Which Calls Should an AI Receptionist Hand to a Person?
The short answer
An AI receptionist should hand to a person only the calls on a written list agreed before go-live, never a call it judges urgent. On Durbacti's line that list is a caller who asks for a person inside hours, a complaint or a distressed caller, and a question it was not given; a clock, not the model, enforces the hours.
Every page on this site that describes the 24/7 AI phone receptionist says the same thing about handoff: it transfers "under rules you set", the escalation rules are "agreed before go-live", a question it was not given "goes to a person". The plain-text copy of the site that assistants read says it in more than a dozen places. Not one of those sentences gives the list itself.
That is a gap worth closing, because the rules are the product. So here is the list Durbacti's own receptionist runs on, the one that answers 0483 982 033, line by line, with where each line lives and what enforces it.
What is the difference between a rule and a judgement?
A judgement is the receptionist deciding, on the call, that this caller sounds upset enough or this question sounds hard enough to hand over. A rule is a sentence written before go-live that says which calls go to a person, so the receptionist applies it rather than weighs it.
The distinction matters because a judgement varies with the wording of the call and a rule does not. Two callers describing the same burst pipe in different words should get the same treatment. A rule can be read, tested and moved; a judgement can only be observed after the fact. When the AI receptionist gets it wrong draws the line between an error and an escalation. This post is about the list that escalation runs on.
What are the seven rules on Durbacti's own line?
These are the lines the receptionist on 0483 982 033 works to, as written in its brief and in the database behind it.
Inside hours, a caller who asks for a person now is offered a transfer. Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm Sydney time, the receptionist offers to put the caller through, and if the transfer reports nobody available it takes a message instead.
Outside those hours, a message, with the callback stated. Name, number, what it is about and the best time to call back, and the caller is told exactly what will happen next and when. No transfer goes through, however the caller asks, because the clock decides that rule.
A question it was not given goes to a person later, not to a guess now. If something is not in its brief, the receptionist says it does not have that detail and offers to have a person answer on the strategy call or by email. A caller it cannot help in English is told so, in English, and offered a callback: a number is taken for a person to ring.
A complaint, a distressed caller or bad news is never handled alone. One apology, then a transfer if it is inside hours, or a message with a promise that a person will call back personally. The receptionist does not try to resolve it.
A wrong number or a sales call is closed politely. A wrong number is told so kindly and the call ends. A sales or robocall is told Durbacti is not interested and the call ends. Neither becomes a message.
Silence is checked once. If the line goes quiet the receptionist asks once whether the caller is still there, then says goodbye and ends the call.
A caller who declines transcription leaves a name and a number, and nothing else. The receptionist stops collecting the moment a caller says so, takes only what a callback needs, and ends politely; the company, the project details and, once a number is held, the email already given are cleared, and a strategy call already booked stays. How to test an AI receptionist has this as one of its nine calls.
That is the whole list. Nothing on it asks the receptionist to assess how urgent a call is. Each line is a condition it can recognise, followed by one action.
Why is the hours rule enforced by a clock and not by the prompt?
All seven rules are sentences in the receptionist's brief, the document the language model follows, and the hours sentence is one of them: offer a transfer only Monday to Friday between 9 am and 5 pm Sydney time. The first rule is different in one way: it is also written into the database that answers the receptionist's transfer requests. When the receptionist asks to transfer, the database checks the Sydney clock, and outside Monday to Friday 9 to 5 it refuses, whatever the receptionist asked and whatever the caller said to get there.
The reason is that a prompt is an instruction and a clock is a fact. A model can be argued with: a caller who says it is urgent is applying pressure to a sentence. A database that compares the time to a window cannot be talked into anything. So the one rule where a mistake costs a person a phone call at 11 pm is not left to the model alone.
The same clock has a limit. It knows weekdays and hours, not public holidays, so on a public holiday that falls on a weekday a transfer inside 9 to 5 still goes through to the mobile. On Durbacti's line it is left as it is, because the only number a holiday transfer can ring is one person's mobile. For a clinic or a venue the closed days would be part of the rule, and it would still sit in the code.
What does a tradie's list look like?
A plumber's list would be shorter than Durbacti's in some places and longer in one. The one is emergencies. A burst pipe, a gas smell or water through a ceiling is a call that needs the tradie now, at any hour, so the first line would be a transfer to the mobile whenever those words come up, and a message if the mobile is not answered, with the callback time said out loud. Which words count is written down, not left to the receptionist's sense of urgency.
On that list a quote request is the opposite: captured, never transferred, because a job that can wait until the ute is parked is not worth a phone ringing on a roof. The job, the suburb, the best time to look and the caller's number are taken instead. A complaint about finished work goes the way it does on Durbacti's line: one apology, then a person.
What happens when the person does not pick up?
A transfer is a request, not a result. On Durbacti's line the brief says: use the transfer tool, and if it reports nobody is available, take a message instead. Today the only thing the tool reports is the clock's refusal outside hours; what the platform reports when the mobile rings out inside hours has not been tested on that line, and the record shows no transfer yet. The failure to avoid is a receptionist that announces a transfer, sends the caller into a phone that rings out, and leaves them in a voicemail they did not ask for. Which number is rung, and what the caller hears when it is not answered, are two settings, and they belong in the list beside the rule that triggers them.
What we will not do
Let the receptionist decide on the call. Every handoff on Durbacti's line is a written condition and one action. If a kind of call keeps landing in the wrong place, the line moves.
Say a person is picking up. The brief forbids it outright. The receptionist offers a transfer only inside the hours the clock allows, is told to take a message when the transfer tool reports nobody available, and never pretends to be a person itself.
Handle a complaint or bad news on its own. One apology, then a person. A receptionist that explains, defends or negotiates has been given a job it should not have.
Call the list finished. Seven lines is what one business needs today; the record of every call shows whether a line is drawn in the wrong place, and the list changes when the record says so.
What is not yet proven on our own line
The hours rule and the decline rule are in the brief and in the code, the message rule is in the brief, and all of it can be read. What cannot be shown yet is a caller using the transfer, or a caller declining. Read on 29 September 2026, the record of every call to 0483 982 033 holds five calls: three ended in a message, none in a transfer and none in a declined transcription. The calls that would prove them are the sixth and the eighth of the nine in the testing post, the sixth made on a weekday inside business hours from a phone other than the mobile the transfer rings, and until they are made both rules are "written and enforced", not "used by a caller". The clock's answer can be proven from the database without a call; that the platform asks it on every transfer is proven only by the same sixth call.
Nor can anyone say in advance how many calls a new list will route wrongly. That comes from a week of records, which is why the first week of records is worth more than the argument before go-live.
Six questions for writing your own list
Which calls need a person now, and which can wait for a callback? The first group is the transfer list; the second is everything else.
Who answers a transfer, on which number, during which hours? If the answer changes by day or by person, write each case down. The hours belong in code, not in an instruction.
What does a caller hear outside those hours, and when does the callback come? A stated time beats "someone will be in touch".
What happens when the transfer is not answered? A message, with the caller told so, is the only good answer.
Which words trigger a transfer whatever else is true? Emergency words for a tradie, clinical words for a clinic, a complaint for anyone.
Who reads the record, and how often is the list reviewed? A list nobody checks against the calls is a guess that has been written down.
Durbacti writes that list with you before go-live. How we work sets out the five stages from the strategy call to go-live.
The rules above are the ones the 24/7 AI phone receptionist page means when it says "rules you set". The list for your business starts on a free strategy call.
Common questions
Does an AI receptionist decide on its own when to transfer a call?
Not one built by Durbacti. Every handoff is a written condition with one action: a caller who asks for a person inside the hours someone can answer, a complaint or a distressed caller, a question the receptionist was not given. The list is agreed before go-live and the receptionist applies it rather than judging urgency. On Durbacti's own line the hours rule is enforced by the database clock, so outside Monday to Friday 9 am to 5 pm Sydney time no transfer goes through. When a call lands in the wrong place, the list moves, not the receptionist.
What does an AI receptionist do with a complaint?
An AI receptionist built by Durbacti does not handle a complaint on its own. On Durbacti's own receptionist the rule is one apology, then a transfer to a person if it is inside business hours, or a message with a promise that a person will call back personally. The receptionist does not explain, defend or negotiate, because a complaint is a call where being heard by a person is the service. A client's list would carry the same line with the person and the hours named, and the same rule covers a distressed caller and bad news.
What happens if the person an AI receptionist transfers to does not answer?
The receptionist takes a message and tells the caller when to expect a callback. On Durbacti's line the brief says so in one sentence: use the transfer tool, and if it reports nobody is available, take a message instead. What the platform reports when the person's mobile rings out has not yet been tested on that line, so the honest word for that path is written, not proven. Which number is rung, and what happens when it is not answered, are two settings that belong in the handoff list beside the rule that triggers the transfer.
Should an AI receptionist transfer calls after hours?
Only if someone has agreed to answer them, and then only for the calls named in advance. A tradie may want emergencies through to a mobile at any hour and nothing else; a clinic may want nothing transferred after close and every call taken as a message with a stated callback. Each is one line in the handoff list. On Durbacti's own line no transfer goes through outside Monday to Friday 9 am to 5 pm Sydney time: the clock in the database refuses it, and the receptionist takes a message instead.