When a customer asks for a person

Your customers know they are talking to an AI, and they can ask for a person at any time, in their own words. The AI does not argue. It first finds out what the customer needs, as any support team would before passing a case on, and a customer who still wants a person after that is passed to one.

The AI identifies itself

The AI identifies itself as an AI to your customers. It never claims to be human, and it answers truthfully when a customer asks whether it is one. There is no opt-out link in its replies: a customer asks for a person in plain language. How the AI identifies itself on each channel is described in AI disclosure.

What happens when a customer asks

1. The AI collects the context. It asks what the customer needs, so it can send the case to the right place. It asks everything it would ask before any handoff, so the customer never has to repeat the story.
2. The case is routed by its nature. Often the AI can resolve it right there, and the request for a person no longer applies. A money case the AI is not confident about goes to a Human Node, and a case your policy does not cover goes to your team, as usual.
3. If the customer still wants a person, the case is passed on. With the full context collected, the case can go to a Human Node, prepared like any other, even when the AI could have resolved it.

A case passed on because the customer chose a person is recorded as the customer's choice. It does not count as a failure of the AI.

Insisting is not enough

A customer who refuses to give any context and only repeats the request, however many times, is not escalated. Without context there is nothing to pass on. The AI stays professional, neither hostile nor servile, and keeps asking what the customer needs.

This protects your team and your Human Nodes from abuse, while every customer who explains their case can still reach a person.

When no Human Node is available

Human Nodes cover weekday business hours in Eastern Time. Outside those hours the AI does not promise a transfer that cannot happen: it tells the customer when a person is available and saves the case. See Human coverage hours.

Contesting a decision

When the AI declined something a customer asked for, the customer can ask for a person to review that decision. A contest is different from an ordinary request for a person: it reopens the ticket for a Human Node or for your team without the context questions, because the context is already there.