Warm Transfer

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What is a warm transfer?

With a warm transfer, your voice assistant hands a caller over to an employee only after the employee already knows what the conversation is about. Unlike a plain transfer (“cold transfer”), the employee doesn’t take the call “blind”: first they hear a short summary from a second briefing assistant — and can ask it follow-up questions about the conversation so far between the caller and the voice assistant, before deciding whether to take over the call.

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How does a warm transfer work?

When the caller asks to be transferred — for example “I’d like to speak with sales” —:

1. The voice assistant tells the caller “I’ll connect you now” and starts hold music.
2. In the background, the platform calls your employee’s phone number.
3. As soon as the employee picks up, a separate briefing assistant summarizes who is calling and what the request is. The employee can ask questions at any time — the briefing assistant knows the entire previous conversation between the caller and the voice assistant and can respond to follow-up questions in a targeted way, for instance about concrete details of the request, about answers the voice assistant has already given, or about information the employee still wants to clarify before taking over.
4. The employee decides:
   • Press key 1 (or say “Ja”) — accept the call.
   • Press key 2 (or say “Nein”) — decline.
5. On acceptance, the caller and the employee are connected directly and simply continue the conversation as normal.
6. On decline (or timeout / no one picks up), the caller returns to the voice assistant, which plays a configurable fallback message.

The whole process usually takes 10-30 seconds, depending on the length of the briefing.

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What you can configure

In the voice wizard under Tools → Add → Warm Transfer (or by editing an existing warm transfer), the following settings are available:

• Target numbers per request type — e.g. “Sales” → +49…, “Support” → +49…. The request recognized by the voice assistant determines which number is called.
• Acceptance method — by keypress, by voice command, or both. The “Both” option is the most flexible default choice and is recommended for most setups.
• Briefing instruction — the system instruction the briefing assistant uses to open the conversation. Three sensible presets are already provided, one per acceptance method, and the matching one is selected automatically.
• Fallback message — what the caller hears when the connection is declined, no one picks up, or the decision time is exceeded. Default: “Leider ist gerade niemand erreichbar. Kann ich sonst etwas für Sie tun?” (“Unfortunately, no one is available right now. Is there anything else I can do for you?”)
• Time limits — answer wait time (default 15 s, how long to wait for the employee to pick up) and acceptance decision wait time (default 60 s, how long to wait for the employee’s decision).
• Scheduling — warm transfers can be restricted to specific weekdays and times. Outside these times, the caller hears the fallback message right away and no employee is called.

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What you see after the conversation

Every warm transfer attempt — successful or not — is stored with the corresponding call. Open the conversation in the inbox and click the Warm Transfer tab to see the following information:

• Outcome — accepted, declined, no answer, timeout, or error.
• Method — keypress, voice command, or both.
• Target number — which number was called.
• Duration — how long the handover process took from start to finish.
• Ended by — after the conversation ends, you see who hung up first (caller / recipient / timeout / unknown).
• Briefing dialog — the complete exchange between the briefing assistant and the employee.

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Interaction with other features

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Inactivity timeout (“Are you still there?”)

Inactivity detection (“Are you still there?”) is automatically paused during a warm transfer. The caller is muted while waiting and hears hold music — so they couldn’t answer even if they wanted to.

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Maximum conversation duration

The maximum conversation duration limit (your session time) is paused during a warm transfer. Time spent in the briefing and on hold music does not count toward the configured maximum — the limit applies to active conversation time with the AI assistant, not to the total call duration. For example, if you have set a cap of 30 minutes and the warm transfer takes 25 seconds, the caller afterwards returns with the same remaining time they had at the start of the handover.

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Call recording

If recording is enabled for the phone number, the conversation between the caller and the voice assistant is recorded as audio. The briefing dialog between the briefing assistant and the employee is available in text form in the Warm Transfer tab — it is not part of the audio recording, however. If you want to review the briefing content, look directly in the Warm Transfer tab.

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Post-processing tasks

Configured post-processing instructions (e.g. “Summarize the outcome of this conversation”) work with the main conversation between the caller and the voice assistant. The briefing dialog is stored separately in the Warm Transfer tab and is not automatically included in summaries. If you need briefing details, open the Warm Transfer tab directly.

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Business hours / scheduling

If you have enabled scheduling for a warm transfer, the voice assistant checks the current time before every handover attempt. Outside the configured times, the voice assistant plays the fallback message instead; no number is called. Special days (holidays, restricted hours) are taken into account in addition to the regular weekly schedule.

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