Human support

The Fibly bot does not replace a person; it complements one. The Human support section in Bot settings controls when and how a conversation is handed over to your team.

Enabling support

The Enable human support toggle controls whether the customer sees the option to ask to speak to an agent in the widget, and whether Fibly gives your team time to take over the conversation.

When it is off:

• the customer does not have a "Request a human" button in the widget,
• when the bot decides it can't help, it sends an email with a summary of the conversation to your team immediately, without waiting.

When it is on:

• the customer can request a handover at any time,
• unhandled questions start a timer (see below),
• once the set time has passed, if no one takes over the conversation, Fibly sends an email to your team.

Wait time

The Wait time (minutes) field defines how long Fibly waits for someone on your team to take over the conversation in the dashboard before sending an email notification.

• Range: 1 to 120 minutes.
• Default setting: 15 minutes.
• Recommended range: 15 to 30 minutes.

Do not set a time higher than 30 minutes. A customer waiting in chat for more than half an hour almost always gives up, and the experience with the bot stays in their memory as a negative one. If your team can't respond within 30 minutes, consider disabling human support. The bot will then escalate by email right away.

When the bot decides it can't help

The bot declines to answer in three situations:

• No content in the knowledge base. The question is about a topic that isn't in any article, so the bot doesn't want to make things up and instead suggests contacting a person.
• Conflicting information in the knowledge base. Two articles give different answers and the bot can't determine which one is current.
• The question requires an individual decision. The customer asks about something that requires checking their specific case in your system (order status, an individual quote, a complaint).

In all of these cases, the bot tells the customer that it is passing the matter on to the team, and does not force an answer.

How escalation works when support is enabled

1. The customer asks to speak to a person, or the bot decides it can't help (see above).
2. The conversation moves to a waiting state and appears in the dashboard in the Live support section, marked "Waiting for X minutes".
3. An agent on your team can take over the conversation in the dashboard. The bot then goes silent, and a message appears in the chat saying that a person has joined.
4. If no one takes over the conversation within the set time, Fibly sends an email with a full summary of the dialog to the address set in the widget settings.

Notification email address

The address that notifications about unhandled conversations are sent to is set in Widget settings (a separate screen). The email contains:

• the customer's details (if they were collected in the chat),
• the subject of the matter,
• the full conversation history,
• a Reply-To field set to the customer's address. You reply directly from your email client, and the customer receives the message by email.

What's next

The last bot configuration section is knowledge base context. This setting affects the accuracy of answers.