CASE STUDY · AGENT TO AGENT TRANSFER
A call that changes agent
The memory follows the call
Consulting contract, voice agents in production · Two agents, one conversation
Result: 1 to 2 s both directions, verified on a real call
01 / THE PROBLEM
On a transfer, the caller starts over from the beginning.
They have already explained the problem once. A transfer hands over the line, not the conversation: the second agent opens as if the call had just started, and everything has to be said again. That is the moment in a call where people hang up.
02 / THE CONSTRAINT
The receiver has to have read before its first word.
A transfer is not a page load. On a phone call the loading state is silence, and silence is expensive. Whatever the second agent needs to know has to be there before it speaks, inside the length of the transfer itself. Second constraint: adding an agent to the fleet must not mean editing the ones already there.
03 / WHAT I CHOSE
One shared module, and a directory each agent declares itself in.
The memory could have been copied into every agent. It lives in one shared module instead: the logic exists in a single place, and a new agent registers in the directory rather than being wired to each of its neighbours. That is what makes adding one more agent cost the same as adding the second.
04 / WHAT IT DOES TODAY
What happens between one agent handing over and the next one speaking.
- 01
The caller explains
once
- 02
First agent
qualifies,
decides to transfer
- 03
Write
call memory:
what was said,
what is left to do
- 04
Read
the receiver reads
before its first word
1 to 2 s
- 05
Resume
opens with a recap,
asking nothing again
- 06
Directory
each agent registers,
the others do not move
05 / WHAT I WOULD CHANGE
One to two seconds, on a phone call, is still silence.
The memory is written at the moment of transfer, so the time it takes to write lands squarely in the gap the caller hears. Writing it as the conversation goes, rather than at the end, would leave nothing to compose at handover: the receiver would only have to read. The silence would fall to the read latency alone.
A problem like this at your place? Describe it.