Deflection Needs an Exit Ramp

The best deflection feels like resolution, not containment. Deflection is a routing decision, not a wall. The customer-service gatekeeper model treats channels as systems that decide when to keep handling a request and when to transfer it to a more skilled provider. Applied to AI support, the bot should answer when the issue is common, low-risk, and well-covered by trusted knowledge; it should hand off when confidence is low, stakes are high, or the customer signals frustration. The mechanism is relevance plus reversibility. Relevance means the response uses the customer intent and context, not just keyword overlap. Reversibility means the…

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