Two lines ringing, one person free, and the third caller gives up
Overflow is not a quiet failure. You can hear it happening while you are already on a call with someone else.
Caller
“I rang about ten minutes ago and it just rang out. Can somebody take a booking or should I try later?”
What happened next
- Answered on the fourth ring while both desk lines were busy
- Booked into the Thursday morning gap nobody had filled
- Your receptionist read the summary between her own two calls
Monday morning has more callers than hands
Most small teams are staffed for the average hour, not the worst one. The worst one arrives every Monday, and again whenever something in your market gets busy.
Your front desk answers the first call. The second rings out. By the third, someone is listening to a hold tone they never agreed to, and hold is where patience goes.
The cost lands unevenly. Regular customers call back later because they know you. A first-time caller does not call back at all, so the calls you lose are exactly the ones you needed.
GreetKeeper sits behind your team rather than in front of it. Your people answer what they can reach, and the calls that would have rung out get picked up instead.
How a second-in-line call is handled
You decide when overflow kicks in. Four settings cover most desks.
Roll over on your terms
You point your busy and no-answer forwarding at GreetKeeper. Your team keeps first crack at every call, and only the overflow moves across.
Open with the AI disclosure
The caller hears that they have reached an AI assistant. That matters more on an overflow call, because they were expecting the person they rang.
Finish the job, not only the greeting
An overflow call is not a message-taking exercise. If the caller wants an appointment, it offers your real free slots and writes the booking in.
Hand back anything your team should own
A caller asking about an invoice dispute or a live job is transferred to your line, or written up for callback if nobody picks up.
What overflow cover costs
You are paying for the peak, not the whole day, so count what the peak actually sends.
| Plan | Monthly | Calls included | After that |
|---|---|---|---|
| StarterFor a single location taking calls one line at a time. | $49 | 200 | $0.45 per call |
| ProfessionalBooking, routing and transfers included, not an add-on. | $149 | 750 | $0.35 per call |
| ScaleFor busy phones and longer opening hours. | $349 | 2,000 | $0.25 per call |
Starter is $49 a month for 200 answered calls, then $0.45 each. Professional is $149 for 750 at $0.35. Scale is $349 for 2,000 at $0.25.
Overflow calls are usually short. Somebody wants a time, a price or a callback. Per-call pricing suits that shape, while a per-minute plan makes you round up dozens of ninety-second calls.
Booking sits on the cheapest plan too. That is worth checking against other quotes, because some services keep booking for their middle tier and leave the entry plan taking messages.
The honest boundary
Questions people ask
Does it answer before my staff get a chance?
Only if you set it up that way. The usual setup is busy and no-answer forwarding, so your team is always first and GreetKeeper takes what rings out.
How many calls can arrive at once?
That is the question to put to us directly, with your own busy hour in mind. We publish no concurrency figure, because we have not benchmarked one, and a number we cannot stand behind is worth nothing to you.
Will I know which calls were overflow?
Yes. Every answered call arrives as a transcript and a short summary, so you can see what your desk did not reach. That also shows you when your peak really is.
Test it against your Monday
Pick your busiest hour and see what it catches.