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Managing Call Handling When a Team Member Is Unavailable

If a team member is out for the day (or any period of time), there are different ways to manage how their calls are handled depending on your service.

Updated over 3 weeks ago

Option 1: Mark the Contact as Unavailable (AI & Human)

This is the simplest option.

When a contact is marked unavailable:

  • Abby will skip transfer attempts to that contact.

  • Abby will follow the other actions configured for that call type (such as taking a message, sending voicemail, or scheduling).

To Set an Upcoming Status

  1. Go to Contacts.

  2. Select the team member.

  3. Open the Call Handling tab.

  4. Edit Call Status

  5. Set status as Unavailable and choose start and end time.

  6. Click Save.

Once the time period ends, availability automatically reverts.

Option 2: Add a Routing Note (Human Receptionist Only)

Live Receptionists can follow custom notes.

When updating the contact’s status, you may include a note such as:

“All calls to Johnny today should go to Mike.”

Receptionists will see this and manually follow the instruction.

⚠️ AI Receptionists do not read or follow status notes.

Option 3: Reassign Transfers in AI Call Handling (AI Only)

If you want AI to send calls to a different contact:

  1. Go to your AI Call Handling Diagram.

  2. Edit the relevant call type(s).

  3. Update the Transfer action to the covering contact.

  4. Save changes.

⚠️ Be sure to revert the transfer settings when the original team member returns.

Best Practice

  • Use Status for short-term availability changes.

  • Use structural routing edits only when necessary.

  • Always test routing after making changes.

  • Revert temporary changes promptly to avoid misrouting calls.

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