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Sometimes a caller needs a real person. Transferring lets Avoca hand the call to your front desk, an on-call phone, or an answering service. You set up two things:
  • Destinations: the phone numbers Avoca can send a call to.
  • Reasons: the kinds of calls that should go to a person, like a safety emergency or a caller who asks for someone.
Find them at Business Info → Call Transfers.
If you don’t see Call Transfers, ask your Avoca team. You also need a role that can edit transfer destinations.

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Set it up

1

Open Call Transfers

Go to Business Info → Call Transfers. You’ll see two tabs: Destinations and Reasons.
2

Set up your reasons

Open the Reasons tab and select Set up call transfers. Avoca always includes its built-in reasons, like a safety hazard, a caller who asks for a person, or an address outside your service area. Then pick any common reasons that fit your business, like billing questions or warranty questions. Select Add at the bottom when you’re done.
3

Add a destination

Open the Destinations tab and select Add destination. Fill in:
  • Name: something your team will recognize, like “Front Office”.
  • Phone Number: where the call goes. Add an Extension if you need one. For a number outside the US, start with + and the country code.
  • Transfer Message: what the caller hears while the call transfers.
  • Additional guidance (optional): anything Avoca should know when it picks this destination, like “Use this line after 5pm when billing is busy.”
Select Continue.
4

Choose which calls go here

Tick the reasons that should send a caller to this number. You can search the list, or add your own reason at the top. Select Continue.
5

Set the hours (optional)

Turn on Time-based routing if this number only answers at certain times. Pick the days, set a Start and End, and select Add Window. Avoca only sends calls here during those times. Select Save & close.
6

Make a test call

Call your Avoca number, ask for a person, and check that the right phone rings. Then test again outside the hours you set.
Transfers send real calls to real phones. Double-check the number, the extension, and the hours before you go live. Saving doesn’t prove the other phone will answer.

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More options

Open Advanced settings in the destination to find:
  • Warm transfer: Avoca calls the person first, tells them who’s on the line and why, then connects the caller.
  • Text on transfer: sends a text to this number when a transfer starts. It can arrive a moment after the phone starts ringing.
  • Available on holidays: turn off if this number shouldn’t get calls on holidays.
  • Default Destination: where Avoca sends a call when no other destination is the clear choice. You can only have one. Turning it on takes it off the one that had it.
  • Assistant Assignments: limit this destination to certain assistants.
  • Service area routing: limit this destination to certain service areas.
  • Post-call email recipients: who gets the call summary after a transfer to this number.
  • Break Glass destination: the number Avoca dials during an outage. See Set up Break Glass.
If you use an on-call calendar, you may see an On-call calendar switch in the destination’s Advanced settings. Turn it on to dial the person who’s on call instead of a fixed number. A destination that uses the on-call calendar can’t be your Default Destination. See Set up your on-call calendar.
That means one reason can reach more than one destination at the same time, so Avoca could pick either. To fix it:
  • Take the reason off the destination that shouldn’t get it.
  • Make the reasons more specific, so each one means one thing.
  • Change the hours so only one destination is open for that reason at a time.
On the Destinations tab, select View Reasons Graph to see which reasons and destinations overlap. Windows that touch, like one ending at 5:00 and the next starting at 5:00, count as overlapping.
Avoca can’t transfer that kind of call, so it takes a message instead. Open the reason on the Reasons tab and tick a destination.
On the Reasons tab, select a reason to rename it or change where it goes. Your own reasons can be deleted. The built-in ones can’t be deleted, because Avoca relies on them. If you removed one in the past, you’ll see Restore built-in reasons at the top of the list.
Pre-call transfer rules send certain callers to a person before Avoca says a word. Find them at Responder → Pre-call Transfer Rules. Use narrow rules, because a broad one skips Avoca for calls it could have handled. See Configure call transfers.