How Team Routing Matches Callers to the Right Person

When a caller needs to reach a specific person or department, your agent finds the right team member through natural conversation, not a phone tree.

How Matching Works

Each team member has a profile with four fields the agent uses for matching:

• Name: "Can I speak to Dr. Smith?"
• Title: "I need to talk to the office manager"
• Department: "Can you transfer me to billing?"
• Tags: expertise keywords like "insurance", "new-patients", "spanish-speaking", "emergency"

When a caller asks for someone, the agent turns the request into a short search term and matches it against those four fields. "Can I talk to someone about my bill?" becomes a search for "bill", which matches a team member tagged "billing". Tag your team with the words callers actually use.

By default, asking is enough: a caller who asks for a person by name or department is connected during business hours. If you would rather have the agent screen those requests, for example to keep sales calls away from your team, add a custom condition to your "Caller requests human" escalation rule describing who qualifies. The agent then applies that rule to name requests too. See How Escalation Rules Work.

What Happens During a Transfer

When the agent identifies the right person:

1. Availability check: the agent checks the team member's away status and their configured transfer hours
2. Handoff: the agent tells the caller who they're being connected with: "Connecting you with Sarah now."
3. Live transfer: the call is connected to the team member's phone number
4. If unavailable: the agent offers alternatives: take a message or arrange a callback

If the team member doesn't pick up, the caller hears a short message that someone will call them back, and the call ends. Your team gets the call notification with the caller's number either way.

Call Groups

For teams where any member can handle the call, call groups let you configure:

• Simultaneous: all members ring at once, first to pick up gets the call
• Round robin: calls are distributed evenly across members
• Least recent: the member who hasn't been attempted in the longest time rings first

Call groups have a timeout: if no one picks up within the configured seconds, the caller hears that someone will call them back and the call ends. See Call Groups.

Transfer Hours and Away Status

Each team member has configurable transfer hours. The agent only attempts transfers during those hours, unless the member has Accept after-hours transfers switched on. Outside transfer hours, the agent knows the person is unavailable and handles the call accordingly, typically offering a callback or message.

Transfers also depend on your business hours: when your business is closed, the agent doesn't transfer to anyone. It takes a message instead.

For temporary absences inside normal hours, each member also has a live away status on the Team page ("Away for 1 hour", "Away for the rest of today", or until turned back on). While away, the agent skips them for transfers and call groups ring their remaining available members. See "Configuring Transfer Hours and After-Hours Availability" for details.

Multi-Location Teams

In multi-location setups, team members can be assigned to specific locations. When a caller reaches Location A's phone number, the agent only offers team members assigned to Location A, plus anyone with no location assignment (they're available everywhere). This prevents a caller at your downtown office from being transferred to someone who only works at the eastside office.

Why This Matters

Traditional phone systems route by extension number: the caller has to know who they want. Your agent routes by need: the caller describes what they need, and the agent figures out who can help. "I have a question about my claim" goes to the right person without the caller navigating a directory.

You can add or remove team members, or update their profile information (phone number, title, department, tags), by asking Allison, through the dashboard chat or by calling Allison.

How Your Agent Says Each Member's Name

Each team member has a name-visibility setting that controls whether your agent says their first name only, first name and last initial, or full name out loud to customers. The default is first-name-only. See How Your Agent Says Each Team Member's Name for the full breakdown.