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TroubleshootingCall Transfer Not Working

Call Transfer Not Working

Your agent attempts to transfer calls but the transfer fails or doesn’t complete to the intended recipient.

Symptoms

  • The agent initiates a transfer but the call drops
  • The transfer completes but goes to the wrong number or straight to voicemail
  • No error message — the call simply disconnects
  • The caller hears silence, or is returned to the agent instead of the transferred party
  • The agent never attempts the transfer at all
  • Transfers work in testing but fail on real calls

Start here: three things that explain most cases

1. You published the version

Tool changes live on your draft until you publish. If you added or reconfigured a transfer tool and real callers aren’t seeing the behaviour, check the agent’s version status — a Draft badge means the live agent is still running the old configuration.

Open the agent, click Publish, review the diff, and confirm. See Agent Versions, Draft and Publish.

2. You’re testing on a web call

Browser-based web calls don’t support phone-to-phone transfers. Test transfers by having the agent call your phone (I want Agent to call me in the Playground), or by calling the agent’s number from a real phone.

3. The transfer is outside its availability window

If Availability is enabled on the Transfer Call tool, the agent won’t transfer outside the configured hours — it speaks your unavailable message instead. That’s working as designed, and it’s easy to mistake for a broken transfer.

Check:

  • The schedule — the right days and times are enabled
  • The timezone — this is the timezone of the team receiving the call, not the caller’s
  • Whether the call you’re testing actually falls inside that window

Other causes

The tool description is too vague

The agent decides when to transfer based on the tool’s description. A default like “Use this tool to transfer the call to a human” gives it very little to work with.

Make it concrete: “Use this when the caller asks about a refund, asks for a manager, or says they want to speak to a person.”

The phone number format

Open the tool’s configuration and confirm the destination number is correct:

  • US numbers: +1XXXXXXXXXX (e.g. +12125551234)
  • International: always include the country code with a + prefix (e.g. +447911123456)
  • No hyphens, spaces, or parentheses — digits and the + only

Also confirm the destination is a real, active number that accepts inbound calls, and doesn’t require an extension or special dialing code.

The destination doesn’t pick up

If the destination rings and no one answers, the call reaches its voicemail — which looks like a failed transfer but isn’t. Confirm someone is actually available at the number during the hours you configured.

The model isn’t calling the tool

Transfers depend on the agent recognizing the moment and invoking the tool. If it never tries, the model may be the issue.

Open Advanced Settings → AI Behavior & Model Configuration and check which model the agent uses. Newer models follow tool instructions considerably more reliably; if you’re on an older one, try switching and re-testing. The model list in the dashboard is the authoritative source for what’s available to you.

Transferring to another agent

If you’re using Transfer to Agent rather than Transfer Call:

  • Confirm the destination agent still exists and is published
  • If the handoff feels abrupt, turn on ring while connecting so the caller hears a ring tone during the transfer
  • Adjust the ring duration if the destination agent takes longer than the default 5 seconds to pick up

Test the full flow

  1. Have the agent call your phone from the Playground, or call the agent’s number directly.
  2. Say the thing your tool description says should trigger the transfer.
  3. Verify that:
    • The agent speaks the pre-call message
    • The destination phone rings
    • The call connects without dropping
  4. Test outside business hours too, and confirm the unavailable message plays.

If it still fails, check your Dialora balance and the status of the phone number the agent is calling from — a suspended number can’t originate a transfer.

Prevention Tips:

  • Test transfers on a real phone line, never on a browser web call
  • Publish after every tool change — a draft change reaches nobody
  • Write specific tool descriptions so the agent knows exactly when to transfer
  • Standardize on E.164 format (+ and country code) for every destination number
  • Re-check your availability schedule whenever your team’s hours change
  • Give the agent a fallback — take a message or book a callback — for when the transfer isn’t available
Agent Goes Silent After GreetingOutbound Campaign Not Progressing