# Decide when a customer chat gets handed to a person

Version 1.1 · Kramaniti Kosh

> How to use this file: fill in the Working template section below. It opens in any text editor, or you can paste the whole file into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and ask it to help you fill it in for your business.

## Intended outcome

A one-page plan that lists the situations where a chat assistant, website chat or WhatsApp auto-reply must stop and pass the customer to a person, who picks it up and how fast, what the customer is told while they wait, and what context goes with the handoff, agreed before the assistant talks to any customer.

## Before you begin

- The channels where customers reach you today (WhatsApp, website chat, email, phone) and who answers each one
- A few weeks of real customer messages, including the awkward ones: complaints, refund asks, angry replies
- One person who can decide who picks up each kind of handoff, and when they are actually available

## How to use

1. Go through the real messages with whoever answers customers today. Mark every message where a person had to step in, and write down why.
2. Fill in the plan: the handoff situations, who picks each one up, how quickly, what the customer is told, and what the person receiving it needs to see.
3. Test it on past messages before switching on any assistant. Check the plan again after the first two weeks of live use, and update it whenever a handoff goes wrong.

## Working template

## Plan header

Business or team:

Plan owner:

Date:

Channels covered (for example WhatsApp, website chat, email):

What the assistant is allowed to do on these channels (in one or two plain sentences):

## Situations that must go to a person

For each situation, write who picks it up and who covers when they are away. Next to it, note the words or signs in a message that show it, taken from real messages you have seen.

- Complaint or unhappy customer
  Signs in a message:
  Picked up by:
  Backup:
- Refund, discount or price argument
  Signs in a message:
  Picked up by:
  Backup:
- Anything about safety, health or damage
  Signs in a message:
  Picked up by:
  Backup:
- A promise the business has not approved (dates, guarantees, custom work)
  Signs in a message:
  Picked up by:
  Backup:
- The customer asks for a person
  Signs in a message:
  Picked up by:
  Backup:
- The assistant does not know, or has asked twice already
  Signs in a message:
  Picked up by:
  Backup:
- Other situation:
  Signs in a message:
  Picked up by:
  Backup:

## How fast and when

- Working hours when someone can pick up a handoff:
- How quickly a person should reply during those hours (write what the team can really manage):
- What happens outside those hours:
- Who to call if a handoff is urgent and nobody has replied:

## What the customer is told

Write the exact words the assistant uses when it hands over. Keep them honest about timing.

- During working hours:
- Outside working hours:
- For an urgent safety or damage issue:

The assistant must not apologise for, admit, or deny fault on the business’s behalf. That stays with the person who picks up.

## What goes with the handoff

So the customer does not have to repeat themselves, the person picking up should see:

- The customer’s name and number or email:
- What they asked for, in one line:
- What the assistant already said:
- Any booking, order or invoice reference:
- Why it was handed over (which situation above):

## Owner and review

Named owner for this plan:

Where handoffs are recorded (a sheet, a chat label, a notebook):

Review date:

## Stop rules

- Do not switch on an assistant for customers until every row in the situations table has a person and a backup.
- Do not promise a reply time the team cannot keep. If nobody is available, the assistant says so plainly.
- Refunds, discounts, safety questions, damage claims and anything that sounds like a legal or medical question go to a person every time.
- If a handoff was missed or went wrong, record it and fix the plan before the next week of use. Do not invent counts or reply times you have not measured.

## Demonstration

This is an illustrative scenario, not a client case study or a measured result. Do not reuse its details as facts about your work.

A sample six-person home cleaning and pest control service in Bengaluru wants a WhatsApp assistant to answer booking questions. The owner takes most calls, two supervisors run the field teams, and one office person handles bookings. Nobody has written down when the assistant should stop and pass a customer to a person.

### Sample inputs

Demonstration inputs only. No message counts, reply times, booking numbers or prices are used. From a talk with the owner and the office person: customers ask about slots, prices and what chemicals are used; some messages come in late at night; a few customers have complained about missed spots or a stain after a deep clean; the owner is the only one who agrees refunds; the office person works daytime hours on weekdays and Saturday.

### Example output

#### Plan header
[Fact within this demonstration] Channels covered: the business WhatsApp number. The assistant may share approved slot times, the standard service list and the booking steps. It may not quote final prices for large homes, agree refunds or answer chemical safety questions. Plan owner: [Name the owner].

#### Situations that must go to a person
Complaint about a missed spot or stain: picked up by the supervisor for that job, backup [Name the owner].
Refund or price argument: picked up by [Name the owner] only.
Questions about chemicals near children, pets or anyone unwell: picked up by a supervisor, backup [Name the owner].
The customer asks for a person, or the assistant has not understood twice: picked up by [Name the office person].
[Inference] Chemical safety questions are listed separately because a wrong answer could cause harm, not because they came up often. How often they come up has not been measured here.

#### How fast and when
Working hours: [The office person’s actual hours].
Reply time: [What the owner and office person agree they can keep].
Outside hours: the assistant says a person will reply the next working morning, and does not book or confirm anything.
Urgent: a customer reporting damage or someone feeling unwell after a treatment is told to call [The owner’s number] straight away.

#### What the customer is told
During hours: "I’m passing this to [Name], who will reply to you here shortly."
Outside hours: "Our team is offline right now. [Name] will reply to you here in the morning."
Urgent: "Please call [number] now so someone can help you directly."

#### What goes with the handoff
The customer’s name and number, the address or area, the job date, what the assistant already said, and which situation triggered the handoff.

#### Stop rules applied
[Recommendation] Keep refunds, damage claims and chemical safety answers with named people, and test the plan on past WhatsApp messages before the assistant replies to anyone live. This recommendation is not the business’s decision.

## Quality check

Every handoff situation has a named person and a backup; the reply time is one the team says it can keep; the customer is told honestly what happens next; the handoff carries enough context that the customer does not repeat themselves; refunds, safety and damage stay with people; no counts or reply times were invented.

## Limits and human review

The plan sets out when and how a customer is passed to a person; it does not prove that an assistant is accurate, safe or right for your business, and it does not check consumer, data protection or safety rules. A filled plan is not approval to switch on an assistant, agree refunds or answer safety questions automatically. Keep consequential actions with the named human owner.

## Edition notes

New in Kosh at version 1.1. Provider-neutral Markdown instructions; no installation or platform compatibility is implied. Runtime behaviour has not been verified across AI providers. Reuse terms have not yet been published. Background reading: [Design the Escalation Before the Assistant](/insights/design-the-escalation-before-the-assistant/). Designing customer handoffs is part of Kramaniti’s [Systems Engineering](/#services) work.