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On-call rota

Get a text, and if you like a phone call, the moment a caller says something is urgent, sent to whoever is on call.

When a caller says it's urgent, or describes an emergency, your receptionist tells the person on call straight away. They get a text with who got in touch and what they said, and if you choose, a phone call that reads the message out.

What it does

• Up to four people can be on the list.
• Who hears about it: either Everyone on the list, or One person a week, taking turns (week starting Monday). The turn moves on to the next person each Monday, in the order you listed them.
• When: Only when you're closed (the default) or Any time. While you're open and it's set to closed hours only, your usual alerts reach the team instead.
• How: A text, or A text and a phone call reading it out. The call reads the message twice, in a British voice, then ends.

The text looks like this: "URGENT for Smith Plumbing: call from +447700900123. They said: 'water coming through the ceiling'. Please get back to them as soon as you can." The quoted words are cut to about 220 characters.

What you need

• Texts from your number set up in Settings > Phone line.
• For the phone-call option: Twilio as your phone provider (see Limits).
• A UK mobile number for each person on call.

Setting it up

1. Switch the plugin on from the Plugins page (see Plugins overview).
2. Under Who's on call, fill in Person 1: name and Person 1: phone number. Add up to three more people. Every person needs both a name and a UK mobile; leave the rest empty if you have fewer.
3. Choose Who hears about it, When and How.
4. Press Save and test. If all is well you'll see who is on call right now.
5. Press Who's on call now? any time to check whose week it is. It shows each name with the last three digits of their number.

What it costs

Free. Each text and call is charged by your phone provider on your own account with them, at their normal rates.

Privacy

The caller's number and the words they used are sent by text (and read out by phone) to the people on your list. Nothing goes anywhere else.

Limits

• "Urgent" means your receptionist judged the caller said so or described an emergency. It won't catch an emergency that nobody mentions.
• The phone call only works with Twilio as your phone provider. On other providers, the text still goes out but the call doesn't.
• The text may arrive from your business name rather than your number, depending on your Text messages settings. See Texts and opt-outs.
• If an urgent message comes in through the website chat or another written channel, the text says which channel it came from, but it doesn't include the person's contact details. Check Conversations for those.
• If someone on your list has ever replied STOP to a text from your number, they won't get alerts until they reply START.
• Only UK mobile numbers can be on the list.

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