Zendesk voice routes incoming calls to human agents using the routing configuration on each phone line. You can use group routing to send calls to one or more groups, oromnichannel routingto route calls through queues and routing rules.

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Summary: ◀▼

You can route incoming calls on each phone line to specific agent groups, or leave them open to all available agents. If you select multiple groups, you set a default group for first routing and voicemails, while the other groups share the call pool based on availability. This helps you control call routing, group assignment, and voicemail handling, with options for IVR or omnichannel routing when available.

Zendesk voice routes incoming calls to human agents using the routing configuration on each phone line. You can use group routing to send calls to one or more groups, or omnichannel routing to route calls through queues and routing rules.

If your plan includes it, you can also use IVR to let callers choose a destination with key presses. For details, see Routing incoming calls with IVR.

You can optionally assign a voice AI agent to a phone line. The AI agent answers calls before they are routed to human agents. If the AI agent resolves the caller's request, no human-agent routing is needed. If it escalates the call, the phone line's configured routing takes over. If you don't assign an AI agent to the line, calls follow your existing routing configuration.

This article contains the following topics:

  • Using group routing
  • Using a voice AI agent with group routing

Using group routing

Use group routing to route incoming calls to agents in one or more selected groups.

To route calls to specific groups

  1. In Admin Center, click Channels in the sidebar, then select Talk and email > Talk.
  2. Click the Lines tab.
  3. Click the number you want to edit.
  4. Click the Routing tab.
  5. In the Group Routing section, select one or more groups to route calls to. If you don't enable a group, calls are routed to all available agents.

  6. If you chose more than one group, also choose a default group from the drop-down menu next to Default group. Calls are routed to the default group first if agents in that group are available. If no agents from any of the selected groups are available, resulting voicemails are also assigned to the default group.

    When three or more groups are selected, there is no hierarchy to the non-default groups. All voice channel agents in those groups are put into a single assignment pool. Call routing is determined by an agent's online status.

  7. When you are finished, click Save changes.
Note: If call recording is enabled, recording continues after you transfer a call internally (to another agent or group) or externally (to an end-user or external number).

Using a voice AI agent with group routing

Connecting a voice AI agent to a phone line doesn't change its group-routing settings. The AI agent is the first responder, and group routing is used only if the AI agent escalates the call.

For Talk-native routing, an AI agent can update the ticket's Group field before it escalates the call. The updated group takes precedence over the groups configured on the phone line. If the AI agent doesn't update the Group field, the call follows the phone line's group-routing configuration, including its default group when one is configured.

With omnichannel routing, the phone line's group-routing configuration isn't used after escalation. Instead, omnichannel routing uses ticket fields updated by the AI agent, such as Group or Skills, together with your configured queues and routing rules. Omnichannel routing doesn't route the call while the AI agent is handling it; it begins after escalation.

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