Guardrails, Escalation, and Human Review

Duckie can handle routine work directly, but some conversations need firm boundaries or a human decision. Guardrails define those boundaries. Escalation hands work to a teammate. Human review lets people inspect sensitive responses, actions, and outcomes before or after they affect customers.

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Key Concepts

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When to Escalate

Escalate when the customer or situation requires human judgment, authority, or empathy:

• The customer explicitly asks for a human or manager.
• The customer is angry, abusive, or highly frustrated.
• Legal, regulatory, chargeback, PR, safety, or compliance concerns come up.
• Identity, account ownership, privacy, or account deletion is involved.
• Duckie has low confidence, missing information, or conflicting evidence.
• The request falls outside policy or needs an exception.
• A high-value, VIP, wholesale, or urgent case needs special handling.
• A tool fails repeatedly or the next step could affect money, access, data, or customer trust.

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Restriction vs Escalation vs Approval

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Human Review Patterns

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Examples

• If a customer asks to speak to a person, Duckie escalates instead of continuing the conversation.
• If a customer asks for a refund outside policy, Duckie explains the policy and escalates if an exception is needed.
• If a customer reports unauthorized account access, Duckie stops routine troubleshooting and hands the case to a human.
• If Duckie prepares a sensitive account update, a teammate reviews the action before it runs.
• If Duckie cannot find a confident answer after checking company docs, it asks a clarifying question or escalates with context.

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