Where an agent hands over

The first worry people have about agents is a fair one: what happens when it gets something wrong? Our answer starts before anything is built. On every process we draw one line, and it is the most important decision we make together with your team.

The Hand-over Line

Take any process your team does by hand and write down the steps. Most of them look the same: read something, check it, match it against something else, draft a reply. Then, somewhere, a decision. Approve, reject, send, pay.

The agent takes the steps before the line. A person makes the call on the other side of it. That is basically the whole idea, and it is why an agent can run a process end to end without anyone losing control of it.

What it looks like in practice

A few examples from the kind of work we map:

• An order entry agent reads orders from the inbox, enters them in your system and confirms with the customer. If a price looks wrong, it hands over to your office team.
• A stock reorder agent watches stock levels and drafts the purchase order before you run out. Your buyer approves it.
• A claims document agent reads every document on arrival and checks dates, amounts and signatures, then hands over to a claims handler.
• An invoice chasing agent sends reminders in your tone and logs every reply against the invoice. When a customer disputes, it goes to accounts.

In each case the agent does the reading, checking and chasing, and the person keeps the judgement. The agent also stops and asks when something does not fit, instead of guessing.

How we decide where the line goes

There is no universal rule, it depends on the process and on the company. A few questions we ask every time:

• Does this step need someone who knows the customer?
• Would a mistake here cost money, or trust, that is hard to win back?
• Is it really a judgement call, or a rule nobody has written down yet?

The last one is the interesting one. A lot of what looks like judgement turns out to be a rule that lives in one person’s head. Once it is written down, the agent can follow it, and that person gets their time back for the calls that are actually hard.

The line can move

The line is not fixed forever. As a team gets used to working with an agent, some steps can move across it. Others never should. Either way, your team decides, with us, and we change it on the agent.

It also helps that nothing happens out of sight. Our agents work in your team’s own channels, so everyone sees what the agent did and why. When it hands over, the person gets the context in the same place they already work.

If you want to see where the line would sit on one of your processes, book a call with one of our founders.