An AI support chatbot that hands off to a humanbefore the customer has to ask for one.
Anchor AI answers the questions your content covers and passes everything else to your team, mid-conversation, with the whole transcript already in front of them. You decide where the line sits. It never guesses to fill a silence.
The support bots that work are the ones that know by the second message when a conversation needs a person, and get out of the way.
How it works
In four steps
- 01
Draw the line
In Settings → Agent, scope topics say what the agent may answer and handoff topics say what it must not: billing disputes, refunds, cancellations, anything with a person's money or temper in it.
- 02
Choose what happens while they wait
“Keep assisting while waiting for a human” lets the agent keep answering the easy parts of a thread it has already flagged, or go quiet until a teammate arrives. Your call, per workspace.
- 03
Take over from the inbox
A flagged conversation shows as Waiting on human. A teammate opens it, reads the transcript, and takes over in the same thread. The customer never repeats themselves.
- 04
Read the handoff split
Analytics → Escalation splits handoffs into Hard (the ones you routed on purpose) and Soft (the ones where the agent hit a gap in the content). Soft handoffs are a to-do list for the docs.
What it will not do
Guess to fill a silence
If the answer isn't in your content, the agent says so and offers a person. An invented refund policy is worse than no answer.
Argue with an angry customer
The agent treats heat as a handoff signal. Its job is to get a person into the thread with the context, and it leaves the exchange there.
Hand off everything
A rule like “anything about orders” sends the easy questions to your team too. Handoff topics are for the cases only a person can settle. The rest stays answered.
Lose the thread on the way
The transcript travels with the handoff. The teammate sees what was asked and what was answered before they type a word.
What it refuses to do is as much the product as what it does.
Hard handoffs and soft handoffs
There are two reasons a conversation reaches a person, and the product keeps them apart. A hard handoff is one you asked for: the customer raised a topic on your handoff list (a refund, a billing dispute, a complaint) and the agent routed it as configured. A soft handoff is one the agent triggered itself, because the content had no answer and guessing is not an option.
Analytics → Escalation shows the split. Hard handoffs rising means the rules are catching what they should. Soft handoffs rising means the docs have a hole, and Failure modes names it: missing knowledge, or an answer that has gone out of date. Fix the docs and the soft number falls on its own.
What the customer sees
A short card in the thread: Connecting you with a teammate. The customer stays in the same window and never gets a ticket number to quote. If they may have to step away, the agent asks for an email address so the teammate’s reply can reach them.
On your side the conversation sits in the inbox marked Waiting on human, with the whole exchange above it. Whoever takes it over replies in the same thread, and the customer sees a name instead of an agent.
Who owns the line
On a small team, one person. They write the handoff topics on day one (the short list of things only a human can settle) and they read the Escalation tab once a week. Expect the line to move: a topic that seemed dangerous turns out to be fine to automate, and a topic nobody thought about turns up in the soft handoffs.
The mistake to avoid is the broad rule. Where to draw the line between your AI agent and your team walks through the policy: what is built in, what to add, and why “anything about payments” backfires.
What it costs
Anchor AI: one meter
- Starter
- GHS 250 /seat/mo500 credits ≈ 50 conversations
- Growth
- GHS 600 /seat/mo1,500 credits ≈ 150 conversations
- Free trial
- 30 days · 300 credits · no card
A handoff costs nothing extra. The thread is 10 credits for 24 hours whether the agent finished it or a teammate did, and a Starter seat is GHS 250 a month. Seats are how you add the teammates who take over.
Common questions
How does the chatbot know when to hand off to a human?
Two ways. Handoff topics you write in Settings → Agent (refunds, billing disputes, complaints) route a conversation to your team on purpose. And when the content you connected has no answer, the agent hands off on its own rather than guess. The Escalation report separates the two as Hard and Soft.
Does the customer have to start over with the human?
No. The handoff happens inside the same thread, and the teammate who takes it over sees the full transcript first. The customer sees a short “Connecting you with a teammate” card and then a person's name.
Can the chatbot keep helping while the customer waits?
That is a setting: “Keep assisting while waiting for a human”. On, the agent keeps answering the parts it can while the thread waits for a teammate. Off, it goes quiet once it has flagged the conversation.
What happens if nobody on my team is online?
The conversation waits in the inbox marked Waiting on human, transcript attached, and the agent can take the customer's email address so a teammate's reply reaches them later. The thread keeps until someone picks it up, and the agent guesses at nothing in the meantime.
Does a handoff cost extra?
No. Anchor AI charges 10 credits for a 24-hour conversation thread whether the agent resolved it or a teammate did. There is no per-handoff or per-resolution charge. Seats are how you add the people who take over.
Keep reading
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