Calls

A customer can call your WhatsApp number and an agent answers in ConnectWiz — in the browser, or on the phone app. This page is about the agent's side of a call. For when your number is answered and what happens outside those hours, see Call switchboard.

Answering

An incoming call rings every device you are signed in on — the panel in your browser and the ConnectWiz app on your phone. Answering on one stops the others.

• Answer connects you.
• Decline ends it for you. What happens next depends on your switchboard — the call may go to a colleague or to the queue.

On the phone the call uses your operating system's own call screen, so it behaves like any other call: it rings on the lock screen, and the phone's buttons work the way you expect.

When the AI voice assistant answers

If a voice assistant is set to answer calls on its own, it picks the call up before anybody's phone rings. Nothing rings in the panel or on the phones, and nobody can press Answer on it by mistake.

Instead, everyone who handles calls sees a card Answered by the AI assistant in the corner of the panel:

• the caller's name and the line the call came in on;
• which assistant is talking and for how long;
• What the assistant said, live. Turn on Live captions on the card to see the caller's side too (it uses your transcription minutes). Silent stretches are not transcribed, and when the assistant switches to the language the caller asked for, the caller's captions follow it;
• Take over — you join the call and the assistant leaves the line without a gap for the caller;
• Open conversation — the customer's thread.

The card goes away when the call ends or when somebody takes over.

One call, one card. If you are on the call yourself — you handed it to the assistant, or you are taking it over — the call shows only in your own Call in progress card. That card carries the assistant band (Take over, Stop the assistant), Live captions and the way back to the conversation, so the Answered by the AI assistant card for the same call is not shown beside it. Colleagues who are not on the call see only the assistant's card.

Many calls at once. The corner keeps at most two cards open. A ringing call that needs a person always gets one of them first; calls the assistant is handling come after. Everything else is counted in one pill at the top of the stack, for example AI assistant on 7 calls · 3 ringing +8 more. Click it for a list of the other calls and click one to open its card. While your pointer is on the stack nothing moves under it: a new call waits in the pill and opens when you move away. Every ringing call still rings, open or not.

On the phone. While the assistant is on any call, the app shows one slim bar at the top of every screen: AI assistant is on a call with Ayşe, or AI assistant is on 3 calls · 1 waiting for a person (red when a caller is waiting for a person). Tap it to open the call (or the list of calls). The call screen shows the caller, the line, how long the assistant has been on, what is being said live (it follows the newest line; scroll up to read back, Latest brings you down again), the Live captions switch, Take over, Stop (only for people who can manage voice assistants) and Open conversation. Take over asks first, then puts the call on your phone; the assistant leaves without a gap. It is not offered while your phone is on another call.

When the assistant cannot take the call, the team is rung as usual. This happens when the assistant is already on as many calls as it is allowed to take at once (Maximum simultaneous calls in its settings), or when it could not join a call it had answered. In the second case the caller is already connected — Answer joins you straight in.

If you press Answer on a ring the assistant took a moment earlier, the panel tells you the assistant already has the call.

Stopping the assistant

While the assistant is talking you see Take over and Stop the assistant side by side (Stop only if you can manage voice assistants):

• Take over — you speak to the caller now.
• Stop the assistant — the assistant leaves the line and the caller is put on hold with your line's hold music, waiting for a person. The band turns red: The caller is on hold and waiting for a person. Take over stays right there, on every screen that shows the call, for anyone who can take it.

The same happens when the assistant leaves the line on its own (for example when voice assistants are switched off for the workspace, or its connection to the AI provider drops): the caller hears hold music, not silence, and the call waits for a person with Take over.

When somebody presses Take over, the hold music keeps playing until their microphone is connected, then stops, so the caller hears no gap. If your media bridge cannot put this kind of call on hold, the red band says the caller is on the line with nobody talking — take it over quickly.

Nobody's phone rings when the assistant stops: the red band on the card (and the red bar on the phone) is the signal.

Listening in

Press Listen on the card to hear the call as it happens — the caller and the assistant — in your browser, without joining it.

• Only you hear it. Your microphone is never used: the caller and the assistant cannot hear you, and nothing about the call changes.
• While you listen the card shows Listening…. Use the speaker button to mute or unmute it on your side, and Stop to stop listening.
• Take over while you are listening stops the listening first, then puts you on the call as usual.
• Listening stops by itself when the call ends or somebody takes it over.
• Anyone who can see the card and take the call over can listen. Several people can listen to the same call.
• Every time somebody starts or stops listening, it is written to the workspace's audit log (who, which call, when, for how long).

Listen appears only when your media bridge supports it. The caller is not told separately that someone is listening; they hear the same recording notice as on any other call, so make sure your notice text covers listening in if your policy requires it.

Calling a customer back

WhatsApp does not let a business dial a customer whenever it likes. The customer has to give permission first, and Request call permission asks for it. The call button appears once they accept — not before, because a button that cannot work is worse than no button.

Missed calls stay in the conversation, so Call is there when the permission exists.

Hold

Hold puts the customer on hold music and mutes your side. Resume brings them back.

Two things are deliberate here:

• They never hear silence. Hold means music is playing. If the music cannot be played, the hold does not happen at all — the panel tells you the customer is still connected and to keep talking. Silence is indistinguishable from a dropped call, and a customer who thinks the call dropped hangs up.
• The server decides, not your screen. The button changes state after the media layer confirms it, never before. If a hold fails you are told plainly rather than shown a "on hold" badge over a live microphone.

If your connection drops

If your own connection fails mid-call, the customer is automatically put on hold rather than left on a dead line — the panel says "Customer placed on hold (connection issue) — they are hearing hold music."

From there ConnectWiz works down a ladder, and tells you where you are on it:

1. Your own other devices are asked to take the call. If you have the phone app signed in, it rings there.
2. The team is offered the call if your devices do not answer.
3. If nobody takes it, the call ends honestly rather than leaving the customer holding indefinitely.

The customer hears hold music throughout, so the line never goes quiet while this is happening.

Moving the audio to another device

Take the audio here moves a call in progress onto the device you are currently using — from your phone to your computer, or the other way round. The customer stays connected the whole time: the new device joins first and the old one leaves after, so there is no gap.

If the move fails, nothing changes — the call simply continues where it was, and you are told so.

A second call while you are on one

If another call arrives while you are talking, you choose:

• Hold & continue — your current customer goes on hold music and you take the new call.
• End & continue — the current call ends.
• Stay on the call — the new one is not taken.

Switching back later puts the other customer on hold in turn. The panel always says which customer is about to be put on hold, by name where it knows it.

Transferring a call

Transfer hands the call to a colleague or a department.

The order matters, and it is the safe one: the caller is put on hold first, and only then is your colleague rung. The caller is never listening to a ringing phone that may not be answered.

A transfer is an offer, not an order. Your colleague sees "A call is being transferred to you" and can take it or decline it.

• If they decline, or nobody answers in time, the caller is still on hold and comes back to you. Nothing is lost.
• Cancel & return to caller takes them back at any point while it is ringing.
• Move the conversation too transfers the chat thread along with the call, so your colleague has the history in front of them.

The transfer list shows who is actually available — Available, Busy, Away, Offline, and who is already on a call — so you are not offering a call to someone who cannot take it.

Talking to your colleague first (consultative transfer)

Tick Talk to them first and the transfer becomes a question instead of an instruction. Your colleague picks up and — before anything moves — the two of you talk: "I have a customer asking about X, can you take it?"

The caller cannot hear a word of it. They are on hold with music from before your colleague's phone rings until after the hand-off completes, and the conversation between the two of you is never recorded and never transcribed.

While you are talking, the call is still yours:

• Complete transfer hands it over. It stays greyed out until your colleague is genuinely connected, so you can never hand a caller to a microphone that is not there. The caller remains on hold across the swap; your colleague presses Resume when they are ready to speak to them.
• Cancel & return to caller drops the consultation and puts you straight back with your caller.
• If your colleague hangs up, or their connection drops, the call is still yours with the caller still on hold — and the panel tells you which of the two happened.
• If YOUR connection drops while the two of you are talking, your colleague is given the call rather than the caller being hung up on: they are already on the line and already said yes. Their screen changes from "you are consulting a colleague" to the ordinary call controls, with the caller still on hold waiting for them to press Resume.

While a consultation is open, the plain Resume button is not offered — the two buttons above are how you come back to the caller, and both of them end the conversation with your colleague properly first. On your colleague's screen the consultation shows as a read-only note: the call is not theirs to hand on or withdraw while it is still yours.

If the option is not shown, the calling system on your account cannot carry two agents on one call yet. It appears by itself once it can.

This option is not available on the mobile app's side of the conversation: a colleague on their phone will take the call as usual and simply hear you instead of the customer.

Recording and transcripts

If call recording is switched on for your channel, the recording and its transcript appear in the conversation once the call ends. The transcript labels who spoke — Agent or Customer — so it reads as a dialogue rather than a wall of text.

Where recording requires an announcement to the caller, ConnectWiz plays it; the conversation shows whether the announcement was actually heard, so you are never left assuming.

When something goes wrong

Every failure message on a call tells you the state the customer is in, not just that something failed:

• "Could not put the call on hold — the customer is still connected, keep talking."
• "The audio could not be moved here — nothing changed, the call continues on your other device."
• "The transfer was declined. The caller is still on hold — take them back when you are ready."

This is deliberate. During a live call the only question worth answering is "what is the customer hearing right now?"

Related pages

• Call switchboard — business hours, the wait queue and the voice menu
• Channels — connecting a WhatsApp number and enabling calling
• Inbox — the conversation the call belongs to