Human Handoff

Your agent handles most questions on its own, but some conversations need a human. When a visitor asks for a person, sounds frustrated, or raises an issue the agent can't resolve, April hands the chat off — either to your team inside April's built-in Inbox, or to your existing help desk as a ticket.

You can use either mode, or both. This page covers how to turn each one on, how the agent decides to escalate, and what your visitors see.

When the Agent Escalates

April's AI watches every conversation for signals that a human is needed. It hands off when:

• The visitor explicitly asks for a person — "Can I talk to someone?", "Is there a human I can speak to?"
• The visitor is clearly frustrated — repeated complaints, anger, or "this isn't helping"
• The agent can't resolve the issue — a question outside its knowledge, a billing dispute, a refund, an account-specific request

Before it escalates, the agent always collects the visitor's email so your team can follow up, and writes a short summary of what the visitor needs — so whoever picks up the chat has the full context without reading the whole thread.

Mode 1: Built-In Live Agent Inbox

April's Live Agent inbox lets your team take over conversations in real time without leaving April or wiring up a third-party tool.

Turn It On

1. Open your chatbot in the April dashboard
2. Go to Integrations in the sidebar
3. Find Live Agent Handoff and click Turn on live agent handoff

That's it — there are no API keys to paste. Once it's on, escalated chats move to your Inbox automatically.

How a Handoff Plays Out

1. The agent decides a human is needed (or the visitor asks for one).
2. The conversation moves to a Needs human state and appears in your Inbox.
3. Both the visitor and your team see a system note: "A team member has been notified and will join this chat shortly."
4. A team member opens the conversation and clicks to take over — claiming the chat.
5. From that point the AI steps back. Everything the visitor types goes straight to your agent, and your agent's replies are delivered live in the widget.
6. When the issue is solved, the team member resolves the conversation, which hands control back to the AI for any future messages.

What Your Team Can Do in the Inbox

• Reply in real time — chat with the visitor directly while they're still on the page
• Add internal notes — private annotations on a conversation that only your team sees; notes are never shown to the visitor
• Use AI-suggested replies — April drafts a suggested response your agent can send as-is or edit first
• Resolve — close out the conversation and hand it back to the AI

Because takeover is atomic, if two team members open the same chat at once, only one becomes the active agent — so the visitor never gets a double "joined the chat" notice.

What the Visitor Sees

The visitor stays in the same chat widget the whole time. They see the system note that a team member is joining, then your team member's live replies appear inline — it feels like one continuous conversation, not a transfer to a different tool.

Mode 2: Your Existing Help Desk

If your team already works out of a help desk, April can escalate by opening a ticket there instead. April supports:

• Zendesk
• Freshdesk
• Intercom
• Zoho Desk
• HubSpot

When the agent escalates, it creates a ticket (or conversation) in your help desk containing the issue summary and the full conversation transcript, tagged with the visitor's name and email. Your team replies from the help desk as usual, and the visitor is followed up by email.

Turn It On

1. Open your chatbot in the April dashboard
2. Go to Integrations in the sidebar
3. Find your help desk (for example, Zendesk) and click Connect
4. Enter the credentials for that service and confirm — April verifies the connection before enabling it

The exact fields depend on the service. For step-by-step setup of each one, see the Help Desk integration guide.

What the Visitor Sees

Inside the chat, the agent confirms it has passed the issue along — for example, "I've shared this with our support team. They'll follow up at the email you provided." The conversation in the widget ends there, and the rest happens by email from your help desk.

If You Connect More Than One

You only need one destination. If you have several help desks connected, April picks one automatically in this order: Zendesk, then Freshdesk, then Intercom, then HubSpot, then Zoho Desk. To send tickets somewhere specific, keep only that one connected.

Choosing a Mode

• Use the built-in Inbox when you want to chat with visitors live, right inside April, while they're still on your site.
• Use a help desk when your team already lives in Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom, Zoho Desk, or HubSpot and prefers asynchronous email follow-up.

If you turn on the built-in Inbox, escalations go there. If you'd rather route to your help desk, connect it and leave the live agent handoff off.

Example Conversation

Visitor: I was charged twice for my subscription this month and I need this fixed.

Agent: I'm sorry about the double charge — that's something our team will want to sort out for you directly. Can I get the best email to reach you at?

Visitor: Sure, it's jordan@acme.com

Agent: Thanks, Jordan. I've passed this along to our support team with the details of the double charge, and they'll follow up at jordan@acme.com shortly. Is there anything else I can help with in the meantime?

Behind the scenes, the agent collected the email, wrote a summary ("Customer charged twice for their subscription this month and is requesting a fix"), and either opened a conversation in your Inbox or created a ticket with the full transcript in your help desk.

FAQ

Do I have to choose between the Inbox and a help desk? No. The built-in Inbox and your help desk are independent. Many teams start with the built-in Inbox and connect a help desk later — or run only the one that fits their workflow.

What happens to the chat after my team resolves it? With the built-in Inbox, resolving a conversation hands it back to your AI agent, so future messages from that visitor are answered automatically again.

Will the agent escalate by mistake? The agent only hands off when a visitor clearly wants a person or has an issue it can't resolve. You can shape this behavior with your agent's instructions in the Playground — for example, telling it to try a self-serve answer first.

Does the visitor's email get collected automatically? The agent always asks for an email before escalating, so your team has a way to follow up. If you also use lead capture, an email collected earlier in the chat is reused.

Can internal notes ever reach the visitor? No. Internal notes are private to your team and are never sent to the chat widget.

Which help desks can receive escalations? Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom, Zoho Desk, and HubSpot. See the Help Desk integration guide for the credentials each one needs.