When a call comes in, Hello Hotel follows the routing steps you’ve configured in order. Each step rings one or more team members simultaneously for a set duration. If nobody answers, the call moves to the next step. If all steps are exhausted without an answer, the call goes to voicemail.
This means you can build flexible coverage patterns — ring your front desk first, then try the manager’s cell, then fall back to voicemail — all without the caller having to do anything.
Each routing step has three settings: who gets notified, how they get notified, and how long the phone rings before moving on.
Click Add Step to create a new routing step, then add one or more team members. If you add multiple people to the same step, all of their devices ring simultaneously — whoever picks up first gets the call.
For each team member in a step, choose how they receive the call:
App — the call rings in the Hello Hotel app (browser or mobile). Best for team members who are actively working in the app.
Personal — the call forwards to the team member’s verified personal phone number. Best for team members who are away from their desk or offsite.
Good to know: To use personal forwarding, the team member must first verify their phone number in Profile → Phone Number. Unverified numbers can’t receive forwarded calls.
When forwarding to a personal phone, enable Require press 1 to accept for that team member. This prevents the call from landing in their personal voicemail — if they don’t press 1, the call moves to the next routing step instead.
Without this setting, a forwarded call that hits someone’s personal voicemail appears “answered” to the system, and the caller ends up leaving a message on the wrong voicemail.
Set how long each step rings before moving to the next — anywhere from 5 to 120 seconds. The timer starts when the step begins ringing. If nobody in that step answers within the duration, the call proceeds to the next step.
Short durations (10–15 seconds) work well for quick escalation. Longer durations (30–60 seconds) give people more time to get to the phone.
A common setup for a small property:
Step 1 — Front desk staff (App notification, 20 seconds). Rings the team members who are on shift in the app.
Step 2 — Manager (Personal forwarding, 30 seconds, press 1 to accept). If the front desk doesn’t answer, try the manager’s cell.
Step 3 — Owner (Personal forwarding, 30 seconds, press 1 to accept). Last resort before voicemail.
If nobody answers across all three steps, the call goes to voicemail and appears in your Voicemail inbox with a transcription.
Enable spam screening to automatically send suspected spam calls straight to voicemail. Hello Hotel checks incoming numbers against known spam databases.
Contacts in your guest contact list are whitelisted — they’ll always ring through, even if their number appears on a spam list. This means known guests are never accidentally filtered.
Toggle spam screening on or off under Phone Settings → Routing.
Enable Inbound call recording to automatically record all incoming calls. Recordings appear in the conversation thread alongside the call log entry. They’re useful for team training and provide context for AI features.
Toggle call recording under Phone Settings → Routing.
Start simple. A single routing step with your whole team ringing simultaneously is a perfectly good starting point. Add steps as you learn your team’s availability patterns.
Always use press 1 to accept when forwarding to personal phones. It’s the most common source of “calls going to the wrong voicemail” issues.
Test your routing. After setting it up, call your Hello Hotel number from a personal phone and walk through each step to make sure calls land where you expect.
Using a calling tree? If you’ve set up a calling tree (see Setting Up a Calling Tree), it runs before your routing steps. The caller’s menu selection determines what happens next.
