What is call routing?

The staples: ring-all (every phone rings at once), round-robin (rotate among team members), time-based (different destinations by hour or day), skills- or intent-based (match the call's need to the right person), and priority routing (known VIP callers jump ahead). Most small businesses combine two or three — for example, time-based rules deciding when calls go to a backup.

Routing that changes with the clock: during business hours calls ring the front desk, after closing they go to an on-call phone, an answering service, or an AI receptionist, and holidays follow their own rule. It's usually the first routing feature a small business sets up, because it's the difference between after-hours calls being captured or lost.

Forwarding is a simple redirect — calls to one number get sent to another. Routing is the decision layer above it: evaluating each call against rules (time of day, caller need, who's available) and choosing among multiple destinations. Forwarding is often the mechanism routing uses to execute its decision, which is why the terms blur together.