AI Receptionist: route new leads and transfer calls

The AI Receptionist handles people who call or message your agent first. It has two tabs:

• Reception decides which task each new lead starts in.
• Transfers decides who answers the agent’s calls, during business hours and after hours, and when the AI transfers a call to a person.

Where to find it

Select the agent. In the right pane, the AI Receptionist section shows two rows: Reception, with On or Off, and Call transfers, with the current call modes. Select Edit to open it. The section appears when the agent has two or more tasks and at least one of them is live. With a single task, every inbound lead goes straight to that task, and you choose who answers calls in the task’s call settings. See Answer incoming calls. The Transfers tab appears once the agent’s number answers incoming calls.

Reception: the task each new lead starts in

Under Reception rule, choose where Every inbound contact goes to:

• A task. Everyone starts in that task. From there, the handoffs you set in each task move the lead on.
• Nexor picks the task. Nexor uses each task’s context to decide where to send each new lead who reaches your connected channels.

When the receptionist is Off, the button at the bottom says Turn on. Turning it on does not move conversations already in progress. If the agent also has keyword rules, the window says so. Keyword rules are checked before the reception rule. With a fixed task and keyword rules, a lead that matches no rule goes to the task of the channel it arrived on. A rule that matches only a channel, with no keyword, sends every lead on that channel to its task, whatever you choose here. The window says so, for example Calls always go to (task) because of a rule, whatever you choose here., and the map marks that task with (channel) by rule. Select Remove rule to delete those rules, so that channel follows the reception rule again. Two rules with the same conditions and the same task cannot both be saved. Nexor shows An identical rule already exists. Remove the duplicate and save again.

Receptionist greeting

While the receptionist routes calls, it greets every new caller before handing them to a task. Under Receptionist greeting, write what it says, up to 160 characters, for example “Thanks for calling Acme. This is Sofía, how can I help you?”. The counter below the label shows how many characters you have used.

• Leave it empty and the receptionist uses a greeting with its name and your company. The help line under the field shows that greeting.
• The receptionist says it word for word, in one language. Write it in the language your agent speaks. It cannot include variables in double curly braces, such as a lead’s name.
• While the receptionist answers calls, new callers hear this greeting, not the Inbound greeting of the task. The task’s Inbound greeting applies when a call starts directly in a task: when Nexor does not pick the task and no keyword rule applies to calls, or when only one task takes calls.

The field appears when Nexor picks the task or the agent has keyword rules. Calls pick up a new greeting within a minute or two of saving or, on a live agent, of publishing the draft.

Which leads go through reception

All tasks of an agent share its numbers and inboxes. You connect a channel once on the agent, and the receptionist decides which task answers.

Transfers: who answers each call

The Transfers tab has a card for During business hours and one for After hours. In each card, choose Who answers: When a caller asks for a person and the current slot does not transfer to your team, the AI says “Right now no one on the team can take the call. I can keep helping. Shall we continue?” and picks up where the conversation left off. It does not promise a callback or ask the caller to call another number. A caller can ask for a person while the receptionist is still finding the right task, even in their first sentence. The receptionist then sends the call to the agent’s default task without asking anything else. That task transfers the call when the current slot offers your team, and says the line above otherwise. Everything a call says around a transfer follows the agent’s language: the transfer announcement, the line when a transfer fails or your team is unavailable, the line above, the message your team hears when it picks up, and the message when nobody on your team answers. These lines are available in Spanish, in each of its regional variants, English and Portuguese.

Your team’s number

Every mode except AI only needs Your team’s number, with + and the country code. Both cards use the same number: changing it in one card changes it in the other. It cannot be the agent’s own number.

Rings before the AI answers

With Your team first, then the AI, choose Rings before the AI answers, from 1 to 6. The default is 4. Each ring lasts about 6 seconds, so 4 rings give your team about 24 seconds. Whoever picks up on your team hears a short message and presses 1 to take the call, for example “Hi, this is your agent Sofía. You have an incoming call, press 1 to answer it.” The message names the agent once its identity is set up, and uses the agent’s language. If nobody presses 1, for example because a voicemail answered, the call goes to the AI. With Your team only, the call goes straight through to your team, with no message and no need to press 1.

Business hours

During business hours uses the hours and time zone of the task where calls start, the same hours that task uses to contact leads. After hours is all other times. Select Edit hours in the During business hours card to open Business hours, which shows only the days and hours. A change there also changes when that task contacts leads. If no hours are set, the card says Set your hours in Contactability and every call uses the During business hours mode.

Some numbers cannot ring your team

Your team first, then the AI and Your team only need a number that can ring an outside phone. When the agent’s number cannot, Who answers only offers AI only and AI first, your team when asked.

Transfer by topic

Under Transfer by topic, the AI transfers a call to the number you choose when the caller asks about a topic. You can add up to 5 rules. Each rule has:

• Topic: describe it the way a caller would ask about it, for example “Prices, plans or quotes”.
• Transfer to: the number to call, with + and the country code. It cannot be the agent’s own number.
• What the AI says before transferring: for example “I’ll connect you with our sales team.”

Topic rules apply whenever the AI is on the call, during business hours and after hours, including slots set to AI only.

What happens during a transfer

• The AI tells the caller it is transferring them, with your line for topic rules, and the destination rings for about 30 seconds.
• If nobody answers, the AI tells the caller it could not connect them and keeps helping. It does not promise a callback.
• The lead’s conversation shows what happened and when, for example Your team’s line was busy, Your team didn’t answer the transfer, or Your team didn’t answer, so your agent took the call.
• When escalation is enabled for the agent, a failed transfer also opens a case in Inbox. While that case is open, the AI still answers if the lead calls back. Replies on other channels and outbound contact stay paused. See Handle escalations in Inbox.

When your changes reach calls

When at least one of the agent’s tasks is live, your changes in the Transfers tab go into the agent’s draft, like the rest of its settings. Calls keep the published settings until you publish the draft. See Drafts and versions. An agent still being set up, with no live task, saves directly. Publishing, or saving on an agent still being set up, finishes right away, and the call settings then apply on their own. Calls pick up the change within a minute or two, and use the previous settings until then. While a change is being applied, the Call transfers row in the agent pane shows Applying changes…. Once it is applied, the row shows only the call modes again. If a change could not be applied, the row shows Not applied and the section shows These call settings weren’t applied, with the reason, for example The number’s forwarding didn’t update. Try again in a minute. The receptionist speaks the agent’s language, which you set in Edit identity. When you change the language there, the receptionist’s calls switch to it on the same timing.

If saving fails

Use the API

Read and change the call modes with Get incoming calls and Update incoming calls. The topic rules are in Get topic transfer rules and Update topic transfer rules. The router settings, including the receptionist greeting (reception_greeting), are in Update inbound router.

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