Handling escalations

In your dialog design, you can use external actions nodes set up for a transfer action, to pass information to your VoiceXML application. When your application transfers the user to a live agent, it can make this information available for the agent, for example.

Use throw event actions, in question and answer nodes, message nodes, or decision nodes, to throw custom events, or global command events when you want to handle a situation the same way as the corresponding global command. For example, at the point in your dialog flow, where you want to transfer the user to a live agent, you can set a throw event action to throw the Escalate event.

Configure event handlers to catch error events, command events, or events thrown via throw event actions. The destination for an event handler can be an external actions node. It can also be a node of any type, which you might use to catch the event and perform additional logic before transitioning to the external actions node that will trigger the transfer action.

At runtime, VoiceXML Connector relays all the variables from the external actions node’s Send data parameters to your VoiceXML application. Eventually, the application returns information, which VoiceXML Connector relays to the Dialog service. Depending on the outcome of the transfer action, the Dialog service will follow the success path (user has been transferred successfully), or the failure path (user could not be transferred), in your dialog flow.