Warm handover: how AI and your team run a conversation together
AI customer contact is not a matter of human or machine. With warm handover your colleague takes over the conversation and the AI steps aside, then rejoins later. Here is how it works.
Author: Heyloha Team
Not human or machine, but together
The fear around AI in customer contact is often that the machine takes over and the human is left out. In practice the best customer contact works the other way around: the AI handles the bulk, and your team steps in at the moments that really matter.
For that the handover has to be smooth, in both directions. At Heyloha we call that warm handover.
What is warm handover?
Warm handover means a conversation goes from the AI to a human, or the other way around, without the customer having to start over. The context is kept and both sides know what has been said.
The opposite is a cold transfer: the customer gets passed along, has to tell their story again and feels like they are being sent from pillar to post.
How it works in Heyloha
When a colleague replies themselves in WhatsApp, Instagram or LinkedIn, Heyloha notices and the AI falls silent in that conversation. You do not need to be in Heyloha first for that; you simply reply from your phone.
If things then go quiet for fifteen minutes, the AI picks the conversation back up on its own. Because the AI has been reading along, it knows what your colleague said and does not repeat or contradict it.
Replies from colleagues outside Heyloha now also show up in the conversation as normal. Before, it sometimes looked as though no one had responded.
A callback request when no one can take over
If no one can take over, for example outside office hours, your agent does not let the conversation hit a dead end. Instead it offers a callback request and collects the details you need to call back.
That way you do not lose leads at times when no one is available.
How to turn it on
Warm handover is off by default, so you decide when your team joins in. You turn it on under Agent, then Handover, and choose which channels it applies to. That is also where you set who gets notified and what happens if no one responds.
Want to see how this works for your team? Test Heyloha for free, no credit card.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to be in the app to take over? No. You simply reply from your phone in WhatsApp, Instagram or LinkedIn. Heyloha notices that your colleague has responded and steps aside.
What happens if I forget to come back to the conversation? If things stay quiet for fifteen minutes, the AI picks the conversation back up on its own, aware of what has been said.
Does this apply to phone too? Phone uses its own call forwarding. Warm handover as described here applies to your chat channels.