AI Receptionist setup
How to forward your business phone
This is the one step that connects your existing line to your front desk. You do it once. Your customers keep calling the number they already have, and the calls you cannot pick up land with someone who answers instead of with voicemail.
Swivl gives you the code for your own carrier during setup, texts it to your phone so you can dial it from the handset, and then places a test call to prove it worked. This page is the same information, so you can look at it before you sign up or read it on a laptop while the phone is in your hand.
First, decide which calls to send
Only the ones you miss
Your phone rings first. If you do not pick up, the call moves on to the front desk. Carriers call this conditional forwarding, or forward on no answer. It is what most shops want, and it is the one that needs the longer code.
All of them
Your phone never rings. Everything goes to the front desk and you read what happened afterwards. Carriers call this unconditional forwarding. Useful for a day on a roof, a holiday week, or a number that only exists for new work.
You can change your mind by dialing the other code; the last one you dial wins. Turning forwarding off entirely takes one more code, listed below.
Mobile and landline: dial a code
Dial it from the phone you are forwarding, exactly as written, and wait for the confirmation tone before you hang up. Nothing appears on screen afterwards, which is why the test call matters.
Verizon (wireless)
- Calls you miss
- *71 + the 10-digit number
- Every call
- *72 + the 10-digit number
- Turn it off
- *73
Verizon forwards after three to six rings. The number you forward to has to be a US voice line, with the area code.
Verizon star codes→T-Mobile (wireless)
- Calls you miss
- **61*1 + the number + #
- Every call
- **21*1 + the number + #
- Turn it off
- ##61# for missed-call forwarding, ##21# for all
T-Mobile is the one carrier that lets you set the delay yourself: **61*1 + the number + **seconds#, anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds.
T-Mobile self-service codes→AT&T
- Calls you miss
- *92 + the number, on Digital Phone and business lines
- Every call
- *21* + the number + #
- Turn it off
- #21# for all, *93 for missed-call forwarding
AT&T splits these across product lines, so a wireless plan and a Digital Phone line do not take the same code. Use the one setup gives you for your own line.
AT&T calling features→Most traditional landlines
- Calls you miss
- *71 + the number
- Every call
- *72 + the number
- Turn it off
- *73
Nearly every local phone company uses this set. If the code is refused, your line is probably VoIP — see below.
Carriers change these, and a business plan can differ from a consumer one on the same network. If a code is refused, do not keep dialing variations — the code setup hands you is the one matched to your line.
Cable and VoIP: it is a setting, not a code
If your phone came with the internet, or your line lives in an app, there is usually nothing to dial. Forwarding is a switch in the account you sign in to. This is where most owners get stuck, so it is worth doing at a desk rather than on a job.
Spectrum Business Voice
Sign in, then Services → Business Phone → Manage Voice → Global Call Settings → Call Forwarding.
Forwarding on no answer can only be set in the portal on Spectrum. The handset codes *92 and *93 exist, but the portal is where the setting lives.
Spectrum call forwarding features→RingCentral
Admin Portal → Users → the user or line → Call Handling & Forwarding.
Add your Swivl number as a forwarding destination and set it to ring after your own phones, not alongside them.
Vonage, 8x8, Ooma, Nextiva and similar
The admin or user portal, under Call Handling, Call Forwarding or Find Me / Follow Me.
The labels differ; the setting you want is the one that forwards when a call is unanswered.
Google Voice takes four steps, not one
Google Voice is the one worth reading twice. Linking the number is easy, and a shop can come away thinking it is connected while real customers are being dropped. Three of these four steps exist because that happened to someone.
- 1
Link the number, do not forward to it
Google Voice will refuse an unrecognized number if you try to forward to it directly. Open Settings, then Devices and Numbers, then Linked Numbers, and add your Swivl number there. Once it is linked, calls forward to it on their own — there is no separate forwarding switch to find.
- 2
Get the verification code out of the call transcript
Google rings the number you are linking and reads a code aloud to prove you own it. Your receptionist answers that call, so nobody says the code to you. Open that call in Swivl, read the code off the transcript, and type it into Google Voice. This is the step people give up on.
- 3
Turn Screen Calls off
In the Voice app: Settings, then Calls, then switch Screen Calls off. With it on, Google Voice asks whoever answers to press 1 to accept the call. Your receptionist picks up almost instantly, Google Voice reads that as voicemail, and it cannot press 1 — so the caller waits and then gets nothing. This is the single most common cause of a Google Voice line that looks connected and still drops calls.
- 4
Keep your Google Voice number out of transfer routing
In Swivl, under Settings, AI Receptionist, transfer routing, list your cell and your crew — not the Google Voice number. A call transferred there goes straight back to the receptionist, and the caller loops.
If callers still say you are cutting out
Call your Google Voice number from another phone and listen. If the receptionist answers and talks to you normally, it is connected. Silence, or the receptionist appearing to talk to a machine, means Google Voice is still in the way. Google Voice can also feed the receptionist its own echo, which makes it restart mid-sentence and sounds to the caller like a bad line. If a test still fails after the four steps above, stop routing through Google Voice: unlink the number, and hand out the Swivl number itself on your website, your Google Business listing, your cards and your voicemail greeting. A number that answers beats a number that forwards badly.
How many rings before it forwards?
Your carrier decides, not us. Verizon moves the call on after three to six rings. T-Mobile lets you name the delay in seconds, from five to thirty. Most landlines sit around four rings with no way to change it. If you want the front desk to pick up sooner than your carrier allows, forward every call instead and let it answer first.
Check that it worked
Call your business number from a phone that is not the one you forwarded, and let it ring through. You should hear your front desk answer. Swivl runs this test for you at the end of setup, because a forwarding code that silently failed looks exactly like a quiet week.
Some phone systems verify the number you are forwarding to by calling it and reading out a code. Your receptionist answers that call, so the code is never spoken to you — open that call in Swivl and read it off the transcript.
Turning it off
Dial the off code in the table above, or switch forwarding off in your provider’s portal. You can also pause the front desk inside Swivl — for an hour, until tomorrow, or until you turn it back on — without touching your carrier at all.
Hear it before you forward anything
You can call the front desk from the landing page and have a conversation with it right now, with nothing connected and no account.