A salesperson leaves the business. A week later, the manager discovers several WhatsApp opportunities nobody has contacted. The buyer does not see an internal staffing change. They simply see a company that stopped responding.

Reassigning a chat is not enough. Transfer responsibility for the opportunity, its next action and its commitments, while reviewing who still has access to customer information.

This differs from an ordinary shift handover. The original salesperson may never return, and key context might live in quote attachments, promised dates or earlier conversations rather than the latest message.

Build an open-opportunity inventory first

List unresolved commercial requests, not every contact in the address book. For each opportunity capture the account, last meaningful contact, stage, quote reference, confirmed commitment, next-action deadline and any escalation. Mark unknown outcomes as "review needed" rather than automatically Lost.

Imagine a hypothetical supplier with 18 open requests. Six await procurement approval, four need technical clarification, and the remainder are early inquiries. Splitting all 18 equally across two people ignores urgency and specialist capacity.

Ownership and access are separate decisions

Changing a lead owner is not a reason to retain the departing employee's login or password. Review access to messaging tools, customer files and exported data. Use company-controlled accounts and authorized transfer procedures.

Microsoft's work assignment guidance describes matching work to seller availability, capacity and attributes. Its record assignment documentation distinguishes ownership changes from other record updates. These are operational references, not claims about specific Mr. AI functionality.

The new rep's first contact

Read the history before sending anything. A useful first message acknowledges that the team is continuing the existing request and confirms the next known step. Do not repeat an unverified promise made by the former rep. Do not ask the customer to retell the entire story unless information is genuinely missing.

Prioritize by the next commitment and risk of losing the opportunity, not by message recency alone. A procurement decision due today may matter more than a general inquiry that happened yesterday.

Audit the transfer over the next two days

Sample reassigned opportunities. Does each have one accountable owner? Is the next-action date visible? Have reminders tied to the previous rep been reviewed? Can the new owner explain the last commitment? Track ownerless leads, overdue follow-ups and how often customers must repeat themselves.

The Mr. AI FAQ describes conversation summaries, context and human handoff. It does not establish automatic synchronization with HR offboarding or a specific enterprise access-control workflow. Pilot the process on ten open opportunities and test the conversation journey with the receiving team.