Route AI hand-overs to the right team: hours, backups, limits and waiting lines

When we shipped hand-overs from the AI to your team, every conversation went to the least busy person who was online. For a small team that is exactly right. For a business where sales, support and billing are different people, it means the person who knows nothing about invoices gets the refund question, and the weekend shift gets nothing because nobody is "online" in the usual sense.

Teams fix that. A team is a queue: Sales, Support, Billing, Weekend. It has its own members, hours and limits, and the AI decides which one gets each conversation. No flow builder, no decision tree to maintain.

How a conversation finds its team

Each team has a short description of what it handles, and the AI reads those descriptions to choose. "New customers who want to sign up, plan changes and prices" for Sales; "Invoices, payments and refunds" for Billing. The more specific the description, the better the choice. The first team on the agent's list is the default, also for the "Talk to a person" button.

Hours, and a backup when you are closed

Each team can be limited to its own business hours. When the chosen team is closed, the conversation goes to its backup team if that one is open — a weekend team is the usual example. It goes one step only: a backup's backup is not tried.

When both are closed, the agent's out-of-hours choice applies: the AI keeps helping and says when the team is back, or the conversation waits for the team. Either way the customer sees the team's own "Message when closed", with its hours, so they know what to expect.

A limit per person, and a line when everyone is busy

"Chats per person at once" sets how many conversations each member handles at the same time. A new hand-over goes to the least busy member who is online and under that limit. When every member is at the limit, the customer waits in line and is told their place: "#2 in line".

• The line is served oldest first. A chat is resolved or unassigned, someone switches to Available, a new member joins, or you raise the limit: the next customer in line gets a person.
• Customers are told when they move up, at most every two minutes, so nobody is spammed with updates.
• While a customer waits in a team's line, the AI does not take the conversation back. They asked for a person and they keep their place.

The right people see it

Hand-over emails and the Inbox badge go to the members of the conversation's team only, so Billing is not paged for a sales question. People who belong to no team still see everything, which suits owners and managers. In the Inbox there is a team filter, a "My teams" view, a team badge on each conversation and its place in line, and anyone can move a conversation to another team when the AI picked the wrong one. The move shows on the conversation's timeline.

A welcome menu on WhatsApp and Telegram

Many businesses are used to opening a WhatsApp conversation with a menu: "1. Sign up, 2. Payments, 3. Technical support". You can have one too, without building a flow. The welcome menu is a WhatsApp list or a set of Telegram buttons, set per channel on the agent's Channels tab. It goes out after the first reply and again whenever the person types "menu".

A tap arrives as plain text, so the AI handles it like any other message and people can always type instead. The menu does not route by itself; it gives the customer an easy way to say what they need, and the AI does the rest, including choosing the team.

Set it up

Without any teams, nothing changes: hand-overs go round-robin to anyone available in the workspace, with the agent's hours. The workspace's people are under Settings → Members (it used to be called Team).

Teams are in the API and the platform MCP tools too: create and change teams, set their members, filter conversations by team and move a conversation to another one. Webhooks carry the team. The October roundup lists the rest of this month's changes.

Frequently asked questions

How does the AI decide which team gets a conversation?

It reads each team's description — what that team handles — and picks the one that fits the conversation. Write specific descriptions. The first team on the agent's list is the default, and your team can move a conversation to another team from the Inbox.

What happens when the team is closed?

The conversation goes to the team's backup team if that one is open. If both are closed, the agent's out-of-hours choice applies — the AI keeps helping, or the conversation waits for the team — and the customer sees the team's message for when it is closed.

What happens when every agent on the team is busy?

When every member is at their limit of chats at once, the customer waits in line and is told their place, for example "#2 in line". The line is served oldest first, and customers are told when they move up.

Do I need teams to use hand-overs?

No. Without teams, hand-overs go to the least busy person available in the workspace, as described in your team can now take over from the AI agent. Teams are for when different people handle different kinds of questions.

Can I show a WhatsApp menu without building a flow?

Yes. The welcome menu is a WhatsApp list or Telegram buttons, sent after the first reply and when the person types "menu". A tap reaches the AI as text, so there is no flow to maintain.