SilentChat

What does auto-handoff at low confidence mean?

Last updated: May 15, 2026

Auto-handoff: when the bot hands over

The SilentChat AI chatbot scores every answer with a confidence between 0 and 1. When that score drops below the configured threshold (default: 0.7), the bot hands the conversation off to a human agent automatically.

When the handoff fires

  • Confidence < 0.7: bot is uncertain, refuses to fabricate
  • Negative sentiment: visitor is frustrated (heuristic: profanity, all-caps, multiple question marks)
  • Explicit handoff phrase: "I want to talk to a human" — configurable per workflow
  • Bot inactivity: bot does not answer within 30 s (e.g. LLM timeout)

What the visitor sees

No jarring switch. A short status message: "Connecting you to an agent." The full conversation context is forwarded — the visitor does not need to repeat themselves.

Tuning the threshold

Settings → AI → Confidence-Threshold. Lower it (e.g. 0.5) if the bot gives up too fast, raise it (0.85) if it answers wrongly too often.

When no agent is available

Outside business hours or when every agent is offline, the bot asks for an email + message and creates a ticket instead.

What does auto-handoff at low confidence mean? — Help Center — SilentChat | SilentChat