Agents are the human members of your support team who work within Konvo's Inbox. While the AI handles most conversations autonomously, agents step in for the cases that require human judgment: a frustrated customer, a complex return, a VIP who expects personal attention, or an edge case the AI hasn't been trained on.

Konvo's agent system is designed around a simple principle: the AI handles the volume, humans handle the exceptions. The agent configuration tools help you manage who handles what, how work gets distributed, and how your team collaborates when a conversation needs more than one person's input.

Konvo has two user roles, and the difference is simpler than you might expect.

Agents are your frontline support team members. They have full access to the Inbox: they can view, respond to, assign, snooze, close, and manage conversations. They can use all collaboration tools (notes, mentions, tags) and access customer profiles and Shopify data.

Admins have everything agents have, plus access to billing, subscription management, and platform-level settings. Think of the admin role as "agent plus account management." In day-to-day Inbox operations, agents and admins work identically. The distinction only matters when it comes to payment settings and platform configuration.

📸 [Image: Screenshot of the agent roles settings showing Agent and Admin role options]

For most teams, you'll have one or two admins (typically the team lead or account owner) and the rest of your support staff as agents.

Assignment is the primary way work gets distributed across your team. Every conversation in Konvo is either assigned to a specific agent or unassigned.

How to assign a conversation. Open any conversation and click the assign button in the toolbar at the top. A dropdown appears showing three groups: Active Agents, Active Admins, and any Teams you've created. Select a person or team to assign the conversation. Once assigned, the agent's name appears in the top bar of the conversation, and it shows up in their My Inbox view.

How to reassign. To move a conversation to a different agent, first remove the current assignee by clicking the "x" next to their name in the top bar. Then repeat the assignment process to assign it to someone else.

How to unassign. Click the "x" next to the assigned person's name. The conversation returns to the Not Assigned inbox, where it's visible to the entire team as unclaimed work.

Where unassigned conversations live. Any conversation without an assignee appears in the Not Assigned inbox. This is your team's triage queue. When the AI escalates a conversation and no auto-assignment rule is configured, the conversation lands here. Someone on your team needs to either claim it (assign it to themselves) or route it to the right person.

📸 [Image: Screenshot of the assign dropdown showing Active Agents, Active Admins, and Teams groups]

During high-volume periods, you may need to act on multiple conversations at once rather than handling them one by one.

Bulk assign lets you select multiple conversations from the conversation list and assign them all to a specific agent in one action. This is available in any state (Open, Automated, Closed, etc.) and is useful when redistributing work, for example, when an agent goes on break and their queue needs to be reassigned.

Bulk close lets you close multiple conversations at once. This is available only from the Open section. Use it carefully: remember that closing a conversation means the AI starts fresh if the customer returns. Bulk close is best used for conversations that are clearly resolved but haven't been formally closed yet.

📸 [Image: Screenshot of the bulk action interface with conversations selected and the assign/close action bar]

Support rarely happens in isolation. Konvo provides several tools that help agents work together on conversations without losing context.

Internal notes are the foundation of team collaboration. Switch the composer to "Note" mode and write a message that only your team can see. The customer never sees notes. Use them to document decisions ("Approved refund, order #3456, reason: damaged in transit"), add context for future agents ("Customer prefers email communication, mentioned this twice"), or flag important details ("This is the third time this customer has contacted us about the same issue").

@Mentions turn notes into notifications. When you type @ followed by a colleague's name in a note, two things happen: the mentioned person receives an in-app notification, and the conversation appears in their Mentions inbox. This is the fastest way to pull someone into a conversation without formally reassigning it. For example: "@Marco, this customer is asking about a custom order. Can you advise?" Marco sees the notification, checks the Mentions inbox, reads the conversation, and replies in a note, all without the conversation leaving your assignment.

Tags help you categorize and track conversations. You can apply tags to both conversations and contacts. Conversation tags track issue types ("refund-request," "shipping-delay," "product-question"). Contact tags flag customer attributes ("VIP," "influencer," "wholesale"). Tags are freeform, so your team can create whatever taxonomy makes sense for your operations. They're searchable and can be used to build Shared Views (article 3.3).

Custom contact fields extend the contact profile with operational data. Common examples include VIP tier, preferred language, loyalty program status, or any attribute that helps agents serve the customer better. Custom fields are visible in the right-side contact panel and can be updated by any agent during a conversation.

For teams that want conversations routed automatically when the AI escalates, Konvo's Flows feature allows you to set up auto-assignment rules.

What auto-assignment does. When the AI can't resolve a conversation and escalates it to Open, the conversation would normally land in the Not Assigned queue, waiting for someone to pick it up. With auto-assignment configured, the conversation is immediately assigned to an agent, eliminating the gap between escalation and human response.

Two assignment modes. You can configure auto-assignment to work in one of two ways. The first option is to assign all escalated conversations to a single designated agent, which works well for small teams or when one person handles triage. The second option is to distribute conversations evenly across multiple agents, which balances workload across larger teams.

Where to configure it. Auto-assignment is set up within Konvo Flows, which is a separate feature from the Inbox itself. This article won't cover the full Flows setup (that's its own topic), but the key thing to know is that it exists and that it connects directly to how conversations appear in your Inbox. If your team is spending a lot of time manually claiming conversations from Not Assigned, auto-assignment through Flows can significantly speed up your response times.

When to use it. Auto-assignment is most valuable when your team has predictable coverage (agents are online during set hours) and when response time matters. If your team is small enough that everyone monitors Not Assigned together, manual claiming may be simpler. If your team is larger or you have specific routing needs (for example, WhatsApp conversations always go to a particular agent), Flows give you that control.

Understanding the handover flow helps you work more effectively as an agent. A quick note on terminology: throughout Konvo's documentation, you'll see both "escalation" and "handover." They refer to the same event from different perspectives. The AI "escalates" a conversation when it determines a human is needed (articles 2.3 and 2.4), and the "handover" settings in Deploy (article 2.7) control what happens next, where the conversation goes and how the agent is notified.

When a customer sends a message on any connected channel, the AI picks it up first. It uses the Knowledge Hub, Skills, Processes, and Persona you've configured (covered in articles 2.1 through 2.4) to attempt a resolution. If the AI resolves the issue, the conversation moves to Closed and no human intervention is needed.

If the AI can't resolve the issue, it follows the escalation behavior configured in Deploy (article 2.7). There are three possible outcomes. "Handover to Inbox" moves the conversation to Open in your Inbox, which is the most common path. "Handover to Email" sends the conversation transcript to your team's email and closes the conversation in Konvo. "Close Conversation" means the AI sends a closing message and the conversation moves to Closed.

What this means for agents. If a conversation appears in your Open queue, the AI already tried and couldn't solve it. Before responding, scroll up through the Feed to see what the AI said and where it got stuck. This gives you full context: you know what the customer asked for, what the AI attempted, and where things went off track. You can pick up exactly where the AI left off instead of starting from scratch.

Preserving context. The full conversation history is preserved during handover. Every message the AI sent, every customer reply, and every system event is visible in the Feed. The customer doesn't need to repeat themselves, and you don't need to ask "How can I help you?" when the answer is already in the thread.

Konvo provides in-app notifications to keep agents aware of new activity. When enabled, you receive badge indicators and sounds within the Konvo interface whenever new messages arrive or when you're mentioned in a note.

Enabling notifications. Use the notification toggle in the bottom-left of the sidebar (under Settings). Keep notifications enabled during working hours so you don't miss incoming conversations or mentions from colleagues.

The critical thing to know. Konvo notifications are in-app only. There are no desktop push notifications or email alerts. This means agents need to keep the Konvo tab open in their browser to stay updated. If you close the tab, you won't see new messages arrive. Make keeping Konvo open a part of your daily routine, just like you would with any other support tool.

📸 [Image: Screenshot of the notification toggle and Default inbox dropdown in the sidebar settings]

Default inbox setting. Just below the notification toggle, you'll find a "Default inbox" dropdown. This controls which inbox view loads when you first open the Inbox. Most agents set this to "My Inbox" so they immediately see their assigned work when they start their day.

Here's a practical triage flow that works well for most support teams.

Start with My Inbox. This is your assigned work. Handle these conversations first since they're specifically waiting for you.

Check Mentions. If a colleague tagged you in a note, they need your input. Mentions are usually quick to handle (a question, an approval, a piece of information) and clearing them helps unblock other agents.

Pull from Not Assigned. Once your assigned work and mentions are handled, check the Not Assigned queue for new conversations that need an owner. Claim what you can handle and route specialized issues to the right people.

Use Shared Views for focused work. If your team has set up views by channel, team, or topic (article 3.3), use them to focus on your area of specialization. For example, if you handle all WhatsApp conversations, switch to the WhatsApp view to see only your relevant queue.

Monitor Filtered Out. If your team has VIP or human-only customers, check the Filtered Out section periodically. These conversations won't appear in your normal views because the AI is disabled for those contacts, so they need intentional attention.

📖 Shared Views Configuration (3.3): Create custom filtered views to organize your Inbox by channel, team, topic, or any criteria that matches how your team actually works.