Most businesses assume their phone system is working correctly until a real caller proves otherwise. A prospect dials during a public holiday and reaches silence. A customer presses 2 for support and lands in the sales queue. Someone calls after 5:30 pm and hears nothing — no message, no voicemail, just a disconnect.
A badly configured routing setup loses calls, and lost calls mean lost revenue. The challenge is that routing gaps are invisible until they affect a real person at the worst possible moment. By that point, the damage is already done.
This call routing setup checklist walks through every decision and configuration step an Australian business needs to cover before going live — and what to check on an ongoing basis once you are. Work through each section in order. The pre-configuration decisions inform everything that follows, so skipping ahead will cost you time later.
1. Pre-Configuration Decisions
Before you touch your phone system, you need a clear picture of how your business actually handles inbound calls. Configuring routing without this information leads to rework. These decisions should be documented and agreed upon by whoever manages the business — not worked out during the build.
- Confirm every number callers will dial — 1300, local DID, direct lines, and any mobile numbers that forward to the system
- Map every reason a customer calls you: sales enquiries, support requests, billing questions, appointment bookings, emergency after-hours contact
- Identify how many distinct teams, departments, or destinations you have — these become your routing endpoints
- Define your business hours for each day of the week, including Saturday and Sunday if your business operates or receives calls on weekends
- Define your after-hours behaviour explicitly: does the call go to voicemail, play a message and disconnect, or overflow to an on-call mobile?
- List every public holiday relevant to your state or states — national holidays and state-specific days (including local show days if applicable)
- Identify any VIP callers, priority accounts, or emergency contact numbers that require special routing treatment
- Decide whether you need an IVR (interactive voice response) menu. If yes, draft the full menu script — every prompt and every option — before you start building. Do not write the script inside the system
2. Routing Configuration Checklist
With your decisions documented, you can now configure the system accurately. Each item below maps to a specific setting inside your phone platform. Work through these in sequence — time-of-day rules need to exist before you can reference them in other rules, and your IVR menu needs destinations before you can assign options.
For more background on how the underlying logic works, the routing rules guide covers the relationship between time conditions, ring groups, and queues in detail.
- Business hours time-of-day rule configured — set Monday through Friday individually, and Saturday and Sunday as separate rules if they differ from weekdays
- After-hours rule configured — confirmed it falls through to voicemail or a recorded message, not silence
- Public holiday calendar entries added for all relevant national and state-specific dates for the current year
- IVR menu built with the correct prompt text or recorded audio for each option
- Each IVR option routes to the correct extension, ring group, or call queue — not a placeholder or dead end
- Zero-out or hash escape route configured so callers can press 0 at any point to reach a live person or a general queue
- Overflow rule configured: if all agents are busy, the call enters a queue, then overflows to voicemail or a secondary destination after a defined wait time
- Voicemail-to-email configured with the correct, current email address for each voicemail box
- After-hours message recorded by a real person — not left as the default text-to-speech voice
- On-hold music or audio configured — silence on hold sounds like a dead line and causes callers to hang up
For a detailed walkthrough of the after-hours piece specifically, see after-hours routing. For state-specific public holiday configuration, see public holiday routing.
3. IVR-Specific Configuration Checklist
If you decided at the pre-configuration stage that your business needs an IVR, this section covers the additional steps required. A poorly designed IVR is worse than no IVR — it creates friction for callers who simply want to speak to someone. Keep menus short, keep language plain, and always provide an escape route.
For a full walkthrough of building an IVR from scratch, including prompt writing and menu depth guidance, refer to the IVR setup guide.
- Menu options limited to four or fewer at the top level — more than four and callers stop listening
- Each option described in plain language: "For sales, press 1" not "To be connected to our business development team, press 1"
- The most frequently selected option listed first, not the one that suits your internal org chart
- Timeout behaviour configured — if a caller does not press anything within a set number of seconds, the call routes to a sensible default (usually reception or a general queue)
- Invalid input behaviour configured — if a caller presses an unrecognised key, the prompt repeats with a clear instruction
- Sub-menus, if used, kept to a single level only — two levels of IVR is a maximum; three is a caller retention problem
- All audio prompts reviewed for consistent tone, recording quality, and correct business name pronunciation
4. Testing Checklist
Configuration is not complete until it has been tested. Testing must cover every path — not just the happy path of a caller pressing the right option during business hours. The scenarios that break routing are always the edge cases: a public holiday, a call during the ten-minute window where business hours end, a caller who does not press anything.
Run every test from a mobile phone, not an internal extension. Routing can behave differently depending on whether the call originates from within your system or from the public network.
- Test every IVR option by dialling your main number from a mobile and pressing each key in sequence
- Test the after-hours path by temporarily moving the business hours end time to five minutes from now, then calling in
- Test the public holiday override by temporarily adding today's date as a holiday in the calendar, then calling in
- Test the overflow scenario by having all agents reject or ignore the call and confirming it reaches the defined overflow destination
- Test voicemail delivery to email — leave a voicemail and confirm it arrives in the correct inbox within a reasonable time, and that any transcription is readable
- Test from both a mobile and a landline — some carriers and routing behaviours differ between the two
- Test from an international number if your business receives calls from outside Australia
- Listen to every recorded prompt end-to-end — not just the first few seconds
- Confirm the hold experience: verify music plays and does not cut to silence after a short period
5. Post-Launch Maintenance Checklist
Routing configuration is not a set-and-forget task. Staff leave and take the voicemail email address with them. Services change but the IVR does not. A summer shutdown passes and the Christmas message is still playing in February.
Build a recurring review into your calendar. Monthly is reasonable for active businesses. At minimum, review any time a significant change occurs — a new team member, a department restructure, a change of service offering, or a shift in operating hours.
- Review all routing rules and ring group memberships when staff join or leave the business
- Update the after-hours or holiday message before any planned shutdown — Christmas, Easter, long weekends
- Verify voicemail-to-email delivery is still working after any email platform migration or staff mailbox change
- Pull monthly call reports and review missed call counts, abandoned calls, and average wait times — spikes in any of these indicate a routing problem
- Update the IVR menu if services, team names, or departments change — outdated IVR options erode caller confidence
- Confirm public holiday calendar is updated at the start of each calendar year with all relevant dates for the year ahead
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How long does it take to configure call routing for a small business?
A: For a simple setup — one main number, business and after-hours rules, a basic IVR, and voicemail — a competent administrator can complete configuration in one to two hours if all the pre-configuration decisions have already been made. The preparation work (mapping call types, agreeing on business hours, scripting the IVR) almost always takes longer than the configuration itself. Factor in a full afternoon if you are doing both in the same sitting.
Q: Do I need an IVR if I only have a small team?
A: Not necessarily. For businesses with fewer than four or five staff handling calls, a ring group that rings everyone simultaneously is often a better experience than an IVR. IVRs add value when you genuinely need to separate call types and route them to different people. If everyone handles everything, the IVR just adds friction. You can always add one later as your team grows.
Q: What is the right approach for a business that operates across multiple Australian states with different public holidays?
A: You need a public holiday calendar for each state and a routing rule that applies the correct calendar based on where the call is being handled, not where the caller is located. Most cloud phone platforms support multiple holiday profiles. The key is to be deliberate about which calendar applies to which queue or destination. See the public holiday routing guide for a detailed breakdown by state.
Q: What should my after-hours message say?
A: At minimum: your business name, your current operating hours, an alternative action the caller can take right now (leave a voicemail, visit your website, send an email), and when they can expect a response. Keep it under 30 seconds. Avoid filler phrases and lengthy brand descriptions — callers reaching an after-hours message are already in a mild state of inconvenience. Respect their time.
Q: How do I know if my voicemail-to-email is actually working?
A: Leave yourself a test voicemail from a mobile phone and time how long it takes to arrive in your inbox. Set a reminder to repeat this test monthly — email addresses change, spam filters tighten, and integrations break silently. A voicemail that never reaches an inbox is the same as a voicemail that was never left. If your platform offers delivery status logging, enable it.
Setting Up Call Routing With Pickle
Pickle configures call routing as part of the onboarding process for every new business phone customer. That includes working through this checklist with you — confirming your business hours, scripting your IVR if you need one, setting up your public holiday calendar, and testing every path before your number goes live.
If you are setting up a new system, migrating from an existing one, or reviewing a routing configuration that has not been touched in a while, Pickle can help.
Call 1300 688 588 or email [email protected] to speak with the team.