Inbound call routing (who answers and why)
Last updated: September 8, 2026
When a lead calls back one of your numbers, GodSetter decides in real time whether to answer at all — and, if so, which AI agent picks up. The rule is deliberately strict: your numbers only answer people you already know, and the agent that answers is the one you paired with the agent that called them — a dedicated inbound agent when you created and paired one, otherwise the outbound agent itself.
The conditions to answer
Before any of this: the called number must be registered on Retell — that registration is what points inbound calls at GodSetter. The Retell column on the Numbers page must read registered; if it reads not registered, press Register on Retell on that row.
An inbound call is then answered only when all of these hold:
- The called number is in your number pool — one of your agency's active numbers.
- The caller is a known lead — the caller ID matches a lead in your account, belonging to an active client, and the lead is not blocked (Do-Not-Call).
- Someone can answer them — either an outbound agent has already called this lead from that very number, or an active inbound agent is paired with one of the outbound agents that dial from it.
When all three pass, the call is answered by the inbound agent that lists that outbound agent under Answers the call-backs of — outbound agents open a cycle, inbound agents receive. With nobody listing it, the same outbound agent that most recently called the lead from that number answers instead — not a generic receptionist, not whichever agent happens to be free.
The inbound agent does not need the called number assigned to it. Numbers decide who dials; the pairing decides who answers.
What the answering agent knows
The agent picks up with full context, so the conversation continues instead of restarting. That context is not something you write in the prompt: the platform appends its own block to every prompt it pushes to Retell and refreshes it on every call, telling the agent who is calling back, who had called them, when, and why.
- Who called and why — the name of the outbound agent that opened the cycle, the date and time of that call, whether it actually connected, and the line you wrote in What to tell a lead who calls back on that outbound agent.
- Previous call outcome and summary — how the last conversation ended and what was said, so a callback is never a cold open.
- What the lead left in the form — the per-contact values your CRM trigger sent with the lead.
- The clock in the right time zone — the current time already in the lead's zone, so a "call me back tomorrow at 10" is computed correctly.
- Upcoming appointments — the caller's booked appointments as ready-to-read labels, so the agent can answer "when is my appointment?" or cancel and reschedule the right one.
- CRM custom values — the client sub-account variables that outbound calls resolve in the prompt.
- The client's name and the lead's first name.
If the caller asks to be called back later, the agent records it with the same
request_callback tool as on outbound — and the redial is handed to the
outbound agent that opened the cycle (or, failing that, to one of the
outbound agents this inbound agent answers for), since an inbound agent never
dials.
When a call is declined
If any condition fails, the call is declined and no agent answers:
- the called number is not in your pool, or is not active;
- the caller is unknown — no lead in your account matches the number;
- the lead is blocked (Do-Not-Call);
- no outbound agent has ever called this lead from that number and no inbound agent is paired with the outbound agents that dial from it.
There is no fallback "generic" agent for strangers: a number with no paired inbound agent and no outbound history with that lead never answers them.
Why it is designed this way
- Conversation continuity — to the lead, the callback lands on a "person" who knows the previous call: same knowledge, no re-qualification from zero.
- Pairing is explicit — only the inbound agent you ticked for that outbound agent may take its call-backs over, so an unrelated inbound agent cannot hijack a conversation it knows nothing about. Nothing is inferred from the niche, from a shared number or from a spelling. See Create inbound and outbound agents.
- Number-to-agent consistency — numbers are assigned per agent (for example, to keep markets separate) and decide who may dial; an outbound agent only ever calls from a number assigned to it.
- Safety — declining unknown callers keeps your agents from engaging wrong numbers, spam calls, or contacts that were never part of a campaign.
Where inbound calls appear
Answered inbound calls show up on the Calls page like any other call — direction, outcome, duration, transcript and recording (when enabled) — and in the lead's call history on the Leads page. An answered inbound call takes one line of your concurrency, exactly like an outbound one, and counts toward the saturation check.