The alby customer support handoff feature enables your AI agent to transfer conversations to human support agents through your customer support platform. When a customer needs assistance beyond what alby can provide, the feature allows smooth transitions from your AI agent to live support while maintaining conversation context.
This can help you automate common support inquiries while escalating complex issues to human agents. When a handoff occurs, alby triggers your support platform's chat interface and transfers conversation context when available. You can also set alby to not transfer during any off times in your support windows.
When enabled, alby will ask customers if they want to connect to a human agent if they’re getting stuck on an issue.
Chat platforms
alby supports customer support handoff with the following platforms:
- Zendesk
- No context passed to platform
- Gorgias
- Context passed to platform
- Gladly
- Intercom
- Context passed to platform
- Sprinklr
How to enable
There are two parts to setting up your chat handoff: Setting up the chat platform, where you choose your chat platform and the time period to handoff support, and enabling the action, where you allow your alby Agent to hand off the conversation to your platform.
Set the platform
Click your brand name > Settings.
Under Developer Settings, click Platform Services.
Under Support Chat Provider, choose the chat platform you have configured on your site.
(Optional) Add specific days and times to transfer your live chat to your platform. See Day and time restrictions for more.
Click Save Changes.
Enable the Action
- Navigate to Agents.
- Choose any alby Agent you want to use for chat handoff. Any number of Agents can have the Action enabled.
- Click Action > Handoff to support. You should see your chat platform listed under Support chat provider. If you don’t, click Edit in Settings to return to the settings page named in the Set the platform step.
- Click the Handoff to support toggle to the on position.
Context passing
Depending on the customer support platform you use, some customer conversation context may be passed to your live agent, to save both your representative and the customer time in not repeating their issue again.
When context is passed, an AI-generated summary of the conversation is sent to the support agent.
Day and time restrictions
You can configure specific days and times when alby will transfer conversations to your support platform. This allows you to align handoffs with your support team's availability and ensure customers only reach human agents during staffed hours. If a conversation that requires a handoff happens outside of your support team's hours, alby will continue to help customers outside of those hours without attempting to transfer them to your support platform.
Setting up time restrictions
Navigate to your brand name > Settings.
Under Developer Settings, click Platform Services.
In the Support Chat Provider section, select the checkbox to open the day and time settings options.
Set your timezone for the days and times you’ll be inputting.
- You will need to adjust for Daylight Saving Time.
Check the days where you want live chat handoffs, and adjust the times.
- For example, if you have live support available Monday-Friday 08:00 am to 08:00 pm, then leave Saturday and Sunday unchecked, and adjust the times to 08:00 am and 08:00 pm.
- Time adjustments are available in 15-minute increments.
Click Save Changes.
Best practices
- Work with your team to define when conversations should escalate to human agents based on topic complexity or customer sentiment.
- Use /Handoff to support in Playbooks to tell your alby Agent when to trigger a chat handoff.
- Regularly test the transition from alby to your support platform to ensure the customer experience is smooth.
- Use alby to handle frequently asked questions, allowing human agents to focus on complex cases that require more personalized attention.