Human handoff

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How human handoff works

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Enable escalations

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Email notifications

1. Toggle on Enable Email Notifications
2. Enter your email address(es) in the Escalation Notification Email(s) field
3. Separate multiple emails with semicolons (;)

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Round robin notifications

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Slack notifications

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Webhook notifications

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Webhook payload

{
  "event": "escalation.created",
  "title": "My Chatbot: Visitor needs human assistance",
  "text": "I need to speak with someone",
  "chatbot": {
    "id": "chatbot-uuid",
    "name": "My Chatbot"
  },
  "visitor": {
    "id": 123,
    "email": "visitor@example.com",
    "first_name": "Jane",
    "last_name": "Doe",
    "phone": "+1234567890"
  },
  "conversation": {
    "id": 456,
    "last_message": "I need to speak with someone"
  },
  "inbox_url": "https://app.sitespeak.ai/chatbots/{id}/inbox/{visitor_id}",
  "timestamp": "2026-02-09T12:00:00+00:00"
}

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Verifying webhook signatures

const crypto = require("crypto")

function verifySignature(payload, secret, signature) {
  const expected =
    "sha256=" + crypto.createHmac("sha256", secret).update(payload).digest("hex")
  return crypto.timingSafeEqual(
    Buffer.from(expected),
    Buffer.from(signature)
  )
}

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How visitors escalate

• Asking to speak with a human: The AI recognizes requests like “Can I talk to a person?” or “I need human help”
• The AI offering escalation: When the AI can’t confidently answer, it can offer to connect the visitor with a human
• A rule in your Instructions: If your Instructions say that certain situations should go to your team (for example bugs, outages, login problems, complaints or refund requests), the AI escalates those messages without waiting for the visitor to ask for a person

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Responding via Live Chat

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Email replies to visitors

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How it works

1. You reply to a visitor in the Inbox.
2. If the visitor does not answer in the chat within 5 minutes, SiteSpeakAI emails your reply to them. If you send more than one message, they go out together in one email.
3. The visitor answers the email. Their answer shows in the same conversation in your Inbox, with a mail icon.
4. You reply in the Inbox as usual. Later emails stay in the same email thread.

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When a reply is not emailed

• The visitor has no email address, or the address is not valid
• An earlier email to the visitor bounced or was marked as spam
• The conversation came from WhatsApp or Google Chat, where the visitor gets your reply in that app

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Support inbox

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Forwarding from Gmail or Google Workspace

1. In Gmail, open Settings, then See all settings, then Forwarding and POP/IMAP.
2. Click Add a forwarding address and paste your inbox address.
3. Gmail sends a confirmation email to the inbox address. It shows as a new conversation in your SiteSpeakAI Inbox. Open it to find the confirmation code or link.
4. Back in Gmail, enter the code, then select Forward a copy of incoming mail to and save.

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Forwarding from Microsoft 365 or Outlook

1. In Outlook, open Settings, then Mail, then Forwarding.
2. Turn on Enable forwarding and paste your inbox address.
3. Select Keep a copy of forwarded messages if you want the emails in your mailbox too, and save.

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How the support inbox works

• Each sender gets one conversation in your Inbox. A new email from the same address goes into the same conversation.
• SiteSpeakAI writes a draft answer from your knowledge base and puts it in the reply box, marked as an AI draft. Nothing is sent until you click send.
• Your reply goes to the visitor by email at once, in the same email thread.
• Each AI draft uses one query credit from your monthly MCP query allowance. When the allowance is used up, emails still arrive, without a draft.

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Sending from your own address

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Limits

• Automatic emails, such as out-of-office replies, do not open a conversation.
• A chatbot receives at most 200 emails a day on the support inbox.
• Attachments are not shown. The Inbox notes how many the sender attached.

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Customizing escalation messages

• The message shown when escalating
• Email input placeholder text
• Confirmation messages

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Best practices

• Set expectations: Let visitors know typical response times in your escalation confirmation message
• Use round robin: Distribute escalations evenly across your team
• Connect Slack: Get real-time notifications where your team already communicates
• Use webhooks: Connect escalations to your CRM or ticketing system via Zapier, Make, or a custom endpoint
• Review escalations: Regularly review why visitors escalate to improve your AI’s training