Taking over a chat

When the bot needs help, jump in

Sometimes the bot can't handle a question, or the customer specifically asks for a human. The takeover feature lets you jump into any conversation and reply yourself — without disrupting the chat or making the customer feel like they've been transferred.

How it works

1. Open Live tracking. Click any active chat row.
2. The transcript modal opens, showing the full conversation.
3. Click 🤝 Take over chat.
4. The bot stops responding. The reply box appears for you.
5. Type your reply, click Send. The customer sees it in their widget instantly (within 3 seconds — their next chat poll).
6. Continue the conversation as long as needed.
7. Click ↩ Hand back to bot when done. The bot resumes for any further messages.

What the customer sees

To the customer, your reply just appears as the next message in the chat — same name, same colour scheme, same widget. There's no "you're now talking to a human" interruption unless you explicitly say so.

If you'd prefer transparency, just type something like "Hi, this is Sam from the team — happy to help with that" as your first message. Many customers actually prefer knowing they're talking to a person.

Takeover happens automatically when you send

If you just start typing in the operator box without clicking "Take over" first, the system takes over the chat automatically when you send your first message. So you can dive straight in.

Multiple operators

If you have multiple admin users, only one can be in active takeover of a given chat at a time — to avoid two operators sending conflicting replies. The system tracks who took over each chat.

System markers in the transcript

When you take over or hand back, a small system note like "[Operator joined the chat]" appears in the transcript. These are visible only in your dashboard, never to the customer.