Voice AI Setup – Phase 2: Overflow & After Hours

Updated by Jake Gipson

Phase 2: Overflow & After Hours

Concept

Replacing your static, passive voicemail box with an active AI agent that answers calls, takes intelligent messages, and creates tickets when your team is unavailable.

Value

This eliminates "phone tag" and ensures you never miss a revenue opportunity or urgent issue. You get 24/7 coverage without additional staffing costs, and clients feel heard rather than ignored.

Use Cases

  • After Hours Coverage: Forward your calls to the Overflow number after work hours and on holidays (controlled by Microsoft hours).
  • Front Desk Overflow: Use overflow as a front desk where technicians take no calls; they simply call back based on the ticket. This allows you to understand and prioritize responses at your own pace, saving dispatchers and techs time.

How to Get a Number

  1. Go to the Overflow tab.
  2. Click Request Number, select your country, and confirm.

Customize the Agent

Greeting

Customize your greeting so that your callers understand what to expect. We have found a key reason that callers might get frustrated is a lack of understanding of how this agent fits into your process.

⚠️ Important: Do not ask what the issue is in the greeting, the agent does that by itself. Putting it here will double the question.
Note Escalation Requests

Overflow doesn't escalate calls, but it can note escalation words in the ticket. This does not automatically change ticket priority.

Additional Questions

The voice agent will automatically ask the caller what their issue is, but you can customize any additional questions you want to ask. We don't recommend adding more than 2-3 questions as the call can get quite lengthy and callers can get frustrated.

Choose a Default Board and Source

Set your default board and source. Ideally, you have created a unique Source in your PSA called "Voice AI" (or similar) as covered in Phase 1.

Click Save!

Set Up After Hours (Optional)

  1. Go to the After Hours tab.
  2. This syncs with your Messenger Hours.
  3. Provide a custom greeting for when your business is closed. The agent will then use the Overflow agent settings for handling the call.

Test Your Agent

Before connecting to your phone system, thoroughly test your agent:
  1. Call the agent phone number provided.
  2. Complete approximately 5 test calls to ensure the agent is working properly.
  3. Review each call's transcript and ticket creation.
  4. Note any unexpected behavior to review with your CSM.
  5. When you are confident in your agent's performance, you can proceed to set up the number within your phone system.

Expected Call Flow:

  1. Caller dials the Overflow number.
  2. AI greets the caller with your custom greeting.
  3. AI asks what they need help with.
  4. AI asks any additional custom questions you configured.
  5. AI confirms the information and thanks the caller.
  6. Call ends and ticket is automatically created in your PSA.

How To Configure Your VoIP/PBX

This step determines when the AI picks up the phone. Configure your phone system to forward calls to the Thread Overflow number you received above.

Common Setup:
  1. Log into your VoIP provider.
  2. Locate your Main Ring Group or Call Queue.
  3. Find the settings for "If no answer," "Busy," or "Max wait time reached."
  4. Set the destination to the Thread Overflow Number (obtained in the "Get a Number" step).
  5. Ensure your "After Hours" logic also points to this number.
📌 Note: For phone-system-specific forwarding instructions (RingCentral, 8x8, Microsoft Teams, Cisco, Mitel, BVoIP/3CX), see the separate Phone System Forwarding Instructions document.

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