A WhatsApp AI agent with human handoff: how it works

A WhatsApp AI agent answers people who write to your WhatsApp account, and in Sellinger it can also send first messages and follow ups at a small daily volume. When it cannot answer, or when a person should decide, it stops and hands over. You can take over any conversation with one click, and release it so the agent picks up from the full history.

WhatsApp is where many customers already ask questions: prices, availability, bookings, "is this still on?". They write at odd hours and expect a quick answer. An agent can reply at once. The part that decides whether you can trust it is the handoff. This post explains how it works in Sellinger, and what to set up before you let it answer.

What does the agent do on WhatsApp?

Two jobs.

It answers people who write first. A prospect, a customer or someone who saw an ad sends a message. The agent replies using the knowledge you gave it: your offer, your rules, your documents and pages. It asks a clarifying question when it needs one, and it moves the conversation toward the goal you set, such as a booking or a call.

It can start conversations, within WhatsApp's limits. Through your connected WhatsApp account the agent can send first messages and follow ups. WhatsApp itself limits outbound messaging, so first messages run at a small daily volume. This is not a channel for mass sending, and we do not publish a daily number because the limit belongs to WhatsApp and to the account.

How do you connect it?

You link WhatsApp by scanning a QR code with the phone that holds the account. Open the WhatsApp channel, click Connect WhatsApp, choose WhatsApp Business or Personal, and scan the code from Linked devices in the app. The account links once scanned. Sellinger works through the account you connect, so you keep the number and the history you already have. The steps are in connect WhatsApp.

When does the agent hand over?

Set this in advance. A good list:

• It does not know. If a question has no fact behind it in the agent's knowledge, for example a price it has no answer for, it stops instead of inventing one. In Sellinger the agent stops on its own in that case.
• Prices, terms and exceptions. Discounts, special requests and anything that changes your offer belong to a person.
• A complaint. An upset customer needs a person quickly.
• A request for a human. If someone asks for a person, give them one.
• Anything regulated or sensitive. Health, legal or financial questions.
• High value. A group booking, a large order, a partnership.

On WhatsApp the pace is conversational. People send three short messages, not one long one. A handoff that takes an hour feels slow. Make sure the notification reaches a person who is awake and watching.

How does a person take over?

Open the lead, find the conversation, and click Takeover. The button pauses the agent on that lead. A confirmation says that human takeover is active, and the button becomes Release. You then type your reply in the box under the conversation and send it.

When you are done, click Release or use Hand back to agent. The agent continues from the full history, including everything you wrote, so it does not repeat a question you already answered. The steps are in take over a conversation.

Two details matter in practice:

1. The history comes with the person. The conversation across channels sits in one place, so you see what the agent said and what the customer asked before you answer.
2. The agent stays quiet while you hold it. No double answers.

Should every message wait for approval?

It depends on how new the setup is. Sellinger offers two modes. In approval mode every message waits for a person to approve it before it sends. In automatic mode the agent sends by itself. A sensible path:

1. Start with approval mode and read every message for the first days.
2. Fix the rules that produced anything you would not have written.
3. Switch to automatic for routine questions, and keep approval for new campaigns.

You set the mode on the channel account under Auto Approve Actions. See approve messages. The point of a handoff plan is not to remove people. It is to put them where they matter.

A handoff plan you can copy

Write the plan as a table before you switch the agent on. The rows below are a starting point, not a Sellinger setting; adapt them to your business.

A made up example

This conversation is invented for the post. A guest writes at 22:40: "Do you have a family room for the first weekend of June, and is breakfast included?" The agent has the room types and the breakfast policy in its knowledge, so it answers both and asks how many people are travelling. The guest replies: "Four, and can you do 10% off if we stay three nights?" The discount is not in the knowledge, so the agent stops. The owner sees the lead flagged in the morning, clicks Takeover, answers the discount question, and clicks Release. The agent then carries on from the full history and sends the booking details without asking for the dates again.

Two things made this work: the agent stopped instead of guessing, and the person arrived to a conversation that already held every answer.

What does it cost to run?

WhatsApp is priced as a module. The entry plan starts at $29 a month, and there is a 30 day free trial with no card. The tiers and bundles are on the pricing page. A white label or agency setup follows the same agent prices.

What should you not expect?

• Mass sending. Outbound is limited by WhatsApp, so plan for a small number of first messages a day and put the weight on inbound conversations.
• Answers you never gave it. If a fact is missing from the knowledge, the agent stops. Add the fact once and it answers from then on.

What about opt outs?

When a contact replies with STOP or unsubscribe, in English, Bulgarian or German among other forms, the contact goes on the team's suppression list, the agent stops and the lead is closed out. A weak or unclear phrase never writes the permanent record: the agent stops and a person decides. Before every send on WhatsApp, the platform also checks the suppression list and refuses the send if the contact is on it, or if the check cannot be completed. See opt outs and suppression.

How should you roll it out?

1. Connect the account and attach it to an agent campaign.
2. Load the knowledge the agent needs: prices you are willing to state, opening hours, policies, links.
3. Write the handoff rules: what the agent must never answer, and who takes over.
4. Run in approval mode for a week and read every draft.
5. Review the conversations the agent flagged, and fix the knowledge, not the single answer.
6. Move routine conversations to automatic.

If you want to see how a small business handled guests who write in over several channels, the Hotel Pirin case study is a related party example and is labelled as such. For a wider view of the handoff, read speed is table stakes, the handoff is the bottleneck, and for the agent itself, the WhatsApp agent page.