Kaylee asks your team when only a person knows the answer, holds risky changes until someone approves them, and phones the on-call roster on your own number when nobody is online. The customer never notices the pause.
Kaylee decides. Humans approve.
Part of the AI Agent step in Bot Journeys · every paid plan · WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, email, web chat
Aarav · WhatsApp
Guest · Villa Serena, Goa
Kaylee console
Front desk · on call
Nothing needs you
3 conversations live · the agent is handling them
One real loop: ask → turn → phone the on-call team → spoken answer → relayed to the guest.
A human-in-the-loop AI agent handles the conversation itself but stops for a person at two moments: when it needs a fact only a human knows, and before a change you have marked as Needs approval. Lodgestory's agent keeps the customer informed while it waits, routes the request to one teammate at a time, phones the on-call team when nobody is online, and applies a fallback you chose if no one answers.
Three settings on the AI Agent step. No new tool to learn, no new place to look.
When only a person knows.
A fact that isn't in its knowledge, a policy exception, a price it may not promise — the agent asks a teammate, tells the customer it's checking, and carries on. The answer comes back as a note and it continues in its own words, or verbatim if you say so.
The agent proposes. A person decides.
Hand-over, resolve, workflow stage, tickets, lead and contact edits, and every API tool you give it can each be Off, Automatic or Needs approval. Approve as proposed, approve with edited values, or reject with a reason the customer hears.
Nobody online? Someone still answers.
When no one is online — or nobody has answered — the on-call roster is phoned on one of your own numbers. The question is read out; press 1 to approve, pick an option by number, or record an answer, hear it back, and send.
One person at a time, then the next, then the phone, then the fallback you chose. Every step re-checks whether a human already replied in the conversation, so nobody is paged for something that's done.
A card appears in the conversation, in the team's team chat and on the Kaylee orb that floats on every CRM page. The customer is told the agent is checking.
An in-app bell and a phone push to one person at a time, in roster order. Turns last 1 to 60 minutes — you choose. Anyone on the team may still answer first.
No answer? The next person is alerted. Up to three turns before the phone step, and the ladder respects each team's on-call hours — nobody is paged at 3 am unless you want them to be.
On your own Lodgestory Voice number, in roster order, with the question read out in Kaylee's voice. Keypress or spoken answer; up to five attempts.
Still nothing? Hand over with a ticket, tell the customer in your words, or continue. A held approval is rejected, never quietly made. Requests expire after 4 hours by default.
Finance, Mumbai
A guest asks for a refund on WhatsApp. The agent proposes "Issue refund — 8,400" and tells the guest it has been sent for approval. Riya in Finance sees "Needs your OK" on the orb, changes the amount to 8,000 (the booking fee is non-refundable) and approves. The refund runs, and the agent tells the guest the amount that was approved — not the original.
Night desk, Goa
A guest asks whether a 4 am check-in is possible. Nobody is online, so the question is phoned to the on-call roster. Dev picks up, hears it, records "Yes, the guard will let them in; ask for the room number", hears it back and presses 1. The agent relays it within the minute.
Reservations, Jaipur
A group-rate question at 7 am. Reservations' on-call hours start at 9, so the agent tells the guest the team is back at 09:00 and will come back to them. The request lands on the first person online at nine — nobody's sleep is interrupted.
A change marked Needs approval cannot run without a person. The agent proposes it in plain words — “May I hand over to Finance?” — tells the customer it has been sent for approval, and waits. When nobody answers in time it is rejected, never quietly made. Every decision is logged with who made it and from where.
Needs your OK
Finance · your turn · 9 min left
Kaylee: May I issue a refund of 8,400 to Meera for booking LS-2291? She wrote: “the AC never worked, we left a day early”.
The agent tells Meera the amount that was approved — not the one it proposed.
Six ways in, one request. The first answer wins, from any of them.
Floating on every CRM page; colour is the traffic. Red when a request waits on you.
A request card inline in the chat, next to the messages it came from.
A card in the team's channel, posted as the bot, answerable in place.
Push notification deep-links to the request. Answer from your phone.
On your own number. Keypress for approvals and choices, voice for answers.
Answer from your own systems or an AI assistant; two webhook events for the rest.
Most AI agents either hand the whole conversation to a person or, more recently, can ask a teammate through an inbox. What happens when that teammate is asleep is where they stop.
Swipe sideways to see all three columns →
| Capability | Plain hand-off | Intercom Fin | Lodgestory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keeps talking to the customer while it waits | |||
| Asks a specific teammate, then passes the turn | Inbox or Slack | Turn by turn, roster order | |
| Per-action approval gate with edit-before-approve | Approval | Approve · Edit · Reject | |
| Respects each team's on-call hours | |||
| Phones the on-call team when nobody is online | On your own number | ||
| Spoken answer, read back, relayed to the customer | |||
| Auto-rejects a held change when nobody answers | — | Not stated | |
| Answer from your own systems (API / MCP) | Not stated | REST + 5 MCP tools |
Intercom Fin column from Intercom's public product pages as of October 2026 (“When Fin needs an approval or a piece of information, it asks a teammate and finishes the conversation itself”). “Not stated” means we found no public description. Full Intercom comparison →
Ask the team, Approvals and the phone step are configured on the AI Agent node in the Bot Journey builder. Everything the ladder does is observable and answerable from outside.
Who to ask
The conversation's team, a named team, or up to 20 named people. Turn length and turns-before-phone per step or from workspace defaults.
On-call hours & roster
Per team: hours, roster order, an optional phone number per person, and whether the phone step is on.
ai_request.created · ai_request.answered
Fire on raise and on any resolution, with kind, status, stage, question, action, decision, edited values and resolved_via.
REST + MCP
List, read, answer, approve and reject from your systems; five MCP tools for Claude, ChatGPT or any MCP client.
Voice
Prompts spoken in an ElevenLabs voice you pick in Settings → Kaylee; spoken answers transcribed and read back before sending.
Test it before you ship
Builder test-runs raise requests into a test panel instead of paging your team, and never fire webhooks.
{
"event": "ai_request.answered",
"data": {
"object": {
"id": "7c1e…",
"number": 1,
"kind": "APPROVAL",
"status": "APPROVED",
"stage": "DONE",
"question": "May I issue a refund of 8400 to Meera?",
"action": { "source": "org_api", "tool": "issue_refund",
"args": { "amount": 8400 } },
"decision": "EDIT",
"edited_args": { "amount": 8000 },
"resolved_via": "CONSOLE",
"execution_status": "PENDING"
},
"previous_attributes": { "status": "PENDING" }
}
}Switch on Ask the team on any AI Agent step. Add a team on call. Connect a number if you want the phone step. That's the whole setup.
Also see AI Agents, Bot Journeys and Lodgestory Voice.