Conversation Handling

This page covers the day-to-day work of handling conversations in the Help Desk: reading the thread, reviewing the details panel, composing replies, using AI assistance, managing statuses and assignments, staying on top of notifications, and taking action across multiple conversations.

The conversation thread

When you open a conversation, the thread shows the full history of all interactions in chronological order. Several different message types appear in the thread:

Customer messages — messages sent in by the customer through any connected channel
AI agent messages — replies sent by an AI agent on behalf of your workspace
Human agent messages — replies composed and sent by a member of your team
System events — non-message entries such as assignment changes, status updates, and merge actions

Phone calls

When a phone call comes in, a call panel pops up on screen as long as you are logged in. You can choose Answer in Inbox to open the conversation in the inbox, or simply Answer to take the call without navigating away from your current view. Call recordings and voicemail transcriptions are available at the top of the conversation details panel after the call ends.

Escalation handoff card

When an AI agent escalates a conversation to a human agent, a handoff card appears in the thread at the point of escalation. The card gives you everything you need to pick up where the AI left off:

The reason the AI escalated
Actions the AI already took before handing off
How many messages the AI sent during the conversation
How long the conversation has been active
The customer’s detected sentiment
Suggested resolution steps with checkboxes so you can mark each step complete as you work through them

Compose area

The compose area sits at the bottom of the thread. It is a rich text editor where you type your reply. Formatting options such as bold, italics, and links are available in the toolbar above the text field.

Email signatures

When replying to email conversations, the system appends your workspace’s email signature automatically. The signature is shared across all agents in the workspace, but you can use the {user.name} template variable so each reply shows the name of the agent who sent it.

Failed message delivery

If an email or SMS fails to send, a failure indicator appears directly on the message in the thread so you know to retry or follow up through another channel.

Send shortcuts:

Ctrl+Shift+Enter — send your reply and immediately mark the conversation as resolved
Ctrl+Shift+S — send your reply and snooze the conversation

Translate

If a conversation is in a language other than your preferred language, you can translate the messages directly in the thread. Translation is batched and processes up to 25 messages at a time. Once translated, each message displays the translated text alongside the original.

Activity tracking

The Help Desk automatically tracks how long you actively spend working on each conversation. The timer starts when you open a conversation and pauses after 60 seconds of inactivity. Sessions shorter than 3 seconds are not counted. This data feeds into agent productivity reports and is visible on the conversation record.

The details panel

The details panel is the right-hand sidebar that appears whenever you open a conversation. It gives you a complete picture of the contact, the conversation’s classification, linked tickets, AI suggestions, and activity without leaving the thread.

Switching tabs

The panel is divided into tabs. You can switch between them by clicking the tab labels at the top of the sidebar, or by pressing Alt+1 through Alt+6 (or Ctrl+Shift+1 through Ctrl+Shift+6 on some systems).

Call recordings and voicemail

For phone conversations, the call recording appears at the top of the details panel. You can play back the recording directly in the browser. If the customer left a voicemail, the voicemail is also available here along with a transcription.

Contact notes

The details panel includes a Notes section where you can add internal notes about the contact. Notes are visible only to your team and never shown to the customer.

Tab 1: Details

The Details tab is the default view. It contains:

Contact information — the contact’s name, email address, and phone number
Topic and intent — the AI-classified label (topic) and sublabel (intent)
Tags — free-form tags applied to the conversation
Flags — structured flags applied by your workspace
Priority — a selector to set or change the conversation’s priority level
Resolution status — the current resolution state
SLA timers — active response or resolution targets

Tab 2: Tickets

The Tickets tab lists all tickets linked to this conversation. Each row shows the ticket’s status, priority level, and current assignee.

Tab 3: Actions

The Actions tab surfaces AI-generated assistance for the current conversation:

Suggested next actions — the AI recommends what to do next based on the conversation context
AI draft response — a draft reply generated by the AI that you can review, edit, and send directly from this card

Tab 4: Timeline

The Timeline tab shows a complete, chronological record of messages, status changes, assignments, escalations, CSAT submissions, and priority changes.

Tab 5: Flow Runs

The Flow Runs tab lists any automation flow runs linked to this conversation and shows whether each run completed, is still running, or encountered an error.

Tab 6: Metadata

The Metadata tab displays raw technical details such as message count, linked ticket count, last-message details, and extracted entities.

AI assist and macros

Autocomplete

As you type a reply, the system streams AI-generated suggestions in real time beneath your cursor. Autocomplete draws on:

The messages in the current conversation
Previous replies that human agents have sent to the same contact
Replies from other conversations that share the same topic

If you have already started typing, the AI continues from your existing text rather than replacing it.

AI Draft

The Copilot panel, accessible from the sidebar, shows a pre-generated draft response based on the conversation context. You can edit the draft inline, regenerate it, copy it, or send it directly.

Macros

Macros are saved response templates that agents can reuse for common replies. To insert a macro, type / in the reply editor to open the macro menu, then use the arrow keys or search to find the one you need.

Statuses and resolution

Resolution types

Resolution type describes how a conversation ended:

Unresolved — no outcome has been recorded yet
Escalated — the conversation was handed to a human agent
Soft resolved by AI — the AI closed the conversation after the customer stopped responding
Hard resolved by AI — the customer explicitly confirmed that their issue is resolved
Resolved by human — a human agent marked the conversation complete

Conversation statuses

The status displayed in the inbox reflects the current state of the conversation:

New — escalated but not yet assigned
Open — escalated and assigned, pending agent action
Pending — agent has responded, waiting on the customer

Resolving a conversation

You can resolve a conversation in several ways:

Click Resolve in the conversation thread toolbar to resolve the conversation only.
Click Resolve and Complete to resolve the conversation and also mark all linked tickets as completed.
Use the Ctrl+Shift+Enter send shortcut to send your reply and resolve in one step.

When a human agent resolves a conversation, the system can optionally send a CSAT survey to the customer depending on your workspace configuration and the channel type.

Reopening a conversation

To reopen a resolved conversation, use the Unresolve action in the thread toolbar. If your workspace is configured for reassign-on-reopen, the system automatically re-routes the conversation to an available agent.

Snooze

Snoozing temporarily removes a conversation from your active views without resolving it. Use snooze when you are waiting on something and want the conversation to reappear at a specific time.

Snoozed conversations appear in the Snoozed view in the sidebar. You can unsnooze a conversation manually at any time, or let the snooze expire on its own at the scheduled time.

Assignment and escalation

Manual assignment

You can assign a conversation to any agent or group at any time from the details panel.

Auto-assignment

When a conversation is escalated to a human agent, the routing system assigns it automatically. The default routing strategy is round-robin across available agents, with capacity limits to avoid overloading any single agent.

Group assignment

Assigning a conversation to a group routes it to the group rather than a specific person. The system then routes the conversation to an available member within that group according to the group’s routing rules.

Reassignment

You can change the assignee at any time. When you reassign a conversation, the previous agent is removed and the new agent takes ownership.

Escalation flow

Escalation is not limited to the first message. As the AI agent responds to new messages in a conversation, it continuously analyzes whether it can still handle the issue or should escalate to a human.

When an AI agent escalates a conversation, the system performs the following steps in sequence:

Marks the conversation status as Escalated
Applies a topic label to classify the issue
Optionally converts the channel from webchat to email if your workspace is configured for this
Routes the conversation to a human agent using the auto-assignment rules
Creates a linked ticket so the escalation is tracked as a work item
Triggers any automation flows that are configured to run on escalation

Escalation configuration

Common escalation triggers include:

The customer explicitly asks for a human
A Response of type Escalation matches the request
A Flow decides to hand off based on data or rules

Open Agents -> Settings -> Escalations to choose:

Escalation channel — keep the conversation in the same channel or move it to email
Customer wait time source — whether to show a wait time based on your SLA settings

If you use a supported ticketing integration, additional wait time options may appear. For advanced control, you can create a Flow named escalate_conversation and use it to override the default escalation behavior.

Merging and splitting

If a customer contacts you about the same issue through multiple channels, you can merge those conversations under a single parent. To handle a child conversation separately again, use Unmerge.

Priority

Priority is displayed on a 1-to-5 scale:

No Priority — no urgency assigned
Low — low urgency
Medium — standard priority
High — elevated urgency
Urgent — requires immediate attention

Priority can be set manually from the details panel or automatically by routing priority rules.

Topics, intents, tags, and flags

Topics and intents

Topics and intents are structured classifications used for reporting and routing.

Flags

Flags are predefined markers set at the workspace level and can be used for filtering in views and routing rules.

Spam

Conversations labeled with the Spam topic appear in the Spam view in the sidebar.

CSAT surveys

After a human agent resolves a conversation, the system can automatically send a satisfaction survey to the customer. For email conversations, the survey is sent after a configurable delay.

Surveys are not sent for:

Webchat conversations where satisfaction is handled inline
Test conversations
Conversations labeled as Spam
Child conversations that have been merged into a parent

Bulk actions

You can act on multiple conversations or tickets at once without opening each one individually. Select items using the checkboxes in the list view, or hold Shift and click to select a range of items.

With conversations selected, the bulk action bar commonly includes:

Resolve
Set priority
Add flags
Assign

With tickets selected, common bulk actions include:

Mark as completed
Set priority
Assign

Export

To export your current conversation list, apply the filters you want and click Export.

Notifications and mentions

The Help Desk sends real-time notifications whenever something important happens on a conversation, ticket, or job that you are involved in.

What triggers a notification

Notifications are sent to the agents most relevant to an event, typically the assigned agent, the mentioned agent, or members of configured groups.

Conversation notifications

Each of the following events can generate a notification on a conversation:

Message — a new message is added to a conversation you are assigned to or watching
Mention — someone @mentions you in a message
Assignee — you are assigned to or unassigned from a conversation

@Mentions

To mention a team member in a message, type @ followed by their name in the message editor. The conversation also appears in their @ Mentions view so they can find it without searching.

Notification preferences

You can control which notifications you receive and how they are delivered through your account notification settings.

Keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts let you move through conversations and take action without reaching for the mouse.

Shortcut	Action
J / K	Navigate to the next / previous item in the inbox list
Shift + Click	Select a range of items for bulk actions
Cmd+K (or Ctrl+K)	Open global search
R	Focus the reply editor
Esc	Unfocus the reply editor
Ctrl+Shift+Enter (or Cmd+Shift+Enter on Mac)	Send the current reply and resolve the conversation
Ctrl+Shift+S (or Cmd+Shift+S on Mac)	Send the current reply and snooze the conversation
Z	Toggle zen mode
Alt+1 through Alt+6	Switch details panel tabs
/	Open the macro menu in the reply editor

Zen mode

Pressing Z hides both the left navigation sidebar and the right detail sidebar, leaving only the conversation thread visible. Press Z again to restore the default layout.

Test vs. live conversations

Test conversations are marked so they do not affect live reporting. Use Test Coverage to create and review these scenarios, then return to the Inbox to see real customer activity.