Knowledge Gap Escalation

Automatically escalate to a human agent when the AI can’t find an answer in your Knowledge Base

When the AI searches your Knowledge Base and can’t find a relevant answer, it can automatically escalate the conversation to a human agent instead of guessing.

---

How to Enable

1. Navigate to Ticket Lifecycle

   Go to Settings → Agent Configuration → Ticket Lifecycle

2. Find the Escalate Knowledge Gap toggle

   Scroll to the Escalate Knowledge Gap setting

3. Enable the toggle

   Turn it on to have the AI escalate when it can’t find an answer in your Knowledge Base

---

What Happens When Enabled

When the AI encounters a question it can’t answer from your Knowledge Base:

1. The AI recognizes it doesn’t have the information to help
2. The conversation is handed off to a human agent
3. The player receives a natural handoff message — no mention of “knowledge gaps” or system limitations

The player sees something like:

“Let me connect you with one of our specialists who can help you with this.”

---

What Happens When Disabled

The AI continues the conversation without escalating. It may provide a generic response or attempt to redirect the player. The gap is still logged internally so you can review which topics need Knowledge Base articles.

---

Customizing the Handoff Message

When the toggle is enabled, you can customize what the AI says to the player when escalating due to a knowledge gap.

1. Enable Escalate Knowledge Gap

   Turn on the toggle as described above

2. Click Customize under Handoff guidance

   A text field appears below the toggle when it’s enabled

3. Write guidance for the AI

   This field is an instruction to the AI, not a message template. You’re telling the AI how to communicate, not pasting the exact words to send.

Leave the field empty to use the default phrasing, which tells the player something like:

“Let me connect you with a specialist who can help with this.”

Guidance vs Template — Important Distinction

This is the most common mistake. Don’t paste a verbatim player message into this field — the AI will interpret it as a general instruction, not as the exact words to say.

What works:

Approach	Example	When to use
Exact wording	Say: "Please hold while we connect you to a specialist."	You want precise control over the message
Tone + constraint	Be warm and reassuring. Never mention missing info or knowledge gaps.	You want the AI to adapt naturally
Hybrid	Say something like "Let me bring in a specialist." Never mention system limitations.	Preferred phrasing with guardrails

What doesn’t work:

Example	Why it fails
Please hold while we connect you to our support specialist.	The AI reads this as an instruction to escalate, not as the words to say. It won’t use this phrasing.

The Say: "..." prefix is the simplest way to get exact wording. Without it, the AI treats the text as behavioral guidance.

This setting controls the message for knowledge gap escalations specifically. For general escalation phrasing (when the AI escalates for other reasons), use the separate Escalation Player Message Guidance setting in the same page.

Recommended: Keep this enabled. A smooth handoff to a human is always better than a vague or incorrect AI response. Each escalation also signals that your Knowledge Base may need a new article — use these to continuously improve coverage.

If you disable this, the AI will attempt to continue conversations even when it doesn’t have the answer. This can lead to vague responses or inaccurate information reaching players. Only disable if you have very limited agent capacity and accept the tradeoff.