_name}for your bot's name; optionally append the visitor's last message for context.
The settings card shows a live preview of the WhatsApp link as you type.
Configure handoff
Go to Settings → Handoff in the admin panel.
Open Handoff settings in adminHandoff settings: availability hours, queue message, and escalation triggers.
Configure the hours when your team is available to accept handoffs. Outside these hours, the bot shows an offline message and collects the visitor's email for a follow-up.
This message appears to the visitor while they wait for an agent:
> "You're in the queue — one of our team members will join shortly. Average wait: 2 minutes."
Shorter is better. Don't over-promise on wait times.
Shown when a handoff is requested outside your availability hours:
> "Our team is offline right now. Leave your email and we'll reply within one business day."
Accept a conversation
When a handoff request arrives, you receive a browser notification (if enabled) and the Inbox badge in the sidebar shows a count.
Open Inbox in adminThe Inbox badge shows the number of waiting conversations. A notification appears in the browser.
Open the Inbox and click Accept on the waiting conversation. The conversation is assigned to you and the visitor is notified.
Click Accept to claim the conversation. It moves from the queue to your active conversations.
In conversation
Once you've accepted, type in the message box at the bottom to reply to the visitor. Your messages appear with your name as the agent.
The full conversation history — including the bot's messages before the handoff — is visible in the thread. You have full context immediately.
The live chat interface. Full conversation history on the left, your reply box at the bottom.
Resolve and hand back
When the visitor's issue is resolved:
- Click Resolve to close the conversation. The visitor sees a thank-you message.
- Click Hand back to bot if the visitor has follow-up questions the bot can handle — the bot rejoins the conversation.
Resolved conversations move from Inbox to Conversations. The bot's self-learn system analyses the exchange to suggest knowledge base improvements.