Time-based call routing: forward calls by schedule, lead step and CRM

The salon is open until 9 PM, but clients call at 10 PM and on Sundays. Without time-based call routing, the call goes to administrators who have already left, and the booking goes to a competitor. A regular client waits in the common queue, and a missed call is easy to forget.

A rule block is a condition in the call scheme that decides on its own where to send a call, with no manual work. “Schedule” sends night calls to a voice bot or an SMS. “Lead exists” and “Condition” split clients by history and CRM fields. “Lead editing” sets the right funnel step (a deal stage in the CRM) by itself, so that a manager calls back. All the rules live in one scheme together with numbers, the CRM and the bot — no integrations needed.

Watch the two-minute video, and below you'll find the step-by-step setup.

Why businesses need it

• Salon and clinic: the “Off hours” branch sends night calls to a voice bot receptionist. Bookings keep coming in after closing time.
• Real estate: “Lead exists” sends a familiar client to their manager and a new one to the primary sales team.
• B2B sales: a “Condition” on the source or a CRM field routes large clients to the key account manager.
• Sales team: “Lead editing” in the missed call branch sets the “Call back urgently” step. The call isn't forgotten.
• Bot calling: “Blacklist” and “Steps for incoming calls” let only the right clients reach the bot. CRM steps don't get spoiled.

How rules for incoming calls work

• “Schedule” — working periods, each with its own branch. All the remaining time goes to the “Off hours” branch.
• “Condition” — a filter by lead fields. Matching leads go to the “Equal” branch, the rest go to “Not equal”.
• “Lead exists” — the “Yes” (the client is already in the CRM) and “No” (a new contact) branches.
• “Lead editing” — changes the funnel step, owner, dates and field values.

“Condition” and “Lead editing” work with a lead that has already been created. That's why they go below the “Employees” block, where the lead is created. “Lead editing” can also go into the “Yes” branch of the “Lead exists” block: the lead already exists there. The “Lead exists” block itself goes before “Employees”, usually first.

How to set up after-hours call forwarding

1. 1
   Add a schedule

   Click “+” in the entry or group branch and choose “Schedule”. If there are already blocks below, the dashboard asks which branch to move them to — choose the working period.
2. 2
   Choose the time zone

   The “Time zone” field.
3. 3
   Set the periods

   In the period card, click the days you need from “Mo” to “Su” and set the time. Or click a quick button: “Weekdays 9 AM–6 PM”, “Weekend 10 AM–4 PM”, “24/7”. The “+ period” button adds a second period. A period with no days ticked doesn't work: a yellow “Pick at least one day above” appears instead of the time.
4. 4
   Fill in “Off hours”

   Click “+” and choose “Launch an autofunnel” with a voice bot or “Play / send a message”.
5. 5
   Save

   The “Save” button at the bottom of the screen.

Example: two shifts of managers. The first period, “Mo–Fr 9:00 AM–3:00 PM”, leads to an “Employees” block with the morning shift, and the second one, added with the “+ period” button, “Mo–Fr 3:00 PM–9:00 PM”, leads to the evening shift. Each period has its own branch, so each shift gets its own list of employees, while calls after 9 PM and on weekends go to “Off hours”.

For a morning call-back list, the lead has to be created at night too. In “Off hours”, first put “Call employees / create a lead” in the “Do not call, only create a lead” mode, and after it — “Play / send a message” with a voice message: “Hello, you've reached … We're closed right now, but we've registered your request and will call you back during business hours.” The lead appears in the CRM, and the client doesn't hang up wondering whether anyone heard them.

A regular client goes to their own manager: “Condition” and “Lead exists”

In the “Condition” block, click “set up the filters”, then “+ Add filter”. Choose a field from the “Standard” or “CRM fields” group, tick the values and click “Done”. Example: “Source = Avito” — in “Equal” the call goes to the Avito manager, in “Not equal” to the general team. Without filters, all leads go to “Equal”.

“Lead exists” checks whether the client is already in the CRM. The “Yes” branch gets “Employees” with the “Call the lead owner” option — more in the article on automatic call distribution between managers. The “No” branch gets the primary sales team or a voice bot that will clarify the request. The “Messengers” entry doesn't have this block.

Example — different managers for different clients. In the “No” branch, put the first-contact salesperson: they take warm new clients. In the “Yes” branch, put “Call employees / create a lead” in the “Do not call, only create a lead” mode, followed by a “Condition” with the “Payment” → “Yes” filter. Clients who have paid (“Equal”) go to the account manager with the “Voice informer” → “Say the funnel step”: from a step such as “Shipping”, they immediately understand the question is about delivery. Those who haven't paid (“Not equal”) go to the manager who follows up on repeat requests.

“Lead editing”: a “Call back” step after a missed call

In the “What to change” field, choose an action: clear the missed call or unread message flag, change the last comment, a CRM field, the lead owner or the funnel step. For the step, set the date: in N days, hours and minutes, an exact date or an exact time (“Today”, “Tomorrow”, “On Monday” and so on).

Example: in the “The client hung up” branch, set “Funnel stage: Call back urgently” with the “right away” timing. The manager will see the lead at this step and call back.

“Continue from a given block”

The block moves the call to another block of the same scheme, and in “Incoming call” — of the same number group. That's how you repeat a voice menu with a repeat limit (more in the article IVR phone menu). An unfilled block won't let you save the scheme: the dashboard highlights it in red.

Caller “Blacklist” and “Steps for incoming calls”

These conditions are set when you link a number to a voice bot — in the “Phone numbers” section or in the bot card on the “Incoming call conditions” tab. In the incoming scheme, they show up as “Condition” blocks in the number's branch, and you can adjust them here.

• “Blacklist” — a CRM field with the “Block incoming calls” value. A call from such a caller ends immediately, even before it reaches the bot.
• “Steps for incoming calls” — the bot takes the call only if the lead is at one of the selected steps. Otherwise, the robot reads the “The voice bot did not start…” message, or the call simply ends.

This is needed when the same bot both makes calls and takes incoming ones. A client calls back to “troll” the robot, and without the condition, the “Interest” step gets overwritten by “Refusal”.

Read also: How to stop missing business calls: an AI bot for calls and messengers, IVR phone menu: “press 1” and choosing a department by voice, CRM pipeline stages: set up your sales funnel and client alerts, Block unwanted calls, Call forwarding to mobile