Somebody dials.
The call arrives, and before anything else we check that it really came from the phone network, before we even know whose call it is. Then we look up which of your numbers was dialled, because each one can behave differently: a main line, a direct line that rings one person, or a line that hands the whole call to your menu.
The menu
Your menu answers.
If the number is bound to a menu, the menu gets the whole call and decides everything from there, including whether you are open. It runs on our own software rather than on a menu builder bolted onto someone else’s, and a caller who is halfway through it is picked up exactly where they left off.
Press publish on a change mid-call and the person already listening finishes on the menu they began with. The next caller gets the new one.
Are you open?
Your opening hours are checked in your own timezone, daylight saving handled for you, and before anybody is asked to answer. That ordering is the point: a caller at nine in the evening should hear your closed message straight away, not wait for people who have gone home until the wait gives up.
It branches four ways (open, a holiday, an emergency, or simply closed), and you decide what each one does. A holiday can name itself. And if something goes wrong today, one switch sends every menu that uses those hours down the emergency branch, with no publish and no edit to your hours.
It picks the team.
Sales, Support and Billing are teams you name, and each one decides which calls go first and what a person needs to be able to handle. A person is only offered a call from a team they belong to and can handle, so a caller who pressed 2 for French does not land on somebody who does not speak it.
While they wait.
What a caller hears while they wait is its own menu: music, roughly how long, or press 1 to be called back instead. The phone network only allows a narrow set of instructions while somebody is waiting and quietly ignores anything else, so publish checks that for you rather than letting a caller hear silence where a message should be.
Somebody picks up.
The moment somebody answers, everyone is on the same call, which is why every button works the same way afterwards: hold, pass the call on, check with a colleague and hand over with an introduction, keep all three of you on, mute or drop anyone, and record.
The person answering can be in a browser tab or in the Windows app. It is the same call either way.
And it gets written down.
A call record closes with who was on it, how long it ran and how long the caller waited. It attaches to a contact by number, so the next time that person rings, whoever answers already has the history in front of them. Usage is counted as the call happens rather than totted up at month end, which is the only reason the spend ceiling can stop anything.
How it works underneath
Every incoming request carries the carrier’s signature, and it is verified before the number is looked up and before any tenant is resolved.
The menu is a call flow run by our own interpreter: 28 block types across 3 kinds of flow. Because a phone call is a series of separate web requests rather than one long-running program, the interpreter is a resumable state machine keyed on the call’s session, and the published version is pinned at call start.
The business-hours block evaluates a named schedule inside the flow, before any task exists. A team is a named queue with a priority and required skills; who may take its calls is a matter of the attributes and skills on each person’s worker record, and a call is offered only where both match.
What plays while a caller waits is an in-queue flow on its own executor, restricted to the verbs the carrier permits inside a waiting document; publish validation refuses anything else.
Every answered call is bridged into a conference the moment it connects, which is why hold, blind transfer, consult transfer, merge and add-a-person are one mechanism. Usage is metered live as the call runs, not totalled at month end.
Questions people ask
What do I need to get started?
A computer, a working internet connection, and a headset or the microphone the computer already has. The phone itself is a browser tab inside the portal or the Windows app, and a company can pick one or use both. There is nothing to install on a cell phone, though a person can set their own calls to ring their cell number instead and still put a caller on hold, hand them over and record.
How long does setup take?
Your number sets the clock, not the software. On a new local number there is nothing to wait for. Bringing the number you already publish means a port, scheduled for a date your current carrier and ours both agree on, and that date is the one part of this nobody can promise in advance. Your menu, your hours and who answers what are decided and built with you before it, so they are ready when the number arrives.
Do I need special hardware?
No. There is no box on the wall, nothing to rack, no desk phones to buy, and nobody comes to your office. Each person uses the computer they already work on, and the phone is a browser tab or the Windows app rather than a handset. What does matter is the connection: calls travel over your internet, so a bad connection sounds like a bad phone.
Can I keep my number?
Yes. Your numbers port in from your current provider as part of setting you up, and port out again if you ever leave, at no charge from us. One thing to get in the right order: tell us before you cancel anything, because a number cancelled at the old carrier goes back into their pool and is not always recoverable.
What happens on the first day?
Your number rings and the menu you signed off on answers it. None of that day is a self-serve setup: the numbers, the hours and who answers what are configured with you before anybody uses it, so the first day is the first calls rather than the first configuration. If something needs changing while calls are coming in, you change it and press publish, and whoever is already on the line finishes on the menu they started with.
What if the internet drops?
Your menu keeps answering, because it runs on our side rather than on a box in your office: a caller still hears you and can still leave a message. What stops is the phone on each computer, since that is what your connection carries. Two things are worth deciding before the day it happens rather than during it: a person can set their calls to ring their own cell number instead, and the closed-for-now switch sends every caller to a message you wrote rather than to phones nobody can answer.
Want to see it on your own number?
That is the fastest way to know whether it fits. Send us what your current setup does and we will show you the equivalent flow.