> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.insitechat.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Human Support & Escalation
> Hand off conversations to your team with multi-recipient email alerts, a dedicated triage dashboard, escalation analytics, and configurable in-widget CTAs.
# Human support & escalation
When the AI can't help — or a visitor explicitly asks for a human — InsiteChat hands the conversation to your team. Every escalation is tracked, surfaced in a dedicated dashboard, and resolvable with one click.
## How escalation works
When a visitor escalates:
1. The conversation is marked **Escalated** with a timestamp
2. Email alerts go to every configured recipient
3. The conversation appears in the **Human Support** tab as **Open**
4. A `conversation.escalated` webhook fires (if configured)
5. The visitor sees a confirmation message in the widget
## Escalation triggers
There are three ways a conversation gets escalated:
| Trigger | Where it lives |
| ---------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Inline "Connect to an agent" CTA** | After every bot reply (when enabled) |
| **Persistent follow-up button** with type *Escalate* | Configured in the Embed tab → Follow-up Buttons |
| **Compact "Talk to a human" link** | Below the input box (legacy fallback, hidden when the inline CTA is on) |
## Configuration
Open your chatbot → **Embed** tab → **Human Support** sub-tab.
Toggle **Show escalation CTA** on. After every bot reply the widget renders two buttons:
* A *positive feedback* button (e.g. "That answered my question 👍")
* A *request help* button (e.g. "Connect to an agent 👤")
Tapping the positive button records a thumbs-up and dismisses the CTA pair for that message. Tapping request-help escalates the conversation.
Toggle **Replace smart follow-ups with escalation** on if you want the CTA pair to take the place of auto-generated follow-up suggestions. Off by default — both can coexist.
* **Positive feedback label** — defaults to "That answered my question 👍"
* **Request help label** — defaults to your localized "Talk to a human" string
* **Confirmation message** — shown to the visitor after they escalate (defaults to the localized "Sent! The team will follow up soon.")
Enter up to **10 email addresses** that receive escalation alerts. The chatbot owner is always notified — recipients here are *added* on top. Press Enter or click **Add** to add an address; click the × on any chip to remove.
Click **Save Customization**. Settings take effect on the live widget within a few seconds.
The user-level **notify\_escalation** setting in account preferences is a master kill-switch. If you turn it off, you stop receiving escalation emails on every chatbot — even if you're listed as a recipient.
## Human support dashboard
Every chatbot has a **Human Support** tab that shows escalated conversations and triage metrics.
### Stat strip
Four KPIs computed over the last 30 days:
| Metric | Definition |
| --------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **Total escalations** | Conversations that hit "escalate" in the window |
| **Unresolved** | Escalated and not yet marked resolved (highlighted amber when > 0) |
| **Resolution rate** | `resolved / total escalations` |
| **Escalation rate** | `escalations / total conversations` (with avg hours-to-resolve when available) |
### Triage view
A master-detail layout: a list on the left, the full transcript on the right.
* **Filter pills** — Unresolved / Resolved / All
* **Conversation list** — last message preview, escalation timestamp, message count, status badge
* **Transcript pane** — full message history with timestamps, formatted markdown for assistant replies
* **Mark resolved** / **Reopen** — one-click status toggle, instantly updates the stat strip
* **Export** — download the transcript as CSV for record-keeping or CRM ingestion
Email alerts include a deep link straight to the relevant conversation: `/dashboard/chatbots//human-support?conv=`. Click it from your inbox to land directly on the transcript.
## Email alerts
Each recipient receives a plain-text email with:
* Chatbot name
* Visitor's most recent question
* Escalation timestamp
* A link to the conversation in the Human Support dashboard
Recipients are deduplicated case-insensitively and capped at 10 (plus the owner). Invalid addresses (no `@`) are rejected at save time.
## Webhook payload
If you have a webhook subscribed to `conversation.escalated`, you'll receive:
```json theme={null}
{
"event": "conversation.escalated",
"data": {
"conversation_id": "uuid",
"session_id": "embed-...",
"chatbot_id": "uuid",
"escalated_at": "2026-04-19T10:23:45Z",
"last_message": "Can I speak to someone?",
"message_count": 7
}
}
```
See [Webhooks](/managing/conversations) for delivery, signing, and retry details.
## Tips
Edit the confirmation message to set a response-time expectation: "We'll reply within 1 business day."
Set lead-form timing to **before\_escalation** so you always capture a contact method before handoff.
Add team-specific aliases (sales@, support@) to the recipient list — your mail rules can fan-out further from there.
A falling resolution rate suggests escalations are getting dropped — review unresolved items weekly.