Even after designing and testing a robust digital assistant experience, there might be times when it makes sense to hand off users to a human agent. It’s important to recognize the triggers for a handoff and how to properly set up a seamless handoff to a human.

Handoff Triggers

There are a number of reasons why a digital assistant might hand off the user to a live human agent. Here are some typical triggers for handing off users to a human agent.

Digital Assistant Limitations

Digital assistants have certain limitations and can’t handle every user request because it lacks knowledge or training, or the request is too complex and beyond the digital assistant’s scope.

Unknown Issue or Error

It’s possible that a digital assistant comes across an issue or an error it can’t handle. The digital assistant is unable to determine the user intent or various other issues.

User Requests Live Agent

Users sometimes prefer to talk with a human to address their problem and ask the digital assistant to transfer to a human.

Handoff Protocols

It’s always possible that a user gets handed off to a human during the digital assistant interaction. You want this experience to be seamless and pleasant for the user. Here are some best practices to use when handing the user off to a human.

Make it Easy for the User

Users should always be able to talk to a human agent quickly and easily at any time. Make it simple and seamless for users to ask for human help to avoid adding to their frustration when things aren’t going as expected with a digital assistant.

Begin the Handoff

Here are a few things to confirm before you hand off the user to a human.

• A live human agent is available. If not, make sure the user’s needs are met by creating a support ticket or scheduling a callback.
• The handoff request has the correct context so that it is routed to the appropriate human agent.
• The human agent has a record of the conversation to understand the context of the handoff and better assist the user.

Review Handoff Triggers

Review handoff requests to see at what point in the conversation are most handoffs triggered. Analyze how you can prevent conversation triggers by understanding what went wrong, when, and how it went wrong. The goal is to reduce how often a handoff is triggered and improve the overall conversation experience for users.

Conversational elements are the parts that make up a conversation. In the context of conversational user experience, we break down a conversation into 3 stages: entry, turn-taking, and exit.

This section will give an introduction on these 3 elements.

Entry

Turn-taking 

Turn-taking is the back and forth between user and digital assistant. Turn-taking serves 4 types of purposes: Disambiguation, Guiding Users, Execution of Intent, and Error Handling. 

Exit

The third stage is the Exit stage. This is where the user either chooses to close the conversation or continue with a different set of tasks. The user can choose to exit whether or not the task was completed–they should always have that option anytime in the conversation. 

Conversational design is a design language based on human conversation and translates it into an interaction with the computer through voice, chat, audio, visual design, and more. Conversational design combines multiple areas like linguistics, psychology, and interaction design.

Good Conversation

The most important aspect of a good conversation between two people is understanding each other, finding common ground, actively listening, and of course, trust. Conversational design shares many of these aspects.

People don’t talk to a digital assistant the same way they talk to their friends. They know these conversations are interactions with artificial intelligence personalities. Most conversations with digital assistants are about transactional tasks where users need information or to perform a task.

Benefits to Users

A successful conversation between a human and digital assistant gives users:

• information they need to complete a task easily and quickly.
• faster response times than typical customer support.
• a feeling of understanding, engagement, and trust.
• expanded accessibility to all users.
• an enjoyable experience.