--- title: "Inbound Call Handling - Auto-Respond Docs" description: "How your Answering Agent handles incoming calls - call hours, voicemail, and when callers reach a human." source: https://auto-respond.com/docs/voice-agent/inbound-call-handling/ --- ![Inbound Call Handling documentation guide](https://auto-respond.com/assets/docs/voice-agent-inbound-call-handling.svg "Inbound Call Handling Documentation") A visual guide to the Inbound Call Handling documentation, covering the setup, configuration, and workflow details explained on this page. Documentation illustration for Inbound Call Handling. # Inbound Call Handling An **Answering Agent** takes inbound calls to your business - answering questions, quoting pricing from your Knowledge Base, and booking appointments. This page covers how inbound calls are routed, what happens outside your configured call hours, and how the voicemail message is used. ## Getting here In Auto-Respond, go to **Voice Agent** → **Voice Agents**, and open an **Answering Agent**. ## How inbound calls reach the agent An inbound call reaches the agent in one of two ways: 1. **A caller dials your agent’s assigned phone number directly.** Useful if you publish the purchased number as your business phone. 2. **A caller dials your existing office line, and that line is forwarded to the agent’s number.** The more common setup - most businesses keep their established number and forward unanswered calls. See [Call Forwarding Setup](https://auto-respond.com/docs/voice-agent/call-forwarding-setup/). The agent needs a number assigned with **Accept inbound** on. See [Phone Numbers](https://auto-respond.com/docs/voice-agent/phone-numbers/). ## Call hours (Timing) Every agent has a weekly day-and-time picker under the **Timing** tab of the editor. This controls when the agent takes inbound calls. - **Default:** every day, `00:00–24:00` - the agent answers any time. - **Per-day periods:** you can set multiple windows per day (e.g., `08:00–12:00` and `13:00–17:00`). - **Timezone:** combined with the **Timezone** field in Basic Info. Always set both. ### What happens during call hours - The agent picks up on the first ring. - The Custom Greeting plays. - Normal conversation - questions, quoting, booking, transfer, message-taking - all available. ### What happens outside call hours - The call goes to the **Voicemail Message** (if configured). - The caller hears the voicemail text, can leave a message, and hangs up. - The interaction is still logged in Call Logs so you can follow up. ## Voicemail Message Configured under **Advanced** → **Voicemail Message** in the agent editor. - **Max length:** 1000 characters. - **Default:** `Hey {{lead_name}}, sorry we could not reach you directly. Please give us a callback if you can.` - **Placeholders:** `{{lead_name}}`, `{{agent_name}}`, `{{company_name}}`. The voicemail message plays when an inbound call arrives **outside** your configured call hours, or when the agent is otherwise unavailable. 💡 For Answering Agents, keep the voicemail friendly and promise a callback - e.g., `Thanks for calling {{company_name}}, sorry we missed you. Leave a name and number and we'll call you back first thing.` Avoid anything that sounds like a marketing pitch - voicemails aren’t the place for promotions. ## What the agent does on a call The name, voice, and tone form an AI persona. They never allow the agent to claim it is human, deny it is AI, or present itself as the owner or a human employee. If a caller asks whether it is AI, a bot, automated, or whether the call is recorded, the agent answers directly and honestly. A typical inbound call: 1. **Greeting** - the Custom Greeting from Basic Info. 2. **Service identification** - if **Service Identification** is on in Personality, the agent asks what the customer needs using your configured prompt. 3. **Answering** - the agent handles questions using your Knowledge Base. Pricing questions go through your Pricing toggles in Personality. 4. **Booking** - if the customer is ready, the agent collects the required **Collection Fields** and books the appointment via your Scheduling Integration. 5. **Closing** - the agent optionally runs through any enabled **Closing Sentences**, asks _“Anything else I can help with?”_ if that toggle is on, and says goodbye. For the full configuration reference see [Agent Configuration](https://auto-respond.com/docs/voice-agent/agent-configuration/). ## Escalating to a human If you have **Call Transfer** enabled, the agent can transfer a live caller to a human based on your configured **Transfer Criteria**. See [Call Transfer](https://auto-respond.com/docs/voice-agent/call-transfer/). If transfer is disabled and the customer insists on a human, the agent politely offers to take a message and records the request for manual follow-up. ## Best practices - **Match call hours to your real availability.** If your team is only staffed 9–5 but your agent is configured 24/7, you may get late-night appointment requests you can’t serve. Keep the windows realistic. - **Set a clear voicemail.** Outside call hours, voicemail is what the customer hears - make it reassuring and specific about when they’ll hear back. - **Forward unanswered calls.** Most businesses get the best results by forwarding their existing line to the agent after 3–4 rings. See [Call Forwarding Setup](https://auto-respond.com/docs/voice-agent/call-forwarding-setup/). - **Don’t auto-transfer every call.** Let the agent handle the common stuff. Transfer is for genuine edge cases - see [Call Transfer](https://auto-respond.com/docs/voice-agent/call-transfer/). ## Troubleshooting **The agent isn’t picking up inbound calls.** - Confirm the phone number is assigned to the agent and **Accept inbound** is on. - Confirm the current time is inside the agent’s call hours (check Timezone too). - If you’re forwarding from another line, confirm the forwarding rule still points to the correct agent number. **The agent is picking up calls at 2 AM - we don’t want that.** Open the **Timing** tab and set specific day/time windows (e.g., Monday–Friday `08:00–18:00`). Calls outside will go to voicemail. **The voicemail message is playing even during business hours.** Confirm the agent’s **Timezone** matches your actual timezone. A common issue is setting the call hours correctly but leaving Timezone on the default, which shifts the hours by several hours. **Customers complain the greeting is too long.** Shorten the **Custom Greeting** (max 500 characters). Long greetings feel unnatural and make customers impatient. *** Questions? Email . Last updated: August 29, 2026