Take over conversations

The bot is good at the predictable part of a conversation: collecting answers, offering slots, confirming bookings. Some conversations still need you — a request the flow does not cover, a price negotiation, a frustrated customer, or a booking that needs back-and-forth before you approve it.

• The customer asked something the flow has no path for and the conversation stalled.
• A pending submission needs clarification before you can approve or decline it.
• The customer asked to talk to a person. The bot pauses on its own for that (see below), but honoring it quickly is still worth more than any flow tweak.

A customer does not have to wait for you to notice. When they write something like “can I talk to a human”, in the bot's language or in English, the bot pauses, tells them someone will reply, and you get a notification. They often do not have to hit the exact phrase: when a customer types something the current step cannot use, an AI model reads that message, with the bot's question, options, name, description and the answers it already holds, to tell whether they are asking for a person or are fed up with the bot, and the bot hands over when the model is confident. The same reading answers questions: if a customer asks something your bot already answers under a menu entry, such as parking or opening hours, the bot sends that answer exactly as it stands in your flow and then asks its question again, so the customer does not lose their place. It also takes a choice described in the customer's own words: someone who types “need my roots done” at a list of services with Colour on it goes on as if they had tapped Colour, and your inbox shows both what they typed and what it was taken as. This works on your menus and on the booking lists: services, staff, days and times. A customer can also say several at once: “tomorrow at 3 with Ana”, typed while booking, fills the staff, day and time steps it can as the bot reaches them, provided each is on offer, and the bot then sends one line with what it understood (✓ Ana · Thu, Oct 8 · 3:00 PM) before carrying on. Only what is free is ever taken, and the bot still asks its last question before anything is booked. A part of the day, such as “afternoon” or “after 5”, moves the list of times to where that part starts; a loose time such as “around 4” gets the list as before. A time is taken only for the day it was said about, and the line the bot sends back names that day. You can try this in the builder's preview once the bot is saved: type a question there and it answers the same way. The model never writes a reply, and you can turn this off per bot in its settings, under Typed messages. The bot also hands over after three answers in a row the flow could not accept, so a customer stuck on a question is not left arguing with a bot. Outside your business hours the message also says when you are back.

Two timers in the builder's Configure tab, under Customer messages, decide what happens while the customer waits. Still waiting after is how many minutes pass before the bot tells them you are still coming, 10 by default. Hand back after is how many minutes with nobody writing before the conversation goes back to the bot on its own, 120 by default. Set either to 0 to turn it off.

• Internal notes. Switch the composer from Reply to Note to write something only your team sees. Notes stay in the transcript, marked as internal, and never reach the customer. You can leave one while the bot still owns the chat.
• Saved replies. Open Saved replies under the composer to insert one, save what you have just written under a name, or delete one you no longer use. They are kept per bot.

Once you have taken over, the photos, voice messages, videos and files the customer sends appear in the transcript, on Telegram, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and website chat. The bot can collect a file on its own too: give a step the Photo or file answer type and the file the customer sends to it shows in the same transcript.

• Send a photo or a file. Use the paperclip under the composer, or paste an image. One attachment goes with each reply, and what you type is sent as its caption. Photos must be JPEG or PNG; PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and text files, MP4 video and MP3 or M4A audio also work. Files can be up to 25 MB, and each channel has its own lower limits, which the inbox tells you about if a file is refused.
• Record a voice message. Click the microphone, speak, and stop. Recordings can run up to five minutes.
• Website chat. The customer gets a paperclip in the chat window once you have taken over, or when a step of your bot asks for a photo or file, and can send one from there.

When the human part is done, click Hand back and choose what the bot should do next. The customer receives your configured bot-resumes message, and the submission returns to the status it had before you took over, so the rest of your pipeline is unaffected.

• Resume where the bot left off. The flow carries on from the step the customer was at. This is the default whenever the bot was part-way through.
• Start the flow over. The bot begins again from the first step, for a customer whose earlier answers no longer apply.
• Close this conversation. Nothing more to do: the conversation ends without the bot picking it back up.

Both transition messages live in the builder's Configure tab: Human takes over is sent when you step in, and Bot resumes when you hand back. Leave either blank to send nothing, and use {{node-id}} to drop a customer's earlier answer into the text. The two waiting timers sit beside them.