How to control the Gorgias AI agent handover experience in chat: A step-by-step guide

We’ve all been there, right? Stuck in an endless loop with a chatbot, frantically typing “talk to a human” or "operator," only to get another canned response. A clumsy handover from an AI agent to a person is one of the fastest ways to turn a curious customer into a frustrated one. While AI is great for knocking out common questions, knowing when and how to bring a human into the conversation is what separates good support from a great experience.

The good news is that Gorgias gives you the tools to manage this process. This guide will walk you through, step by step, exactly how to control the Gorgias AI agent handover experience in chat. We’ll get into the essential settings that put you in the driver's seat, making sure your AI acts as a helpful co-pilot, not a frustrating gatekeeper.

Why the AI agent handover experience matters

Let's be real: an out-of-control AI handover process can seriously mess with your customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores and your team's sanity. When customers with complex problems can't easily reach a person, they get annoyed. That annoyance can lead to them abandoning their cart or, even worse, leaving a scathing review. It also just dumps more work on your team, who now have to calm down an irritated customer before they can even start to solve the actual problem.

By setting up clear rules for when your AI should pass the baton to a human agent, you make sure that:

• Customers with urgent or tricky problems get help from a person right away.

• Your support team can stop putting out fires and focus on the high-value conversations that really need their expertise.

• Your brand builds a reputation for being genuinely helpful and easy to deal with.

While the tools Gorgias offers are a great starting point for managing handovers, you might find yourself needing more fine-tuned control, more knowledge sources for your AI to pull from, or a pricing plan that doesn't give you a heart attack during busy seasons. We'll touch on that a bit later.

What you'll need

Before we jump into the settings, let’s get a few things in order. Make sure you have:

• A Gorgias account with the AI Agent feature turned on.

• Admin or Lead permissions. You'll need these to get into the AI Agent settings and make changes.

• A rough idea of which topics or situations should always go straight to a human. Think about the stuff you'd never want a bot to handle alone.

Mastering the Gorgias AI agent handover: 5 Key steps

Ready to dive in? Here’s how you can set up your Gorgias AI Agent for a much smoother, customer-friendly handover.

Step 1: Define handover topics

Your first and most important job is to tell the AI which conversations it shouldn't even try to handle. Gorgias calls these "Handover topics," and they’re basically a list of subjects you’ve flagged as "human-only."

Take a minute to think about conversations that are sensitive, complicated, or just too important to leave to an algorithm. A few good examples are:

• Anything to do with billing, refunds, or payment disputes.

• Complaints about a product not working as expected or a bad experience.

• Technical issues that require more than just pointing to an FAQ article.

• Questions from your VIP customers who get white-glove service.

• Any message that includes words like "complaint," "legal," "angry," or anything similar.

To get these set up, go to "AI Agent > Settings > Handover and exclusion" and find the Handover topics section. Here, you can add each topic in plain English. The system is pretty smart, so you don't need to be a programmer to get it right.

A screenshot showing the handover topics section in Gorgias AI Agent settings, which is key to controlling the AI agent handover experience.

Step 2: Customize handover messages

Letting customers know what to expect is half the battle. Gorgias lets you write different handover messages for when your team is available for live chat versus when they're not. This simple step stops people from feeling like they've been tossed into a void.

• For online hours: Your message can be upbeat and direct. Something like, "Thanks for that info! Let me get you over to a support specialist who can sort this out for you."

• For offline hours: Honesty is the best policy here. A message like, "Our team is offline for the day, but I've flagged your message for them. They'll get back to you by email as soon as they're back, usually within 24 hours," works perfectly.

You can find these settings under the Chat configuration for your AI Agent. Taking a few minutes to write clear messages can save a lot of headaches down the line.

Step 3: Use 'guidance' for a better handover experience

Sometimes, you don’t want to hand over a conversation right away. You might want the AI to gather a bit more information first. That’s where "Guidance" comes into play. Guidance is a set of custom instructions that tells your AI how to act in specific situations. It's like giving your bot a little playbook.

For instance, instead of immediately escalating a ticket about a damaged item, you could create a Guidance that tells the AI: "When a customer says their item arrived damaged, first say you're sorry to hear that, then ask them for a photo of the damage. Once you have the photo, escalate the ticket to the support team."

This makes the whole process way more efficient. When the human agent picks up the ticket, they already have the context and the photo they need to solve the problem. No more back-and-forth.

The "Guidance" feature in Gorgias allows for a more controlled handover experience by letting the AI gather information first.

Step 4: Create 'excluded topics'

There are some conversations you want your AI to stay completely out of. For these, you can use a Gorgias Rule to automatically apply the tag "ai_ignore" to certain tickets. The AI Agent knows to not touch any ticket that has this tag.

This is super handy for a few things:

• Making sure conversations from specific partners or internal email addresses are never touched by the AI.

• Ignoring all those automated notification emails you get from other apps.

• Protecting tickets that you've already manually tagged for a specific person or team to handle.

Step 5: Test and monitor your handover settings

Finally, don't just set it and forget it. Always test your new setup. Gorgias has a test area where you can pretend to be a customer and see how the AI responds to different questions without messing with any of your live chats.

Once you go live, check your performance reports every now and then. See which topics are getting handed over the most. This is a great way to spot gaps in your help center articles or figure out where your Guidance instructions could be a bit clearer. A little bit of ongoing tweaking is the key to getting it just right.

Monitoring performance reports in Gorgias helps refine the AI agent handover experience over time.

When Gorgias' native tools aren't enough

Gorgias gives you a fantastic starting point, but as your support volume grows, you might start to feel the edges of what's possible. Here are a few common walls teams hit and how a more specialized tool can help you break through them.

1. The automation feels a bit rigid

Gorgias’s handover rules are mostly based on keywords and topics. But what if you need more complex, multi-step logic? For example, maybe you want an AI that can check a customer's order history in Shopify before it decides whether to offer a discount code or escalate the chat to a VIP agent. That requires a more powerful workflow engine than what's typically built into a helpdesk.

2. The AI's knowledge is limited

The Gorgias AI Agent mainly learns from your Gorgias Help Center and Shopify data. But what about all that valuable info tucked away in your internal wikis, Google Docs, or Confluence pages? Or the goldmine of knowledge in your team's past ticket resolutions? Without access to all that, the AI is more likely to get stumped and have to call for human help.

3. The pricing is unpredictable

Gorgias charges for its AI Agent based on each automated interaction, which works out to about $0.90 per resolved conversation. That sounds fine on paper, but it can lead to a seriously unpredictable bill. During a huge sales event like Black Friday, your costs could suddenly jump without warning. It's a model that can feel like it's penalizing you for being successful with automation.

4. It's hard to test at scale

While you can test one-off scenarios in Gorgias, you can't really get a clear forecast of your automation rate or see how much you could save before flipping the switch. Without being able to run a simulation on thousands of your past tickets, you’re kind of just crossing your fingers and hoping for the best when you launch.

This is where a dedicated AI platform like eesel AI can make a huge difference. It plugs right into your Gorgias helpdesk to give you more power, control, and predictability over your automation.

eesel AI and the Gorgias handover experience

Instead of making you ditch your helpdesk and start from scratch, eesel AI integrates seamlessly with Gorgias in just a few clicks. It turbocharges your current setup with a powerful, fully customizable workflow engine and transparent pricing. You can get up and running in minutes, all on your own, without ever having to talk to a salesperson.

Here’s a quick look at how eesel AI tackles the limitations of a native-only approach:

Feature	Gorgias AI Agent	eesel AI
Workflow Customization	Based on topics and "Guidance" instructions.	A fully customizable workflow engine with complex, multi-step logic and custom API actions.
Knowledge Sources	Primarily Gorgias Help Center & Shopify.	Unifies knowledge from 100+ sources including past tickets, Confluence, Google Docs, & more.
Testing & Simulation	Basic test environment for single queries.	Powerful simulation mode on thousands of past tickets to forecast automation rates & ROI before launch.
Pricing Model	Per-resolution fee (~$0.90), leading to unpredictable costs.	Transparent, predictable monthly plans with no per-resolution fees.
Setup Time	Integrated into the platform.	Radically self-serve; go live in minutes with a one-click Gorgias integration.

With eesel AI, you can train your AI on your team's best ticket resolutions, build custom actions that pull information from any external system, and simulate performance so you can roll out new automations with complete confidence.

Mastering your Gorgias AI agent handover

A smooth AI agent handover isn't just a "nice-to-have" anymore; it's a fundamental part of modern customer service. By following the steps we’ve covered, you can take real, meaningful control over your Gorgias AI Agent and make sure it's helping, not hurting, your customer experience.

Start by defining clear handover topics, customizing your messages, and using Guidance to create smarter interactions. Getting that foundation right will make a huge difference in your chat support.

But for teams who are serious about getting the most out of automation and want ultimate control, deeper knowledge integration, and costs that make sense, a dedicated AI platform is the next logical step. Tools like eesel AI are designed to enhance the helpdesk you already use, giving you a level of customization and intelligence that built-in solutions just can't match. The goal isn't just to close tickets faster; it's to build smarter, more efficient workflows that empower your agents and make your customers happy.

Ready to see what a truly customizable AI agent can do for your Gorgias setup? Start your eesel AI free trial today and go live in minutes.