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Human handoff

Replying by email

Answer visitors straight from your email, and how your replies reach visitors who've left the page.

On this page

You don't need to open tufu to answer a visitor. Every handoff notification is an email you can reply to.

Replying to a notification#

When a visitor asks for a person, you get an email with the conversation so far, a one-line summary and, when your docs cover it, a suggested reply. Just reply to it. Your reply goes to the visitor's chat, without the quoted text or your signature.

  • Send it from the address on your tufu account, or the one you set under Inbox → My notifications. Replies from other addresses are ignored, so nobody else can answer as your team.
  • The commands work by email too: reply with /send to send the suggested reply, /resolve to close the conversation, /bot to hand it back to the bot, or start a line with // for a note only your team sees.
  • If your reply can't be delivered, say the conversation was already resolved, you get a short email saying why.
  • Every email about one conversation stays in one thread in your mail app.

When the visitor has left#

If a visitor asked for a person and left their email, they don't need to wait on the page:

  1. You reply, from the inbox, email or Slack.
  2. If they've left the page, tufu emails them your reply, from "Your name at Your team". A few replies in a row are sent as one email.
  3. They reply to that email, and it lands back in the conversation.

If the conversation was already closed when they reply, it opens again and your team is asked to pick it up, because the bot doesn't answer replies to a chat by email. (For customers who write to your support address, the bot can answer by email: see Support by email.)

Visitors are only asked for their email when the bot's Ask for the visitor's email before handing off setting is on (the default).

Things to know#

  • Out-of-office and other automatic replies are ignored, so they never reach a visitor.
  • An email address typed into the chat isn't verified, so tufu caps how many replies one address can receive in a day (10). Normal conversations never come close.
  • Under each reply that was emailed, the conversation shows Emailed, then Delivered once the visitor's mail server accepts it. If it bounces or is marked as spam, you see Email bounced (or marked as spam) and an internal note, and tufu stops emailing that address. The visitor still sees your reply if they come back to the chat.