Why did the AI agent hand over, stop replying, or qualify a lead too early?
A diagnosis table for the AI agent: unexpected hand-overs, unanswered messages, leads qualified too early, goals that never finish, rules that never fire.
In short
Start from the conversation's automatic events and banners, then the contact's score breakdown, then Settings › Audit log. An unexpected hand-over is usually a workflow on lead.qualified or conversation.escalated, a goal marked to escalate, or a reply from the WhatsApp Business app. An unanswered message is usually human mode or a paused agent, and the banner says which.
The agent handed over and I don't know why
| Likely cause | How to confirm | Fix |
|---|---|---|
A workflow ran escalate_conversation | Audit log: a workflow:<trigger> entry at that time listing escalate_conversation. Often a task appears beside it. | Edit or switch off that workflow. Escalating on lead.qualified hands over as soon as the score clears 40. |
| A goal marked Escalate to a human when this goal completes finished | The goal's last required field was captured on that message. | Expected. Untick it if a person should not take over at that point. |
| An escalation topic matched | Automatic events show a Rule line naming the topic rule. | Rewrite the topic as a fuller description so passing mentions don't match. |
| The customer sounded frustrated | Hand-over on an upset or angry message, no rule named. | Built in; cannot be turned off. |
| A reply failed verification | The customer got a holding reply; the audit log has the reason (often a price not in the catalogue). | Add the missing product or price to the Catalogue. |
| Someone replied from the WhatsApp Business app | A reply in the thread sent from the phone, and no event or rule. | Expected — press Return to AI when done. |
| A burst of 40+ messages, or the person's daily AI-reply limit | The thread banner says so. | Read the thread, then Return to AI, or block the sender. |
The agent isn't replying
| Likely cause | How to confirm | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| The conversation is with a person | The thread offers Return to AI; the list shows it as Human. | Press Return to AI. Messages that arrived meanwhile are not answered automatically — reply to the last one yourself. |
| The workspace is out of credits | Banner: the AI agent is paused — the workspace is out of credits. | Top up on Plan & billing; the agent resumes on the next message. |
| The contact is past the Free plan's contact cap | Banner on the thread; the row is blurred. | Clear out contacts or move up a plan. |
| The workspace hit its hourly ceiling on AI replies | Banner says so. | It lifts within the hour. |
| The subscription is not active | Banner says so. | Plan & billing. |
| The contact is blocked | The conversation only shows under the Blocked filter. | Unblock this person. |
| Someone already replied after that message | A reply from a person or a campaign follows it in the thread. | Nothing to fix — the agent does not answer a message that was already answered. |
Leads qualify too early, or never
- Too early: open the contact's score breakdown. On the starter set, 40 points qualifies a lead as low, and a message count alone is worth 25. Raise the bands in Score qualifies the lead, lower or remove engagement rules, or test a field's value instead of its presence.
- Never: no goal has Qualifies as, the score never reaches 40, or Score qualifies the lead is switched off. A lead that only ever scored below the bands is a lead that has not qualified, by design.
- Qualified once, then stuck:
lead.qualifiedfires once per lead. A later, higher class updates the lead but fires nothing new.
Other symptoms
| Symptom | Cause |
|---|---|
| The agent never moves past small talk | The role's Goal it pursues is a stance-only goal and no collecting goal exists, or the opener's stance tells it not to ask anything. |
| The agent keeps asking the same question | The answer doesn't fit the field — usually an enum whose values don't match how customers answer. Widen the values or make it text. |
| A goal never completes | One required field never gets a value. Check the contact for which one is empty. |
| An escalation topic never fires | The topic is a keyword rather than a description, or the rule is not Active. |
| A workflow never runs | Its condition never holds at the moment the event fires, its trigger is fired by nothing in your setup, or it is not Active. The audit log lists every run. |
| An Append instruction is ignored | It is guidance. Turn it into a gated rule if it must hold. |
| The agent quoted no price, or said it would check | The product has no price in the Catalogue. The agent may only quote listed prices. |
Asking an AI assistant to help
Every help page is also available as plain text: add .md to its address, or use Copy page for AI at the top. Paste the page with the conversation's automatic events and the audit log entries around the time, and ask what fired.
Related
Stuck? Write to help@linkubit.com with the screen you are on and what it says. Not using Linkubit yet? Start free — fourteen days of Pro, no card.