## Overview

When the bot finishes helping someone, somebody has to state that the conversation is over.
Otherwise it stays open in the queue, taking up room and distorting your reports.

**Close the conversation when the service ends** is the bot setting that handles this. It has three
values:

- **Leave the conversation as it is** — the default. Nothing changes.
- **Mark as resolved** — the conversation leaves the queue and counts as resolved.
- **Mark as pending (human triage)** — the conversation leaves automatic handling and waits for a
  person to look at it.

### Why this changed

Before, whoever wanted this behavior asked for it in the bot's prompt: *"when you're done, resolve
the conversation"*. It worked **sometimes**. The reason is honest: closing was one more action
competing for the turn's action budget, and when the limit was reached the action was dropped
**silently** — the bot answered nicely and the conversation stayed open, with no warning at all.

Now the platform performs the closing, **after** the reply has already been delivered to the
contact. It doesn't compete for the budget, doesn't depend on the artificial intelligence
remembering, and doesn't get lost.

## Prerequisites

- Be an **administrator** of the account.
- A bot already created and connected to an inbox.
- A process decision on what "the end" means in your operation: resolved or pending.

## Step by step

1. Go to **Settings → Bots** and open the bot you want to adjust.
2. Scroll to the **Close the conversation when the service ends** field (right above the
   **Conversation & Context** block).
3. Pick one of the three values.
4. Click **Save**.

It takes effect from the bot's next reply. Nothing needs restarting, and conversations already open
are untouched.

## Settings & options

| Value | What happens | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| **Leave the conversation as it is** (default) | The bot replies and doesn't touch the status. Someone closes it by hand. | When the team wants to review everything before calling it done, or when closing is already handled by an automation of yours. |
| **Mark as resolved** | The conversation leaves the queue and shows up in reports as resolved. | Conversations the bot handles end to end on its own: questions, FAQ, status checks, confirmations. |
| **Mark as pending (human triage)** | The conversation leaves automatic handling and waits for a person. | When the bot does the first part (qualifies, collects data) and someone always has the final word. |

> **Resolved and pending are not the same thing — this is a process choice, not a technical detail.**
> Resolved ends it: out of the queue and counted in resolution, CSAT and handling-time numbers.
> Pending does not end it: it takes the conversation off autopilot and puts it in the reviewer's
> queue. If you mark everything as resolved with nobody checking, your reports look great and your
> operation goes blind.

## Use cases

- **FAQ and high-volume questions.** The bot answers "what are your hours", "where is my order",
  "how do I cancel" and nobody else is needed. **Resolved** keeps the queue clean.
- **Pre-service and qualification.** The bot collects name, need and urgency, but the sales team
  decides the next step. **Pending** hands the case over ready for triage without it disappearing
  from anyone's view.
- **An operation under audit.** New bot, prompt still being tuned, team wanting to read everything
  it did before trusting it. **Leave it as it is** until confidence grows.

## Tips, limits & best practices

**Three situations where the bot does NOT close, even when configured:**

1. **The value is "Leave the conversation as it is".** It's the default — nobody who never touched
   it sees any change.
2. **The turn delivered nothing to the contact.** If the bot never sent a message, there is no
   completed service to close. Closing a conversation without having spoken to anyone would be worse
   than leaving it open.
3. **The turn ended in a handoff to a human.** If the bot just asked for a person, closing the
   conversation would be the worst possible outcome: whoever was called would find it closed. The
   handoff destination policy still rules that case — this setting only acts when the turn did
   **not** end in a handoff.

**Honest limit: there is no configurable delay.** Closing happens right after the reply. You cannot
ask for "close 10 minutes later, if the contact doesn't write again". If the bot closes too early,
that is **self-healing**: as soon as the contact writes again, the conversation **reopens on its
own** and the bot picks the service back up. Nobody is left without an answer because of an early
close.

**Consequence of closing early:** the conversation reopens, but the "resolved → reopened → resolved"
cycle shows up in the reports. If you see many reopens on the same bot, the signal isn't that
closing is broken — it's that this conversation doesn't end where you thought it did. **Pending** is
usually the better choice in those cases.

**If you use satisfaction surveys (CSAT)**, ask for the rating together with the last reply, not
after it. An already-closed conversation is not the best moment to ask for a score.

## Troubleshooting

**I set "Mark as resolved" and the conversation is still open.**
Check the three situations above, in this order: was the value saved? Did the bot actually send a
message on that turn? Did the turn end in a handoff to a human? One of those three explains almost
every case.

**The conversation closes too early, before the contact is done.**
That's expected when the conversation goes back and forth. It reopens on its own with the next
message and the bot continues where it stopped — nothing is lost. If it bothers the team, switch to
**pending** or back to **leave it as it is**.

**Resolution numbers jumped after I turned this on.**
Every automatic close counts. If nobody used to close conversations by hand, the jump is real and
expected. Compare periods using the same criteria before drawing conclusions.

**I can't find the field in the settings.**
It appears in the bot configuration, for administrators. If you opened the screen through another
path or don't have administrator permission, the field isn't available.

## See also

- [Actions per reply: how much the bot does before answering](/hc/ajuda/articles/maestro-brain-acoes-por-resposta-e-encerramento-en)
- [Bot autonomy modes and human approval (HITL)](/hc/ajuda/articles/maestro-brain-autonomia-e-aprovacao-humana-en)