Call transfer to another employee: hand a client to a colleague

Call transfer to another employee is needed when a client asks something the manager doesn't know: about payment, a warranty or a complex order. Without a transfer, the conversation ends with “please call another number”, and some clients never call again. With a transfer, the client stays on the line and reaches the right person right away.

A transferred call is a call that an employee passed on during the conversation. For such calls, “Incoming settings” has a separate scheme entry — “Call transfer”, labeled “Transferred calls”. Its blocks decide what happens to the call after the handover.

Watch the 90-second video, and below you'll find step-by-step setup.

Why businesses need it

• A clinic: the receptionist passes a patient to a doctor or the billing department, and the patient doesn't have to call back.
• An online store: a salesperson transfers a return question to the service department and keeps selling.
• B2B sales: a manager brings a technical specialist into a complex question while the client is still interested.
• A team with newcomers: a trainee passes a difficult client to a senior manager instead of losing the deal.

How call transfer works in your account

A client reaches the right person in three ways:

• before the conversation — an IVR phone menu and the “Employees” block route the client to the right department right away, so no transfer is needed;
• during the conversation — the employee transfers the call to a colleague, and the “Call transfer” entry scheme decides what happens next;
• from a voice bot to a manager — the bot connects the client with a person when they're ready to buy; this is covered in the article AI voice bot call transfer.

Right under the “Call transfer” entry, you can't place the “Employees” block. The available blocks are “Call the client / send a message”, “IVR menu: digits”, “IVR menu: words”, “Continue from a given block” and “Launch an autofunnel”. Employees go into the voice menu branches: for example, button 1 for sales and button 2 for service.

How to set up the transferred calls scheme

1. 1
   Open the entry

   “Telephony” → “Incoming settings” → the “Call transfer” row.
2. 2
   Add a menu

   “+” on the entry card → “IVR menu: digits”. In “Message before the menu”, choose “Play a robot text” and type, for example: “Press 1 for sales, 2 for service”.
3. 3
   Add employees

   “+” in the button 1 branch → “Call employees / create a lead” → select colleagues or a team → “Done”. Repeat for button 2.
4. 4
   Decide what happens with no answer

   In the “If the employee has not answered” branch, set “Waiting for the answer” and add a backup employee or “Continue from a given block” back to the menu.
5. 5
   Fill in “Chose nothing”

   Put the on-duty employee in the “Chose nothing or hung up” branch so the call doesn't drop.
6. 6
   Save

   “Save” on the bar at the bottom, then the “Settings applied” toast.

How to transfer a call to a colleague in a softphone

In a SIP app, you transfer a call with a button on the call screen: in Zoiper and MicroSIP it's called “Transfer”. Click it, dial the colleague's SIP login or a phone number and confirm the transfer. How to connect the app itself is covered in the article SIP phone setup.

A colleague's SIP login is in their card: “Users” → ⚙ → “SIP data”. Other users' cards are opened by those who have the right to edit them, so ask the administrator to list the team's logins in a shared memo. If employees take calls through your own PBX (“External SIP”), the call is transferred with that PBX's tools.

Transfers from the app depend on its settings. Before training the team, transfer a test call to a colleague and find it in “Call details”.

If the colleague can't pick up: hand over the lead

You don't always need to transfer a live call. You can hand over the client with the whole history: in the lead card on the “Main” tab, change the “Responsible” person and set a task to call back. If “Call the lead owner” is selected in the incoming scheme's “Employees” block, this client's next call goes straight to the new responsible person.

Read also: IVR phone menu: “press 1” and choosing a department by voice, AI voice bot call transfer to a manager and calendar booking, SIP phone setup: Zoiper, MicroSIP and IP desk phones