Set up live call transfers - or have Riley take a message instead

When a caller needs a human - a complicated wedding, an upset customer, someone who just insists on the owner - Riley can transfer the call live to a real phone. You set this up in the Setup Assistant's Human handoff step, and you can prove it works with a built-in live transfer test.

Add your transfer targets

1. Open the Setup Assistant at https://km-florist-receptionist.vercel.app/dashboard/setup and select the Human handoff step.
2. Fill in your transfer targets. There are three slots: Owner cell, Manager, and Weddings and events. Each one takes a name and a phone number.
3. You don't have to fill all three - set up the ones that make sense for your team. Riley routes to the right target based on what the caller needs.

Use a real cell, not your shop line

This is the single most important rule for transfers: the target number must ring an actual person. If you enter your shop's main line and that line forwards to BloomLine, the "transfer to a human" just loops straight back to Riley. Point every target at a direct cell or a desk line that a human actually answers.

Prove it with the live transfer test

The handoff step includes a live transfer test. Run it and BloomLine places a real transfer to your target so you can confirm the phone rings and a human can pick up. Do this once per target before you go live - it takes a minute and catches wrong numbers and forwarding loops before a customer ever hits them.

What happens when nobody can take the call

Transfers are best-effort by design. If no valid target is configured, or the transfer cannot reach a human, Riley does not leave the caller stranded: it takes a detailed message instead, so you still capture the caller's name, number, and what they needed. You will find the message in the call's transcript on the Calls page, and your normal call alerts will let you know it happened.

If you find Riley taking messages when you expected a transfer, re-check the target numbers in the handoff step and re-run the live transfer test - the article "Why Riley took a message instead of transferring the call" in the Troubleshooting section walks through the common causes.

Related setting: who answers first

Transfers are about escalating mid-call. If what you actually want is for your team's phone to ring before Riley ever answers, that is a different setting - see "Who answers first: Riley immediately, or ring your team first".

Still stuck? Submit a ticket from this help center and we'll take it from there.