Help › Phone and voice

Your phone line and number

Where your receptionist's number comes from, how to keep your own number by forwarding it, and how to check the line works.

Your receptionist answers calls on its own phone number. Callers can ring that number directly, or you can keep the number they already know and forward calls to it. This article covers the Phone line tile in Settings, call forwarding, and what callers hear.

The Phone line and Phone voice tiles only appear if your plan includes phone answering. If you can't see them, email hello@callscovered.ai.

Getting a number

There are two ways your line gets set up:

• CallsCovered sets it up for you. We give you a number when your line is switched on. Until then, the setup guide shows it as NUMBER. In the Phone line tile, keys we added for you show as "set when deployed".
• You use your own phone provider account. If you already have an account with Twilio (or one of the other providers in Phone providers), you can paste its keys and number into the Phone line tile yourself.

The Phone line tile

Go to Settings and open Phone line. At the top you'll see which provider is answering, or Not set up yet. Below it is each phone provider with what it costs (see Choosing your phone provider and voice). Click Keys and number on the one in use, or Switch to on another. All phone providers takes you back to the list.

With Twilio, the boxes are:

• Account SID: starts with AC and is 34 characters long.
• Auth token: 32 letters and numbers.
• Twilio phone number: written in full, like +44 131 496 0000. A number starting 0 is turned into the +44 form for you.
• Text call summaries to: the mobile that gets a text after each call. See Texts and opt-outs.

Saved keys stay hidden. Leave a box empty to keep what's saved, then click Save phone line.

Under In Twilio, point this number at there are two addresses, each with a Copy button. In Twilio, go to Phone Numbers, choose your number, and under Voice paste the first address into "A call comes in" (HTTP POST) and the second into "Call status changes". Twilio's own menus can move, so look for those two settings if the names differ.

Remove Twilio keys takes the keys off. The phone line stops answering until new ones are saved.

Check connection

Check connection asks your phone provider whether your keys and number are right. You'll see one of these:

On other providers the messages are the same, with that provider's name. For more, see Calls aren't reaching your receptionist.

Keep your own number

You don't have to change the number on your van, website or letterhead. Your phone provider forwards calls to your receptionist's number instead. The Keep your number step of the setup guide shows your receptionist's number and the codes to dial. To open it, go to Settings, then Setup guide, then Open the setup guide.

Pick when calls should forward:

• When I don't answer: your team answers as normal. Your receptionist picks up whenever nobody does within about 20 seconds, including after hours.
• Every call: your receptionist answers everything.
• When I'm busy: calls that arrive while you're already on the phone.

Then dial the code the guide shows from the phone you want to forward:

• Mobiles (EE, O2, Vodafone, Three, giffgaff): the guide gives you a code starting **61*, **21* or **67*. To stop forwarding, dial ##002#.
• BT or Virgin Media landlines: the code starts *61*, *21* or *67*. This needs Call Diversion on your line, so ask your provider if it isn't. To stop, dial #21# (or #61#, #67#).
• Business phone systems (VoIP or a switchboard): in the system's settings, set call forwarding (sometimes called divert or overflow) to your receptionist's number.

Your phone provider may charge for forwarded calls. Check with them.

Test it

After forwarding, ring your business number from a different phone. The last step of the setup guide, Make a test call, gives you a checklist: the greeting, asking your hours and a price, booking or asking for a call back, and checking the call shows in Conversations with a summary. See Your first test call and chat.

What callers hear

• The greeting you set in Phone greeting. See Phone greeting.
• Your receptionist's voice. See Choosing your receptionist's voice.
• Normal calls on Twilio are live: callers can talk naturally and interrupt, and can use the keypad too.
• If the line goes quiet, your receptionist asks "Hello? Are you still there?", then says goodbye if there's still no answer. You can change how long it waits in Settings, under Calls.
• At your longest call setting (also under Calls), your receptionist wraps up politely and asks them to ring back if there's anything else.
• While you're closed, it does what you chose under After hours.

Still stuck? Write to hello@callscovered.ai with your business name and what you were trying to do, and a person will reply.