When your agent should hand the chat to you

An agent that answers price, stock and delivery questions gives you back hours every week. An agent that tries to answer everything costs you customers. The skill is in drawing the line: which chats your agent finishes, which it brings to you, and what happens at the handover so the customer never has to say it all twice.

This works the same whether the first reply comes from your agent or from a teammate you’ve just hired. Here’s where to draw the line, and how to handle what lands on your side of it.

Keep these for yourself

Some conversations need a person, every time:

• Money going back. Refunds, returns, exchanges with a price difference, “I paid twice”, “the money left my account but the order says unpaid”. These are judgements about money and trust, and only you should make them.
• Upset customers. A damaged parcel, a late order for a birthday, a product that stopped working. An upset customer wants to know a person has heard her.
• Custom and bulk orders. Forty watches for a company’s Diwali gifts, an engraving, a wholesale price. These are worth your time, and they need decisions only you can make.
• Anything that needs a promise. A delivery date the courier won’t guarantee, a skin or health question beyond what your product page says, a collaboration or a press request.
• Anyone who asks for a person. Always, without arguing.

What an agent can safely finish: price, stock, sizes and colours, delivery times and charges, your policies as you’ve written them, where an order is, and taking an order with a payment link — once you’ve switched that on.

If you use insideDM, your agent never gives money back — refunds, returns and money disputes always come to you. It also hands over complaints, bulk asks and anything it isn’t sure about, and any chat where the customer asks for a person or sounds upset. See when your agent brings a chat to you and refunds and returns.

One honest line, then stop

The handover message matters more than it looks. It should tell the customer a person is taking over, promise nothing in your name, and then stop. No “I’ve processed your refund”, no “someone will call you in five minutes” — nothing you might not be able to keep.

After that line, the agent stays quiet, however many messages she sends. Two voices answering one upset customer is worse than one slow one.

In insideDM, a handed-over chat waits under Needs you in Conversations, with the reason beside it and a short summary of what she asked, so you don’t have to scroll back. Your agent doesn’t answer in that chat again until you hand it back.

Approve what sits in between

Some messages should go out, but only after you’ve looked: a discount, a reply under one of your posts that everyone will see, a payment link for an unusually large order. For these, the right answer is neither “agent decides” nor “agent stops” — it’s “agent drafts, you approve”.

Two habits help:

• Start careful, then loosen. For your first week or two, have every reply wait for your OK. Approve the ones that are right, fix the ones that aren’t, and teach your agent from what you fixed. Let it send on its own once its drafts stop needing you.
• Set limits in rupees, not in feelings. The biggest discount your agent may give, the largest order it may send a payment link for. Write them down; a limit you hold in your head is one nobody else can follow.

insideDM has one setting for this across your account: Autopilot sends on its own within the powers you’ve switched on, Assist holds every reply as a draft for you to approve, and Manual never sends. Discounts and payment links stay off until you switch them on, and above your payment link limit, a person sends the payment details. Whatever is held waits until someone acts — nothing expires. See choose what waits for your OK.

Take over as if you’d been there all along

When a chat lands with you, the customer has already explained herself once. Don’t make her do it again.

1. Read first. The chat, the summary, her past orders. Know what she asked and what she was told.
2. Use your name. “Priya here” tells her a person has arrived, without a speech about it.
3. Make the decision she was waiting for. Yes, no, or two options — and a time you can keep.
4. Stay in the same chat. Don’t ask her to message another number or switch apps. One chat, start to finish.

In insideDM, Take over is one tap: from then on your agent doesn’t answer in that chat, and your replies go out as your shop. She sees one conversation with you the whole time. See take a chat over and hand it back.

Hand it back when the rest is routine

Once the decision is made, what’s left is usually routine: sending the link, confirming the address, answering “when will it ship?”. Hand the chat back for that. Your time is for the next chat that needs you.

One thing to finish yourself first: anything you agreed that isn’t in your catalog. If you gave Ananya ₹4,499 each, send that payment link before you hand back, so nobody has to reconcile two prices later.

With insideDM, handing back is one tap too, and your agent reads everything you wrote before it answers again, so it picks up where you left off.

Close the loop

Every handover is a lesson. If your agent brought you a chat because it didn’t know something — a new return rule, a product it had never heard of, how long engraving takes — write the answer down where your agent learns from, so the next customer gets it without you.

In insideDM, the Overview in AI Studio shows what your agent couldn’t handle, counted by topic, so the gaps become a to-do list. See teach your agent about your shop and see what your agents did.

The short version

• Keep refunds and returns, upset customers, custom and bulk orders, promises, and anyone who asks for a person.
• Your agent says one honest line, promises nothing in your name, and stops.
• Put drafts in between: approve discounts, public replies and large payment links, with limits written in rupees.
• Take over by reading first, using your name and making the decision — in the same chat.
• Hand back when it’s routine, and write down what your agent didn’t know.