Handing off customer-support conversations between a human agent and a bot without requiring code changes

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform a method for passing control of a customer-support conversation in an online customer-support system among integrations, which are responsible for responding to a customer during the customer-support conversation, the method comprising:

• receiving a message from a source integration, which is presently responsible for responding to the customer during the customer-support conversation, wherein the message includes a pass-control command that passes control of the customer-support conversation to a target integration;
• and
• in response to the pass-control command, passing control of the customer-support conversation from the source integration to the target integration, so that the target integration becomes responsible for responding to the customer during the customer-support conversation;
• wherein passing control of the conversation from the source integration to the target integration involves modifying the target integration to have an active status and modifying the source integration to have a standby status.

A system that passes control of a customer-support conversation in an online customer-support system among integrations, which are responsible for responding to a customer during the customer-support conversation, comprising:

• at least one processor and at least one associated memory;
• and
• a conversation-support mechanism, which executes on the at least one processor, wherein during operation, the conversation-support mechanism:
• receives a message from a source integration, which is presently responsible for responding to the customer during the customer-support conversation, wherein the message includes a pass-control command that passes control of the customer-support conversation to a target integration;
• and
• in response to the pass-control command, passes control of the customer-support conversation from the source integration to the target integration, so that the target integration becomes responsible for responding to the customer during the customer-support conversation;
• wherein passing control of the conversation from the source integration to the target integration involves modifying the target integration to have an active status and modifying the source integration to have a standby status.