Chat assignment & the 24-hour window

Where a new chat goes

When a customer messages your number, Wazline decides who owns the conversation:

Picking up and taking over

A chat belongs to whoever sent the most recent reply:

• Reply to a chat in New Customers to make it yours.
• Reply to a chat owned by a teammate or the AI — open it from Assigned to others — to take it over.

Each change is recorded in the conversation, for example Chat assigned to Daniel.

When the AI hands over

With the AI assistant on, a chat moves from the AI to New Customers when:

• the customer sends your human trigger word (for example talk to agent). Small typos are tolerated, and the AI replies “I’ll connect you with a human agent right away”;
• the AI can’t produce a reply because of an error.

If a customer asks in their own words — “can I talk to a real person?” — the AI tells them to send the trigger word. The AI’s first reply in each conversation also mentions it. See Setting up the AI assistant.

If you switch the AI off, the chats it was handling move to New Customers the next time those customers write.

The 24-hour window

WhatsApp allows free-form messages only within 24 hours of the customer’s last message.

• Inside the window, agents and the AI can reply freely.
• After 24 hours without a message from the customer, free-form replies are blocked. The inbox shows a notice instead of the message box.
• To restart, click Re-initiate Chat, choose an approved template and send it. When the customer replies, the window opens again.

Tip: The same rule applies to the API. Send a text message only works inside the window, while Send a template message works at any time.

Campaign and API messages

Templates sent by a campaign or through the API aren’t assigned to an agent. When the customer replies, the chat appears in New Customers for the team to pick up.