Routing & Handoffs

How routing and handoffs work together

The Routing & Handoffs page (at AI Assistant > Routing & Handoffs) is where you control the flow of conversations. It has two tabs that work together:

1. Routing Rules — Define when a conversation should be transferred (for example, "if the customer says 'speak to a human', route to the Support Team").
2. Handoff Settings — Define how that transfer happens, including the messages sent to the customer and the guardrails that prevent abuse.

When a message comes in, Autoch.at checks your Routing Rules. If a rule matches, it checks the Handoff Settings. If the guardrails allow it, the handoff executes.

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Routing Rules

Routing rules are the traffic directors for your conversations. They evaluate incoming messages and decide whether to move a conversation to a different assistant or escalate it to a human team.

Creating a routing rule

1. Go to AI Assistant > Routing & Handoffs.
2. On the Routing Rules tab, click Create Rule.
3. Set your conditions and actions.

Conditions

A rule fires when one or more conditions are met. You can trigger rules based on:

Actions

When a condition is met, the rule executes an action:

• Route to a human team — Escalate to a specific inbox or group of agents.
• Route to another assistant — Transfer to a more specialized AI (for example, move from a general greeter to a technical troubleshooter).

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Handoff Settings

While Routing Rules determine the destination, Handoff Settings control the experience and safety of the transfer.

Handoff messages

When a handoff happens, you'll usually want to let the customer know. You can configure different messages for different scenarios:

• Business hours — "I'm connecting you with a team member now. They typically reply within 5 minutes."
• After hours — "Our team is offline right now. I've noted your issue and someone will follow up first thing in the morning."
• Assistant to assistant — "Let me get our technical specialist to help you with that."

Guardrails

Guardrails prevent abuse and routing loops. Even if a Routing Rule matches, a guardrail can block the handoff from happening.

• Max handoffs per conversation — Prevent a customer from repeatedly triggering transfers back and forth. For example, limit to 2 handoffs per conversation.
• Cooldown period — Require a minimum wait between handoff requests (for example, 10 minutes between requests).
• Loop prevention — If two AI assistants are endlessly transferring a conversation to each other, Autoch.at detects the loop and forces an escalation to a human.