# Escalate to a human

> Hand a conversation to your team when the agent can't resolve it. Escalation pauses the AI, opens a live chat, and creates a help-desk ticket with an AI-written summary so an agent can pick up with full context.

No agent resolves everything. The **Escalate to a human** action is the safety valve: when a question is out of scope, sensitive, or the customer simply asks for a person, the agent hands the conversation to your team instead of guessing.

Escalation is the bridge between the AI and your [Help Desk](/docs/help-desk/overview). It pairs perfectly with a good fallback message — when retrieval finds nothing relevant, the agent should say so and offer to connect the customer with a human.

> **WHAT HAPPENS ON ESCALATE:** The action returns a live-chat handoff signal. The conversation is marked **escalated**, the AI is paused for that conversation, and a [help-desk ticket](/docs/help-desk/overview) is created so a person can take over.

## Add the action

1. **Open Actions → Escalate to a human** — Add the action from your agent's Actions tab.
2. **Set the handoff message** — Write what the customer sees when escalation kicks in — e.g. "Let me connect you with a teammate."
3. **Describe the triggers** — In the description, tell the agent exactly when to escalate: explicit requests for a human, refund disputes, anything outside its knowledge.

> **PAIR IT WITH YOUR FALLBACK:** In your [best practices](/docs/getting-started/best-practices) prompt, instruct the agent: "If something isn't covered, offer to connect the customer with the team." Then this action carries out that promise.

## From conversation to ticket

When a conversation escalates — or when a teammate manually clicks **Take over** in the inbox — Bookbag turns it into a ticket with full context:

1. **Summarize** — Bookbag reads the conversation transcript and writes a short subject line and a 2-3 sentence summary, in the customer's language.
2. **Create a live-chat ticket** — A ticket of type `live_chat` is opened with AI replies switched off, so the customer doesn't get bot and human replies at once.
3. **Assign** — The ticket is routed to an available teammate using your [assignment rules](/docs/help-desk/assignment), or left unassigned for someone to grab.
4. **Hand back (optional)** — When the issue is resolved, an agent can resume AI replies, which closes the ticket and returns the conversation to the bot.

> **CHECK:** The agent picking up the ticket sees the full chat transcript, the AI summary, and any previous tickets from the same requester — so they start with context, not a cold thread.

## Manual takeover

Escalation can also start from your side. In the Help Desk **Conversations** view, any live chatbot conversation has a **Take over** button. Clicking it runs the same flow — summary, ticket, AI paused — and assigns the ticket to you. See [Takeover](/docs/help-desk/takeover) for the full walkthrough.

## FAQ

**Does escalating stop the AI for all conversations?**

No. The AI is paused only for the escalated conversation. Every other conversation keeps being handled by the agent as normal.

**How does the customer keep chatting after escalation?**

The same chat thread continues — replies now come from a human in your help desk instead of the AI. The customer doesn't switch channels.

**Can the AI take back over?**

Yes. Re-enabling AI replies on the ticket resumes the agent and closes the ticket.

**What if nobody is available?**

The ticket is still created and waits in the inbox. Use [scheduling](/docs/help-desk/scheduling) and assignment's next-shift fallback to route it to whoever is on next.

## What's next

- [Help Desk overview](/docs/help-desk/overview) — Where escalated conversations land and get resolved.
- [Takeover](/docs/help-desk/takeover) — Manually take over a live conversation.
- [Ticket assignment](/docs/help-desk/assignment) — Route escalated tickets to the right teammate.