Abuse protection and timeouts: stopping the bot for one customer

Sometimes the bot should stop answering one customer for a while. You can start a manual timeout, or let Pause on suspected misuse pause replies after repeated suspected misuse. This guide explains both options and how your team can keep helping the customer.

How it works

Only the bot stops. You and your team can still read incoming messages in the Inbox and reply yourselves. The pause covers this customer’s chats, not just the conversation you opened. It does not block a different identity or a separate customer profile.

This is not a blanket stop on messages from your business. Deliberately initiated business messages, such as WhatsApp templates, reminders and comment-campaign messages, are not stopped by this pause. Their normal sending rules still apply.

Manual timeout or automatic pause?

Question	Manual timeout	Automatic suspected-misuse pause
Who starts it?	A team member with permission to take over conversations, or staff writing in a connected team channel.	omotto, after repeated suspected misuse.
How long?	Your choice, from 1 minute to 30 days. The dialog starts at 1 hour.	The business’s configured duration; 12 hours by default.
Does the customer get a notice?	No notice at the start or end.	omotto attempts one short stepping-back notice in the conversation where the pause began.
What does the pause control show when there is room?	Bot paused, with a pause icon. The tag above the message box names who started it and when it ends.	Bot paused, with a prohibition icon and a Why explanation.
What does Resume bot do?	Ends the timeout without answering the backlog.	Ends the pause and checks for unanswered messages or held answers it can deliver.
What if the timer simply expires?	No backlog replay; the next eligible customer message can start a reply.	The same: no backlog replay on expiry.

Taking over a conversation is different. It lets a person handle that conversation; a timeout silences bot replies across this customer’s chats. Handing a conversation back does not override an active pause. A takeover timer can return an unanswered conversation to the bot, but not while this customer’s pause is still active.

What triggers automatic protection?

omotto checks conversations in the background after the bot has replied, looking for repeated suspected off-purpose use, manipulation or abusive behavior toward the bot or team. It is designed to distinguish misuse from a frustrated customer with a real problem. It does not pause on the basis of one isolated rude or off-topic message.

This is an automated assessment, not proof that the customer is abusive. Review the actual conversation before deciding how to respond.

Where to find it

Manual timeout: open the customer’s conversation in the Inbox, then open the control at the top that shows who is handling it. Choose Time out….
Active pause: the control at the top shows Bot paused, with a pause icon for a manual timeout or a prohibition icon — a circle with a diagonal line — for an automatic pause. Phones and compact headers keep Paused for this customer. The end time is in the tag above the message box, not a countdown in this control. Tap or click to open details and actions; on a phone, these open in a panel at the bottom. During a takeover, the handling control replaces the pause control and also offers Resume bot and, for automatic pauses, This is a real customer — resume and Extend.
Reply and recovery actions: a small tag above the message box says when the bot will reply again, for example, “{bot} won’t reply until {time}”. It remains visible during a takeover and when the sending window is closed. A manual timeout offers Resume; an automatic pause offers Why and Real customer — resume. Resume bot and the automatic pause’s Extend stay in the top menu; Details keeps its pause actions. Changing the pause and typing a reply require permission to take over conversations. Normal connection, consent and sending-window restrictions still apply.
Automatic-pause duration: Settings → Bot → Handbook → Who [bot name] is, under Show advanced options. The section heading uses your bot’s name.

Set it up

Start a manual timeout

Use this when you want a quiet period, even if there is no suspected abuse. For example, you may be resolving a dispute by phone or planning to call the customer yourselves.

Open Time out… from the handling control described above.
In Time out this customer, enter Duration.
Choose Unit: minutes, hours or days.
Check the end time shown in the dialog.
Choose whether to leave Notify the team when this customer writes on.
Click Start timeout.

Configure automatic pause duration

Open the automatic-pause settings described above.
Click Show advanced options if the advanced fields are hidden.
Click the pause duration in the sentence to open Pause on suspected misuse (hours).
Enter a whole number from 0 to 72. Valid changes save automatically.

Settings

Manual timeout

Setting	What it does	Default when you open the dialog
Duration	A positive whole number, combined with the chosen unit. The total must be at least 1 minute and at most 30 days.	1
Unit	Choose minutes, hours or days. For example, 2 with hours means a two-hour timeout.	hours
Notify the team when this customer writes	Enables the timeout’s personal notification and team channel post when the customer starts waiting. It does not send anything to the customer.	On

Pause on suspected misuse (hours)

Value	Meaning
12	Default: a new automatic pause lasts 12 hours.
1–72	A new automatic pause lasts this many hours. This value also determines the Extend action.
0	Prevents new automatic suspected-misuse pauses. It does not end a pause already running.

The Handbook shows the saved duration in the bot-identity sentence. At zero, its value is Off — never pauses itself. This does not disable manual timeouts. On an existing automatic pause, Extend disappears while the setting is zero; Resume bot and This is a real customer — resume remain available.

Changing this setting does not rewrite an existing pause’s end time. To end that pause now, use its pause action rather than changing the duration to zero.

What happens when…

You start a manual timeout

The start is silent to the customer. omotto cancels bot work already in progress and stops unsent bot replies. A message already sent cannot be recalled by starting a timeout. New customer messages still appear in the Inbox.

The tag above the message box shows who paused the bot and when the pause ends. Choose its Resume, or open Bot paused and choose Resume bot. A manual timeout does not label the customer as abusive and has no Why, Mark as genuine or Extend action.

You end or change a manual timeout

Find the tag above the message box.
Choose Resume. You can also open Bot paused and choose Resume bot.

You can also leave it to expire at the time you chose. Neither expiry nor Resume bot sends an end notice or answers earlier messages automatically. Reply yourselves if the customer is still waiting. The next new customer message can start normal bot replies, provided the bot is otherwise available.

In the Inbox, to change a manual timeout’s duration or notification choice, end it first and start a new timeout. The Inbox cannot start another timeout while any pause is active.

You can also ask for this in the internal channel beside the conversation, or in a connected team channel. For example, write “don’t answer this customer until I tell you”, “make it 3 hours” or “end the timeout”. The bot can then start, change the length of, or end a manual timeout for that customer. Changing the length of an active manual timeout is one step; you do not need to end it first.

If you give no length, the timeout lasts 60 minutes and Notify the team when this customer writes is on. You are told the end time and that you can ask for another length or an early end.
It is the same manual timeout as the Inbox Time out… button. It is not a suspected-misuse pause, does not mark the customer as abusive, and sends nothing to the customer when it starts, changes or ends. Ending it does not answer earlier messages or recover held answers.
It cannot end, extend or change an automatic Pause on suspected misuse. If one is active, the bot says so and changes nothing; use Resume bot or This is a real customer — resume in the Inbox.
When you ask from within omotto, you need permission to take over conversations. Messages from staff in a connected team channel are trusted as team instructions.

The customer writes during a manual timeout

With Notify the team when this customer writes on:

omotto sends one personal notification for the start of an unanswered stretch in that conversation, not one for every message. Recipients and delivery methods follow your usual notification settings for messages waiting for a human.
It also sends one post to your team channel, if that channel is set up to receive these alerts. Muting personal notifications does not mute that post.
Once someone on the team successfully sends a reply to the customer, a later customer message can trigger a new notification. Deliberately handing the conversation back to the bot also allows a later message to trigger a new notification, but does not end the timeout. An internal note does not count as a reply.
If someone on the team is viewing the conversation when the first message in that unanswered stretch arrives, neither the personal notification nor the team-channel post is sent. Later messages in the same stretch stay unnotified, even after you close the conversation. A successful staff reply or deliberate hand-back must happen before another message can trigger a fresh notification.

With the switch off, the timeout itself causes neither notification. It does not hide messages from the Inbox or silence alerts needed for another reason, such as a conversation already held by a team member.

You reply during a pause

Replying during a pause is not a takeover. The message box says Reply as yourself — this doesn’t take over. The exception is a conversation that was waiting for human help: your reply takes it over as usual, and that hint is not shown.

Your takeover ends during a pause

Control returns, but the bot stays paused until the pause’s own end. The tag says “even after you hand back”, and the handling control shows Your control ends in … rather than promising that the bot will resume then.

Automatic protection starts a pause

omotto attempts one short customer notice saying it is stepping back for now and that the team can see the conversation and may reply. The notice uses the customer’s language and the bot’s voice where possible. It is not sent again with every incoming message. Normal sending restrictions can prevent delivery.
Staff receive a suspected-misuse alert. The default delivery is in-app and browser push, with email off; notification routing and preferences determine who receives it and how.
The prohibition icon opens the pause actions and Why explanation. A roomy header shows Bot paused; phones and compact headers keep Paused for this customer beside the icon. The tag above the message box shows the end time. Why shows the suspected category and confidence information, not a list of offending-message links.
People can still answer. An Expert answer held by the pause is not automatically sent just because the timer runs out.

The customer writes during an automatic pause

This is separate from the suspected-misuse alert sent when the pause begins. An incoming message can also trigger the ordinary notification that a customer is waiting for a human, subject to your usual notification routing and preferences.

Conversations still handled by the bot: the notification is shared across this customer’s chats. It is not sent again for every message or every chat. A successful staff reply or deliberate hand-back allows a later incoming message to trigger another notification. If someone is viewing the conversation when the message arrives, no notification is sent, but a later message after they leave can still trigger it if no shared notification has already been used.
Conversations held by a person or waiting for human help: each conversation uses its own unanswered stretch. A notification in another chat does not use up its notification. A watched arrival does use up that conversation’s notification for the stretch, just as described for manual timeouts.

The manual timeout’s separate team-channel post is not sent just because an automatic pause is active.

You choose Resume bot, This is a real customer — resume or Extend during an automatic pause

Action	What happens
Resume bot	Ends the automatic pause now. omotto checks eligible conversations for unanswered customer messages or an answer held by the pause. The previous caution remains; this is not a correction of the assessment.
This is a real customer — resume	Use this when the suspicion was wrong. Ends an active automatic pause, clears the caution and gives the customer a temporary exemption from new automatic misuse pauses. It also checks for waiting work when the pause was still active. This is not a permanent exemption and does not prevent a staff member from starting a manual timeout.
Extend {n}h	Adds the current configured automatic-pause duration to the existing end time. With a 12-hour setting, Extend 12h adds 12 hours; it does not restart a 12-hour timer from now.

Caution affects later bot replies, not just the customer badge. While it remains, the bot is reminded not to treat claims from the messages behind the pause as established facts and to decline requests outside its configured scope. Resume bot keeps this caution; This is a real customer — resume clears it.

Explicit recovery after Resume bot or This is a real customer — resume still respects other conditions. It does not force a reply in a conversation held by a person, on a bot-off line, or where sending is otherwise unavailable. See line controls and human handling.

An automatic pause expires by itself

Passive expiry is different. It starts no reply and releases no held answer by itself. The bot can answer the next eligible new message. After expiry, or after Resume bot, a temporary Caution until {date} may remain in the customer information panel, with the effect on replies described above. Mark as genuine can clear that caution. Using it after the pause has already expired does not start a reply to older messages.

Troubleshooting

No Time out… or pause actions? You need permission to take over conversations. Ask the workspace owner to check your permissions. People without that permission may see the pause details without controls to change it.
The automatic-duration field is read-only? Changing bot configuration requires separate permission; being able to answer customers is not enough.
Start timeout is unavailable? Enter a positive whole number and check that the total is between 1 minute and 30 days.
A pause action failed? Refresh the conversation and check its current state. Another team member may have ended or extended the pause. Choose again only after checking the latest details.
The bot stays silent after resume? First check whether this was a manual timeout, which never replays old messages. Then check human takeover, whether the bot is live, and whether the line allows bot replies. End a pause explicitly when you intend recovery from automatic protection; do not rely on its timer.
The problem persists? Contact support with what you tried and the error shown. Keep answering the waiting customer yourselves where sending is available.