Human support

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

Enabling support

The Enable agent support checkbox decides what happens when a customer asks to speak to a person, or when the bot decides it can't help. There is no separate handover button in the widget: the customer simply asks in the chat, for example "I'd like to talk to a person".

When it is off:

• the bot tells the customer the matter has been passed on to the team, and the conversation is closed,
• Fibly sends an email with a summary of the conversation to your team immediately, without waiting.

When it is on:

• the conversation waits for an agent to take it over in the dashboard, and a timer starts (see below),
• once the set time has passed, if no one takes over the conversation, Fibly sends an email to your team.

In both cases, if the customer's email address is not known yet, the bot first asks for it in the widget chat, because your team needs it to get back to the customer. The handover happens once the customer gives an address.

Wait time

The Escalation timeout (minutes) field (visible once agent support is enabled) 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 agent 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, the customer is told that no agent was available and that the team will reply by email. The conversation is closed, and Fibly sends an email with a full summary of the dialog to your notification address (see below).

Notification email address

The address that notifications about unhandled conversations are sent to is an email integration in Settings → Integrations, in the Escalation section. The address has to be verified before notifications are sent to it (until then its status is Needs verification). If you created your workspace by signing up, an integration with the address you signed up with is already there. 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.