When Handover Is the Right Call
Neuron is designed to resolve calls without human intervention, but certain situations should always route to a human agent. Understanding these scenarios helps you configure your triggers effectively:Explicit Human Request
When a customer says “I want to speak to a real person” or “Can I talk to your manager?”, transfer immediately — never make a customer repeat this request.
Negative Sentiment Detected
Sustained frustration or distress signals that Neuron’s conversation approach is not working. A human can de-escalate in ways AI cannot.
High-Risk Keywords
Phrases like “legal action”, “consumer forum”, “complaint”, or “media” indicate situations with potential regulatory or reputational implications.
Compliance Exceptions
Certain regulatory scenarios (RBI grievance handling, insurance disputes, loan restructuring) require a licensed human agent by mandate.
Call Exceeds Duration Limit
If a call goes beyond your maximum configured duration without reaching a disposition, the customer’s query is likely too complex for the current script.
Custom Business Logic
Any condition expressible in your script — account type, loan amount threshold, number of previous complaints — can be a handover trigger.
Configuring Handover Rules
In the Dashboard
Navigate to Neuron → Voice Agents → [Agent Name] → Fallback Rules. You can add, edit, and prioritize handover triggers from this panel. Triggers are evaluated in priority order — the first matching trigger fires the handover.Via API
Configure handover rules programmatically when creating or updating a voice agent:| Field | Description |
|---|---|
type | Trigger type: explicit_request, keyword, sentiment, max_duration, compliance_alert, custom |
priority | Evaluation order — lower number = higher priority |
phrases | For keyword type: list of trigger phrases (case-insensitive, partial match by default) |
match | For keyword type: any (one phrase matches) or all (all phrases must appear) |
threshold | For sentiment type: score from -1.0 (very negative) to 1.0 (very positive) |
consecutive_turns | For sentiment type: how many consecutive negative turns before triggering |
seconds | For max_duration type: maximum call duration before escalation |
Warm vs. Cold Transfer
- Warm Transfer
- Cold Transfer
In a warm transfer, Neuron places the customer on a brief hold, connects to the human agent first, delivers a spoken or text summary of the conversation, and only then connects the customer. The agent is fully briefed before the customer hears their voice.Customer experience: “Please hold for a moment while I connect you to a specialist.”Agent experience: Receives a real-time summary — “Customer Priya Sharma is calling about a disputed EMI deduction of ₹3,200 on 12th January. She is requesting a refund and expressed frustration about a previous unresolved complaint.”Best for: Complex escalations, upset customers, situations where context is critical to the resolution.
For most escalation scenarios, warm transfer delivers significantly higher customer satisfaction scores. Cold transfer is faster but risks frustrating customers who must re-explain an issue they’ve already described to Neuron.
Context Handoff
Whencontext_summary: true is set in your fallback configuration, VInfer automatically generates a structured handoff brief for the receiving agent before the call connects. This brief is delivered in two ways:
Spoken Summary (Warm Transfer)
Neuron reads the summary aloud to the agent during the hold phase: “Incoming call from Priya Sharma, +91 98765 43210. She is disputing an EMI deduction and has requested a refund. Sentiment: frustrated.”
Screen Pop (CRM Integration)
If you’ve integrated VInfer with your CRM, the contact record opens automatically on the agent’s screen with the in-progress call notes and NeuronLens real-time transcript visible.
- Caller identity: Name and phone number
- Reason for call: Detected intent and conversation goal
- Key entities collected: Account numbers, amounts, dates, issue descriptions
- Trigger reason: Why the escalation fired (e.g., “Customer requested human agent”, “Keyword detected: legal action”)
- Sentiment trajectory: How the caller’s mood changed during the conversation
- Conversation duration: How long the caller has already been on the call
Setting Up Warm Handover
Map out every scenario in which your campaign or inbound flow should hand off to a human agent. Start with the universal triggers (explicit request, high-risk keywords) and add campaign-specific ones (e.g., “disputed amount above ₹50,000”).
Log into the dashboard and go to Neuron → Voice Agents → [Agent Name] → Fallback Rules → Add Rule for each trigger. Set priority order carefully — if both a keyword trigger and a sentiment trigger could fire simultaneously, the one with higher priority wins.
curl -X PATCH https://api.vinfer.ai/v1/agents/agt_abc123 \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"fallback": {
"transfer_to": "+918001234567",
"transfer_type": "warm"
}
}'
If you have multiple agent queues (e.g., a collections team and a customer care team), you can configure different transfer destinations per trigger type. Use the
transfer_to field within each individual trigger object to override the default destination.Ensure
context_summary is set to true in your agent’s fallback configuration. You can also configure the summary language — Neuron will generate and deliver the summary in your preferred agent language regardless of the language the customer called in.curl -X PATCH https://api.vinfer.ai/v1/agents/agt_abc123 \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"fallback": {
"context_summary": true,
"summary_language": "en-IN"
}
}'
- Say “I want to speak to a human” (tests
explicit_request) - Say “I’m going to take legal action” (tests
keyword)
Webhook for Handover Events
Subscribe to thecall.escalated event to log every handover in your CRM and alert your team in real time:
call.escalated payload:
- Create an urgent follow-up task in your CRM assigned to the receiving agent
- Trigger a Slack or Teams alert to your team supervisor
- Update the contact’s record with the escalation reason and trigger phrase
- Track escalation volume in your BI dashboard
Keep your human agent queue adequately staffed during campaign hours to handle escalations promptly. A warm transfer where the customer is placed on hold for more than 60 seconds while waiting for a human agent to pick up defeats the purpose of a seamless handover experience.