Taking an inbound call
If you’re available for phone calls and a call is assigned to you, you’ll receive a notification on the Inbox about the incoming call. You can then choose to:
Answer - Accept the call and connect through to the customer.
Decline - Leave the customer on hold and notify the next available teammate about the call.
Note:
You must have the Inbox open in a tab in order to be assigned calls. Teammates outside of the Inbox will not be assigned calls.
Calls are always assigned using balanced assignment, regardless of the assignment method the team uses.
Calls have their own assignment limit, so teammates will still be assigned calls if they’re at their conversation assignment limit and are available for ‘All’ or ‘Phone’.
If a call is assigned manually, the assigned teammate will not be able to answer the call.
When a call is declined by a teammate, we will attempt to assign a call to a teammate again after 5 minutes if the call hasn't already been handled by an "Unanswered Call" Workflow path.
Click See details to view the call conversation in your inbox, including the customer’s details and the options they selected in the workflow.
Calls will ring an individual teammate for 30 seconds. If the teammate doesn’t take any action during this time or declines, the call will notify the next available teammate.
Incoming callback requests
Callback requests will show up to teammates just like other incoming calls. A callback request gets automatically assigned to teammates for 2 hours after the request was made. If 2 hours have passed, the callbacks have to be actioned manually.
You can accept the callback request (and make an outbound call) or ignore it.
If a callback request is ignored, it will be routed to another available teammate.
Callback requests are visible in the conversation view. The callback card updates based on the status of the callback.
Pending callback: the callback was requested but a teammate hasn't actioned it yet.
Answered callback: a teammate called back and the customer answered.
Closed callback: the callback request was closed by a teammate (without trying to call the user back).
Unanswered callback: the callback request was actioned but the customer didn’t pick up the call.
You can create a dedicated inbox view for incoming callback requests (using callback specific filters). This allows you to:
Easily access all conversations with callback requests.
Monitor the volume of callbacks and the breakdown of callbacks in different states (e.g. pending, ignored, etc.)
Take additional manual actions when appropriate.
Phone number matching
By default, inbound phone calls are matched with your existing leads/users by their phone number. If no matching number exists, a new lead will be created.
If you’d like to create a new lead for every inbound phone number, configure user identity and select “Always create lead”.
During the call
Calls are created in the inbox the same as conversations. So when you answer a call, you’ll see call controls and have all other Inbox actions available for that conversation (take notes, see user/lead data, add tags, create a ticket, etc.)
You can also navigate around the Intercom app to look up other information or carry out tasks, without dropping the call. 👌
Call controls:
Move/drag the call widget anywhere on your screen.
Transfer inbound calls to another team or teammate who’s online.
Place the call on hold.
Put yourself on mute.
Pause recording.
End the call.
Transfer outbound calls externally
Through the Inbox teammates can transfer calls to another teammate or to external phone numbers.
On outbound calls, we support 2 transfer types:
Transfer to another teammate
Transfer to an external phone number
Transfer inbound calls externally
Through the Inbox, you can transfer inbound calls to other teammates or teams. Additionally, calls can be directly forwarded to an external number when utilizing Workflows.
The Workflow step is titled 'Forward call' and you will find it in your list of actions.
There are a couple possible outcomes of a call transfer:
In the case that the call is answered by the 3rd party (including being routed to voicemail), the transfer is considered successful and the teammate who initiated the transfer is disconnected from the call.
In the case that the call is not answered or rejected, the transfer is not considered successful and the teammate will stay on the call with the user.
Once a call is successfully transferred to an external party, the recording will stop.
Warm transfers
You have the ability to speak with the transferee before the call has been transferred. This allows you to share additional context upfront before the transferee connects with the end user.
Select Talk to transfer first from the dropdown in the calling modal 👇
Select a saved user from the provided list or type a new phone number in the dial pad.
Once a new number is selected, the modal will initiate a call to the new participant. At this point, the user is put on hold, and will stay on hold while the transferee joins the call.
Once you are done speaking with the transferee, to complete the transfer and connect them with the user, select the green Transfer button.
After the call
When you or the customer end a call, you may be given wrap up time to finish handling the conversation in the inbox (depending on your workspace phone settings).
While on wrap up time, your status will be updated to “Away” with the reason Call wrap up. You can select Switch to active to end wrap up time early and make yourself available for new incoming calls.
You’ll notice that the call card in the conversation thread automatically gets updated. Click on this to view the call details.
If enabled, the call card will include the call recording and transcript.
Use the three dot menu inside the Recording to:
Download the recording, or
Adjust the playback speed.
Use the three dot menu next to Transcript to:
Download Recording,
Download Transcript, or
Delete Recording and Transcript.
Next, learn how to make a phone call or Messenger voice/video call from the Inbox. 😃
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