The worst thing a phone system can do is leave a caller listening to nothing. In Crulon, every point where a call could stall has a next step, and you choose it: ring your team, wait in a queue, leave a voicemail, or let the AI agent carry on.
Here’s each of those points, and what the caller hears at each one.
When the AI agent can’t answer
Every AI Agent step in a Call Flow has a second exit: If the AI can’t answer, go to. It’s required. A flow won’t publish until it points somewhere.
The call takes that exit when:
- The workspace is out of AI minutes and the prepaid wallet has less than 25¢ in it.
- The agent has been switched off or deleted since the flow was published.
Calls that take this exit aren’t billed as AI minutes. And the check happens as a call comes in: a call that’s already with the agent always finishes, so nobody is cut off mid-sentence because the pool ran out.
A good choice for this exit is whatever answered your phone before you had an agent: ring the team, then voicemail. Callers get the service they used to, and nothing is lost.
When nobody picks up a handoff
The agent hands a caller on when they ask for a person, or need something it can’t do. Where it can send them is up to you, and so is what happens if nobody answers.
Your team
The people you choose ring in their browsers and on their desk phones at once, for up to 30 seconds to start. You can set anything from 5 seconds to 5 minutes. The caller hears hold music, and the agent waits on the line.
If nobody answers, the caller hears “No one picked up.” and the agent carries on helping: it can take their details, open a ticket, or offer somewhere else. You can choose to end the call instead, but handing back to the agent is the default.
If nobody on the team is available at all, because they’re away or on other calls, Crulon doesn’t ring for nothing. The caller hears “No one is available to take the call right now.” straight away, and the agent keeps going.
An outside number
For a mobile, another office or an answering service, choose Bridge. Crulon stays on the call while the number rings, so it knows whether anyone answered, and the agent comes back if nobody does.
The other option, Refer, passes the call to your carrier and leaves straight away. It’s simpler, but Crulon can’t tell what happened next, so if nobody answers, the call ends. Use Bridge unless you have a reason not to.
A Call Flow
Hand off to a flow when you want your own rules for what happens next: ring people one at a time, put the caller in a queue, take a voicemail. The flow’s next step decides what happens if nobody answers, so give it one that ends somewhere useful.
Outside opening hours
Each place the agent can hand off to can have opening hours. Outside them, the agent doesn’t try the transfer. It keeps the caller, tells them when that team opens, and helps another way.
Every other step has an exit too
The same rule runs through the rest of a Call Flow. Each step that could leave a caller waiting has an exit for when it does:
- Ring Agents: where the call goes if nobody answers in the time you set.
- Call Queue: where callers go when the longest wait passes or the line is full, and, optionally, when no one is on duty.
- Phone Menu: where the call goes when the caller presses nothing.
Before a flow goes live, Crulon checks it. An exit with nowhere to go stops the publish, and the step is marked in red until you fix it.
Two things to check
There are two places a call can still end that are worth knowing about:
- A number with no published flow. If you turn on Default ring for the number, its members ring. Otherwise the caller hears a short apology and the call ends. Publish a flow on every number you give out.
- A forward that can’t be placed. A Forward Call step sends the call out of Crulon. If the outside number can’t be reached, the call ends there. Put a forward after the steps that can still catch a caller, not instead of them.
A good default
If you’re setting up your first flow, this shape covers almost every case:
- The AI agent answers.
- When the caller wants a person, it hands them to your team, and takes the call back if nobody answers.
- If the agent can’t answer at all, the call rings your team, then goes to voicemail.
Every voicemail lands in Conversations, and the people on the number get a notification in Crulon, and an email too if they’ve turned it on.
See Call Flows and Call destinations for more, or the step-by-step guide to building a Call Flow.