Ring agents: put the call through to people
The step that reaches humans, the rules that decide which humans, and the one thing you must always put underneath it.
Ring agents is the most obvious step and the one most often configured carelessly, because it feels finished once it rings somebody.
It is not finished. The valuable decision is what happens when nobody answers — and a Ring agents step with nothing below it produces the outcome you bought this product to avoid: a customer hearing a ringing tone until they give up.
Steps
Add a Ring agents step and choose who it rings
A named team rather than everybody, where you can. Ringing all staff for every call trains people to ignore the phone, which is a habit you cannot undo with a setting.
Set a ring duration you would tolerate as a customer
Twenty to thirty seconds is usually right. Sixty seconds of ringing feels like a minute because it is one, and it is how people learn to hang up on you.
Always add a step after it
Hand to an AI agent, take voicemail, or ring a second group — but decide. This is the step that turns a missed call into something other than a lost customer.
Put a business hours check above it
Ringing agents outside working hours is the classic flow bug. It produces a long ring into an empty office followed by whatever your fallback is, which wastes everyone's first thirty seconds.
Consider a second ring group before voicemail
Sales, then everybody, then the AI agent. Each layer costs a few seconds, so two is usually the sensible maximum.
Check it worked
Ring the number and deliberately let it ring out without answering. That is the path a real caller takes when your team is busy, and it is the one nobody tests.
The parts people get wrong
- Agents only see calls that reach them. A call that never gets past an earlier step is invisible to the team, which is why testing the whole path matters more than testing each step.
- Concurrency on the channel limits how many calls can be in progress. On a busy line, some callers will hit that ceiling before they hit your flow.