Human handoff & email replies

The bot answers on its own until a person is needed. Then your team answers from Telegram or the dashboard inbox, and if the visitor has already left, the answer reaches them by email.

Human handoff

Set it up

1. Connect a Telegram chat or group in Settings → Notifications. See Notifications.
2. Open Bot → Behavior → Connect a human (live chat) and turn on Allow the bot to hand over to a human.
3. Under Operators’ Telegram chats, choose where handoffs go. If you choose none, all connected Telegram chats get them.
4. Set Return to AI after (min): if no operator replies for this long, the AI takes over again. Default: 30 minutes.

When the bot hands over

The bot hands over when the visitor asks for a person, when it can’t solve the problem, or when a purchase needs a manager. It asks for contact details first if it doesn’t have them.

If handoff is off or no Telegram chat is connected, the conversation is still marked as needing a human and your team is notified, but nobody joins the chat live.

When your plan’s monthly conversation limit is reached and Telegram is connected, new conversations go straight to your team.

Answering from Telegram

The Telegram chat gets a card: “a visitor needs a human”, the reason and the recent messages, with the buttons Take over, Back to AI and Open in Feedbot.

• Reply to the card to answer the visitor. The AI pauses while you talk.
• New visitor messages appear in Telegram as replies in the same thread. Files the visitor attaches (chat attachments, Starter and up) are sent there as documents.
• Send /take as a reply to take over, and /done or /ai to hand the chat back to the AI.
• A 👍 reaction means your reply was delivered. Only text messages are supported.

The visitor sees “Connecting you to a human…”, then “{name} joined the chat”, and your messages are labeled “{name} from the team”. When you hand back, they see “You’re back with the AI assistant”.

Answering from the dashboard

In the inbox, open the conversation and click Take over, then type your reply. Back to AI returns the chat to the bot. Suggest drafts a reply for you, see Tickets & reply templates.

Email replies

When a team member answers and the visitor is no longer in the chat, Feedbot sends the answer by email. Set it up in Bot → Behavior → Continue by email:

Setting	Description
Email replies to visitors who left	On by default. Works only when the visitor’s email is known.
Delay (minutes)	0–60, default 2. Gives the visitor time to come back. If they return to the site within the delay, the email is not sent.

The email:

• is sent from [email protected], with the widget title as the sender name (the bot name if there is no title), and “{operator} · {title}” for team replies;
• has the subject “{title} replied to your message”;
• uses a per-conversation reply-to address, so the visitor can simply reply.

The visitor’s email reply lands in the same conversation. If an operator is live, it goes to them; otherwise the AI answers by email right away. Only replies from the visitor’s own address are accepted. Auto-replies are ignored, and replying “STOP” or “unsubscribe” turns off emails for that address.

In the inbox, Also send by email sends your reply by email immediately, whether or not the visitor is online.