Ring everyone
Alert suitable team members together and let whoever is available answer.
Call handling
Get every incoming call to the right place.
Decide who should receive a call, how they should be alerted and what should happen when they cannot answer.
A simple call might ring the whole team. A busier operation can keep callers waiting, try different people, overflow somewhere else or continue through a wider TalkLayr journey.
Incoming call01234 567890
Available routeSales Team4 people available
Ring available team members20 seconds
If unansweredCustomer Services
Still unansweredTake a message
Teams and people
Ring one person, several people, or the whole team.
Some calls need one person. Others need whoever in a team is available first.
TalkLayr lets you build the behaviour around the way the business works — whether that means alerting several people together, trying destinations in sequence or directing the call to a particular team.
The caller experiences a clear route through the business rather than the technology underneath it.
Incoming Sales Call
SSarahSalesAvailable
JJamesSalesOn a call
PPriyaSalesAvailable
→ Ring Sarah + Priya
Busy teams
Keep callers moving when everybody is busy.
Sometimes the right people are already on calls.
Instead of simply failing the next call, TalkLayr can keep the caller waiting for someone to become available and decide what should happen if that wait becomes too long.
The next step might be another team, another destination, an AI conversation or a different part of the journey.
Caller waiting
00:38
Sales Team
3 busy · 1 wrapping up
Next actionContinue offering call
Ringing behaviour
Choose how the team should be contacted.
Try people in order
Start with the preferred destination and move on when there is no answer.
Keep offering the call
Let a busy caller wait while the system continues trying the people who can help.
Route somewhere else
Move the call to another person, team or journey when the first option is no longer the best one.
Overflow
If the first choice cannot answer, the call still has somewhere useful to go.
An unanswered call does not have to become a missed opportunity.
TalkLayr can move the caller somewhere else after a chosen period — perhaps another team, an external destination, an AI Receptionist, message capture or the next step in Journey Studio.
Overflow becomes part of the planned customer journey rather than an emergency fallback.
Sales
No answer after 20 seconds
Customer Services
No answer
AI Receptionist
Capture enquiry
When the business is open
Handle the same number differently at different times.
During the working day, a call might go directly to your reception or sales team.
In the evening, at weekends or during a closure, the same number can follow a completely different journey.
Opening hours become another decision in the call flow rather than something employees have to remember to change manually every day.
Monday–Friday09:00–17:30→ Reception Team
Outside those hoursOut-of-hours journey→ Another useful route
Exceptions
A bank holiday should not require rebuilding your call flow.
Normal opening hours are only part of the story.
Temporary closures, training afternoons, Christmas opening and exceptional days can change how calls are handled without replacing the normal journey.
Christmas closureStaff training afternoonEmergency closureExtended opening
Work from anywhere
The next destination does not have to be a desk phone.
Where appropriate, a call can continue beyond the office.
That could mean another site, a mobile worker, an answering service or another authorised destination.
The route remains part of the same controlled TalkLayr journey.
Another officeMobile workerAnswering serviceAuthorised external destination
Part of the journey
Call handling becomes much more useful when it is part of the whole journey.
Ringing a phone is rarely the whole customer experience.
TalkLayr Journey Studio can combine opening hours, announcements, choices, teams, waiting, overflow, AI conversations and other actions into one understandable journey.
A caller might enter through the main number, reach Sales, wait for an available person and then move automatically to another useful destination if nobody can answer.
Explore Journey Studio →Main numberOpening-hours checkWelcome announcementSalesRing teamOverflowAI ReceptionistCapture enquiry
Another way to handle the call
When nobody is available, the next step does not have to be voicemail.
An AI Receptionist can become another controlled destination within the journey.
Where configured, it can understand why someone is calling, collect useful information, answer from approved business information or capture a request for follow-up.
The business decides where AI belongs — and where a person remains the better next step.
Explore AI Receptionist →OverflowNo one available
→Controlled destinationAI Receptionist · capture enquiry
Call history
The handling journey remains visible after the call.
Afterwards, Call History can show more than the fact that a call happened.
It can help explain where the call went, whether it overflowed, who eventually answered and what happened next.
That makes the history useful for understanding the customer experience as well as returning calls.
Explore Call History →Incoming callMain number
Sales TeamOffering call
Overflowed to Customer ServicesNo answer in Sales
Answered by SarahCustomer Services
Call endedOutcome available
As simple as it needs to be
A simple call should stay simple.
Not every business needs a complicated call flow.
TalkLayr is designed to support both without making the simple system unnecessarily complicated.
Simple
More involved
Designed around the business
You decide what should happen. TalkLayr handles how it happens.
The important question is not which piece of telephone-system terminology applies.
That is the level at which TalkLayr is designed to work.
Who should receive this call?
What should happen if they are busy?
How long should the caller wait?
Where should the call go next?
Design the way your business answers
See how TalkLayr could handle your incoming calls.
Whether you simply need several phones to ring or a complete call journey with teams, overflow and AI, TalkLayr lets you build the behaviour around the way your business actually works.