Overflow and after-hours

Both setups complement the team instead of replacing it. With overflow, the phone first rings as usual. If the line is busy or nobody picks up after a few seconds, the call goes to the assistant. After-hours follows a schedule: in the evening, at the weekend and on public holidays the assistant answers.

It is set up with conditional call forwarding or a schedule in the phone system. The assistant needs rules of its own for each case: in overflow it can promise callbacks, because the team is reachable the same day. At night it should say clearly when someone will call back, and it should recognise emergencies. Many businesses start with these two cases because they limit the risk and show at once how many calls would otherwise have been lost.