Inbound calls

Inbound is the reason most people buy this product: the phone rings and someone competent picks up, every time, at any hour.

This page walks through what actually happens on an incoming call and which settings shape each part of it.

Who answers

The call arrives on one of your numbers, and that number decides the agent:

1. If the number has smart routing enabled and the caller matches a contact whose stage is mapped, that stage's agent answers.
2. Otherwise, the number's assigned agent answers.
3. If that agent has been deleted, your default agent answers.

There's always an answer at the end of that chain — a misconfiguration degrades to your default agent rather than to a dead line.

Before it speaks

Two things happen in the instant before the greeting:

• The caller is matched to a contact by their number, if one exists. That's what lets the agent greet a returning customer by name and skip questions it already knows the answer to.
• Call memory is loaded, if available — a short history of previous conversations with that contact. See Call memory.

The greeting

The first line the agent speaks, set in Agents → Persona.

It does a lot of work: it confirms the caller reached the right business, sets the tone, and steers what happens next. A greeting that ends with a question ("…are you calling to book, or about an existing appointment?") gets you a far more useful call than one that ends with "how can I help?"

During the conversation

The agent follows your instructions, and can reach for:

• Your knowledge base for factual questions.
• Availability and booking if you've enabled it — see Appointments.
• CRM writes — notes, stage changes, follow-ups, custom fields.
• Your own systems via Actions.
• A transfer to a human.

Transferring to a human

Configured in Agents → Call control: a list of numbers tried in order, a plain-language condition describing when to transfer, and the line the agent says as it hands over.

Worth setting up even if you expect never to use it. The alternative — an agent stuck in a loop on a question it can't answer — is the worst call outcome there is.

Transfer conditions are written in ordinary language, so they can be nuanced:

Transfer if the caller is upset, asks explicitly for a person, mentions a complaint or legal issue, or asks about a refund over £500.

How calls end

Several ways, all of them designed to avoid an open line burning your minutes:

• The conversation finishes naturally — the agent recognises it's done and closes.
• Your end-call condition is met — a plain-language rule you set.
• The maximum call length is reached.
• The caller goes silent — the agent prompts them, escalates, then hangs up politely.
• The caller hangs up.

When every line is busy

Your plan sets how many calls can happen at once. When they're all in use and another call arrives, it isn't dropped into silence:

1. The caller's number is captured.
2. A short message plays explaining they'll be called back.
3. The call ends and an auto-callback is queued.
4. When a line frees up, the system rings them back.

That behaviour needs auto-callback enabled — see Auto-callback. Without it, a call arriving at capacity simply can't be answered.

After the call

The moment it ends, the usual chain runs: the call is finalised and charged, the transcript is stored, an AI summary is written, automations fire, and any webhooks you've subscribed to are sent. There's a fuller description in How it works.

Common inbound problems