Hand a conversation to a person at the right moment

No customer is left arguing with a bot. The agent knows when to step aside, and your team picks up with the full history.

Good for

• Every business
• Complaints and refunds
• Big orders and special requests

The situation

AI handles most conversations well, but some need a person: a customer who is upset, a refund decision, a manager request, or a large corporate order. What matters is how the handover feels. The customer should be told honestly that a person is coming, the right teammate should know immediately, and nobody should have to repeat themselves.

How it works

There are two ways a person gets involved. Escalation means “answer this customer here, now”:

CustomerAsks for a manager, or complains

tkanaMarks the conversation Escalated, emails your team

Your teamTakes over and replies in the same chat

Your teamHands the chat back to the agent when done

Escalation: a person answers in the chat

A ticket means “someone needs to follow this up later”:

CustomerReports a problem that needs work behind the scenes

tkanaOpens a ticket and gives the customer a request number

Your teamWorks the ticket on the board and resolves it

CustomerGets a WhatsApp message when it is resolved

Ticket: a task for later

What the conversation looks like

Customer: This is the second time my order arrived damaged. I want to speak to a manager.

Agent: I’m sorry this happened again. I’ve passed your conversation to our team, and someone will reply to you here.

(A teammate takes over.)

Your team: Hello Khalid, this is Sami, the branch manager. I’m very sorry about this. I’ve arranged a replacement for tomorrow morning at no cost.

What you switch on

1. Check Escalation (installed by default). Set Attempts before escalation, add Additional escalation criteria for your business, and choose the Customer tag after escalation. See Set your escalation rules.
2. Check Support tickets (installed by default) and enter a Support team email.
3. Invite your team and give each person a role. Escalation emails go to the members of your workspace. See Invite your team to tkana.
4. Set the human hold window on each channel: how long the agent stays quiet after a teammate replies (24 hours by default). See Control when your agent replies on a channel.
5. Practise the takeover once with a test conversation. See Reply to a customer and hand the conversation back to the AI.

What your team sees

• Escalated conversations pinned under Needs attention at the top of Conversations, with the reason, plus an email with the customer’s name, phone number, and reason. See Understand escalation.
• Take over in the conversation’s Details assigns the chat to you and pauses the agent. Resume AI now or reassigning to the agent hands it back.
• Tickets on the tickets board with subject, priority, and category. See Work tickets on the board and table.
• Escalated customers carry your chosen tag in CRM, so you can review them later.

Tips and limits

• The agent does not promise a response time after escalating. It keeps answering simple questions until a teammate replies.
• If you only reply without clicking Take over, the agent picks the conversation up again by itself once the hold window runs out.
• Replies you send to Telegram conversations are saved but not delivered to the customer’s Telegram yet. Use WhatsApp for conversations your team needs to answer.
• If the WhatsApp 24-hour window has closed, send an approved template from the conversation first. See Send templates, files, and internal notes.

Tip

Assign conversations and tickets to specific teammates so each one gets an email when something lands on their plate. See Share the work with your team and stay alerted.