Human Escalation
Human escalation is FluentBot’s path for getting a real person into a chat — either when the bot can’t help, or because you want every chat to start with a human in the first place.
The agent side lives in Live Chat. This page is the conceptual reference: what escalation is, when it triggers, and how it interacts with the bot.
Two escalation modes
Both are configured per bot in Widget Settings.
Enable Human Escalation
The bot still answers normally, but visitors can request a human handoff from the widget. When pressed, the chat moves to Pending and appears in Live Chat.
Use this for “the bot handles 80%, humans handle the 20% it can’t.”
Human-Only Mode
The bot is bypassed entirely — every visitor message goes straight to a human agent’s queue. The widget acts as a thin live-chat front-end.
Use this when you want every conversation to be human-led but still want the FluentBot widget aesthetics, live chat, and conversation history.
Escalation states
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Pending | Visitor escalated or sent a live-chat message; waiting for an agent response. |
| Unresolved | An agent has replied, or a resolved conversation was reopened. |
| Resolved | Closed — visitor solved or agent ended the chat. |
Live Chat also tracks whether the visitor connection is still in progress or has been cancelled after disconnect.
Once a chat is escalated, visitor messages route to Live Chat instead of the AI response flow. Agent messages are the responses going to the visitor until the conversation is resolved or restarted.
Agent presence
For escalation availability, agents use the Online / Offline status menu in Live Chat.
- Agent status is set on the Live Chat page.
- Online agents send heartbeat activity while Live Chat is open; stale agents can be marked offline.
- There is no skills-based routing or round-robin. Agents with access to the bot can respond to or assign conversations.
If no agents are online, the chat remains pending until an agent responds or the visitor leaves.
Visitor experience
From the visitor’s POV:
- They click escalate (or send a message in Human-Only mode).
- Widget shows the configured waiting message, if one is set.
- Conversation continues with the agent after an agent replies.
- On resolve, the conversation is closed; the visitor can start a new one.
Identity verification (if enabled — see Identity Verification) is preserved through escalation; the agent sees the verified visitor identity.
Email notifications
If a visitor has an email on their visitor profile and agent messages remain unread, FluentBot can send an unread-message email after a delay. See Email Capture for how visitor emails are collected.
What escalation isn’t
- Phone or video handoff — escalation is text only. Use an external voice/video tool if you need calls.
- Skills-based routing — FluentBot does not assign by skill group or queue.
Configuring escalation copy
The widget settings page exposes:
- Escalation Button Text
- Waiting Message
- Auto-Escalation — show handoff prompts from configured triggers.
- Escalate on Unanswered — show a handoff prompt after unanswered bot responses.
- Unanswered Threshold from 1 to 10 — controls how many unanswered responses happen before the prompt appears.
Troubleshooting
- Visitors press escalate but no agent responds — confirm an agent with access to the bot is online and watching Live Chat.
- Bot keeps replying instead of Live Chat — confirm the chat has an open escalation and the visitor is continuing in that same chat session.
- Visitor doesn’t see my reply — confirm the conversation is not resolved and that the visitor has not disconnected.
What’s next
- Live Chat — agent-side workflow.
- Widget Settings — toggle escalation modes per bot.
- Agent Profiles — agent identity in the widget.
- Message Shortcuts — canned replies for fast escalation handling.