Designing Explainable Handoffs Before Automating Them

A fallback that sends an item to a person is incomplete if the reviewer cannot tell why it arrived, what the system already checked, or which source is authoritative. The article argues that handoffs should carry the observed facts, the system's interpretation, unresolved questions, and a clear requested action, so a reviewer can reject an interpretation without losing the evidence. It separates reception and commercial follow-up work, since an unresolved service issue should not automatically become a sales opportunity. It also calls for clear ownership, explicit state transitions, and escalation paths to avoid duplicate tasks and responsibility gaps. The author presents these as proposed requirements with an illustrative example, not as deployed or measured results, and suggests tracking unresolved ownership and corrected interpretations alongside response time.