How to exclude topics and audiences from Fin
Use Escalation Rules and Guidance to control when Fin hands conversations to your team.
Fin is set up in a basic Fin-first workflow, and you could set it live as is. But some topics or audiences, like refunds or sensitive customers, may still need to go straight to your team.
You don’t need complex routing yet, just a clear way for Fin to recognize when to step aside: “If this happens → hand it to a human.” This is exactly what Escalation Rules and Guidance are for.
This lesson is part of the Launch Fin course.
Prerequisites
Before setting up escalation rules and guidance, make sure you have the following in place:
- Content added to Fin: You should have content sources connected so Fin can answer customer questions.
- Guidance added to Fin: You should have tone, behavior, and escalation guidance configured.
- A basic Fin workflow: You should have a Fin-first workflow set up and ready to customize.
Learn how to set these up in the Launch Fin course.
Video transcript
Right now, Fin is set up in a basic Fin-first Workflow. But what if you want certain topics or certain audiences to go straight to your team? Maybe some scenarios always require human touch, or maybe you're not ready for Fin to handle refunds yet. So we need a way for Fin to recognise those situations and hand off immediately. And that's exactly what we'll do using Escalation Rules and Escalation Guidance. Then we'll run a quick test so you feel confident setting up after this lesson. So let's start with an Escalation Rule. Rules are deterministic. They're designed for consistent, repeatable triggers using structured data. They tell Fin if this data is detected, then escalate immediately. Data can be like Fin Attributes, a customer's plan or any measurable field you rely on. If you can define it as data, then it should be a Rule. Let's start by adding a condition. For this example, I'll choose Fin Attributes. Issue type is refund. If we want to narrow it down to who this applies to, we can choose an audience. But by default, this applies to everyone. So for now, we'll leave it as is. I'll save and enable. Now whenever Fin classifies a conversation as refund, it escalates immediately. Now let's look at Escalation Guidance, which is written in natural language. Instead of checking structured data, it tells Fin when to escalate those scenario based conversations where tone, phrasing or policy nuance really matters. For example, if a customer says that they've already tried all of the suggested steps and nothing's working, you can escalate to a teammate. That's not a plan or a region or an attribute you've configured. So once we've added that scenario and confirmed the audience, I'll save and enable. Here's a simple way to think about when to use each one. If an escalation relies on structured data, then use Rules. And if it depends on phrasing or what the customer says, use Guidance. There's one more thing worth noting that rules and guidance decide when to escalate. Your Workflow, which we'll cover next, will decide where that escalation goes, which inbox, which teammates, and which SLA applies. That's all workflow logic. If your team works from one shared inbox today, Rules and Guidance alone may be enough to get started. So let's test this safely. One way to do it is to edit your Rule and temporarily add email contains your company domain. Then set testing as to anyone with that company domain so we can see their experience. Now let's ask Fin a refund question, and you should see it escalate triggered by the Rule we've set. Great. The event log here gives us complete transparency to see exactly which Rule or Guidance triggered the escalation. Once everything looks correct and you're happy with it, remove the temporary email condition so our Rule applies to all of our audience. And that's it. We've created a simple and controlled escalation logic that ensures all refund conversations are handled by your team. So in the text part of this lesson, we've included best practices to help you keep this intentional so you escalate smarter, not just more often. And in the next lesson, we'll decide where those escalations go with Workflow branches. But if you don't need complex routing right now, you can start using Rules and Guidance to have Fin escalate today.
Rules vs Guidance: what’s the difference?
Fin gives you two ways to control handoffs: Escalation Rules and Escalation Guidance.
Both decide when Fin should escalate a conversation to a teammate, but they serve different purposes.
- Escalation Rules use structured data, like Fin Attributes, user or company attributes, or measurable conditions, to trigger a handoff.
- Escalation Guidance uses natural language instructions to tell Fin when and how to escalate in specific scenarios.
Here’s how they compare:
| Escalation Rules | Escalation Guidance | |
|---|---|---|
| Triggered by | Structured data | Natural language scenarios |
| How it works | Deterministic (“If X = true → escalate”) | Instructional (“If they say X → escalate”) |
| Best for | Fin Attributes, topics, location, plans, sentiment, VIP flags | Nuanced phrasing, policies, edge cases |
| When to use | You can clearly define the trigger as data (e.g. refund topic, VIP flag, negative sentiment) | The situation depends on phrasing, tone, or context (e.g. “this didn’t help,” “I’ve already tried that,” mentions legal action or competitors) |
| Example | Topic = Refund → escalate | “If they say they’ve already tried the steps, escalate.” |
| Note: For FAQ-first deployments, Escalation Rules are usually enough to get started. Guidance becomes useful later, once you’ve gone live and want to fine-tune nuanced scenarios that structured data alone can’t capture. |
When Fin applies Rules or Guidance, where does the conversation go?
Rules and Guidance decide when Fin escalates, but your Workflow decides where the conversation goes.
Your workflow is where you apply more advanced escalation logic, like which inbox or team the conversation goes to, what SLA applies, and what happens after the handoff. Learn more about building advanced workflows in the Launch Fin course.
Best practices to prevent an unnecessary escalation spike
To keep escalation intentional and only for cases where your team needs to step in:
- Keep Guidance specific: Avoid vague instructions like “escalate if upset.” Instead: “If they say this didn’t help or ask for a human, escalate.”
- Scope powerful rules to the right audience: Rules apply to everyone by default. If something should only apply to VIPs or a specific region, attach an audience to avoid over-escalation.
- Prefer Rules over Guidance when possible: If the trigger can be defined as data (like Fin Attributes or customer data), use a deterministic rule for more predictable behavior.
How to quickly check your escalation stats
Once Fin is live, you can track how escalations are performing to confirm your logic is working and where it may need adjustment.
In Reports, under Automation > Fin AI Agent, look for:
- Escalated conversations to see total handoffs
- Escalation rate to understand the percentage of conversations escalated
- Configuration-based escalation reason to see whether a Rule or Guidance triggered it
For a deeper walkthrough, see this help article.
