Ferndesk
Assistant

AI escalation and handoff behavior

AI handoff behavior controls when the AI assistant offers your visitor a route to your support team. You set it separately for the widget and the help center, and both channels offer the same three options: AI decides, Always visible, or Off.

Choose a handoff behavior

Each channel uses one of three options:

  • AI decides: the assistant shows the contact option when the conversation calls for it

  • Always visible: the contact option is available at all times

  • Off: the assistant never offers a route to your team

You set each channel in a different place: the widget option lives in the widget customization panel, the help center option in the help center customization panel. The sections below give the exact routes and what each option does per channel.

Set handoff behavior in the widget

Select your widget and open Customize → Contact → AI handoff, then choose an option.

  • AI decides: the contact option can appear after no or partial answers, explicit escalation, frustrated sentiment, or negative feedback

  • Always visible: the contact option is always shown in the widget chat

  • Off: the contact option never appears, regardless of whether a contact method is configured

Set handoff behavior in the help center

Open Help Center → Customize → Contact, then choose an option.

  • AI decides: the AI panel can offer a route to the native contact panel after negative feedback

  • Always visible: the panel shows a persistent contact control, and contextual prompts appear only when the assistant explicitly escalates

  • Off: the panel does not offer a contact prompt

Draft a handoff summary

Enable Draft a handoff summary to have the AI generate a summary of the conversation before routing the user to your team. The AI drafts a message in your configured contact provider so the user doesn't have to type their request from scratch.

When your contact method is a chat platform integration that supports drafted-message handoff (Crisp, Intercom, Help Scout, Zendesk, or Pylon), the handoff opens that platform's chat composer with the drafted message pre-filled. The user must send the message before the handoff is completed. Plain is supported as an integration, but its bridge opens the provider without an inline draft.

To test the full loop with AI decides, ask the assistant a question it can't answer, then accept the offered handoff. Your chat platform opens with the drafted summary.

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