External transfer: call behaviour and survey outcomes

Audience: contact centre supervisors, support agents, implementation consultants 

Summary

An external transfer moves a customer call to a party outside the platform, such as a supplier, partner, or a colleague on a mobile number. This article explains what happens to the call in each external transfer situation, who stays connected when someone hangs up, and whether the customer receives an After Call Survey as a result.

There are three ways an external transfer can play out, and one setting that changes the behaviour of the third.

1. Handover. The agent transfers the call and leaves. The customer speaks to the external party alone.
2. Returned consult. The external party never speaks to the customer, and the call comes back to the agent.
3. Three-way. The agent, the customer, and the external party are all connected at once.

Before you start

• Agent A is the agent who answered the customer's call and initiated the transfer.
• External party is the person on the transferred-to number. They are not a platform user and have no agent interface.
• After Call Survey (ACS) is the survey offered to the customer at the end of a call. It is offered to the customer only, never to an agent or an external party.

1. Handover: the agent transfers and leaves

Agent A completes the transfer and drops out. The customer and the external party finish the conversation between them.

A handed-over call therefore never produces a survey, under either setting. See known limitations.

2. Returned consult: the external party never speaks to the customer

Agent A dials out, the transfer does not complete, and the call returns to Agent A with the customer still on the line.

This behaves the same as an ordinary inbound call, because from the customer's point of view the external party was never involved.

3. Three-way: all three parties connected

This is the case governed by the [toggle name TBC] setting. The setting decides who holds the call open.

Setting OFF: the external party holds the call open

Agent A can leave and the conversation carries on without them. When the customer leaves, the whole call ends.

Setting ON: Agent A holds the call open

Agent A cannot leave the customer with the external party. When the customer leaves, the two remaining parties stay connected.

Side by side

The two settings are mirror images. Choosing between them is choosing whether the agent is free to walk away from the call, or is the person whose departure ends it.

Which setting to use

Recommendation: ON, unless there is a specific need for agents to hand customers off to a third party and leave.

ON keeps the agent accountable for the call they started, prevents a customer being left alone with an external party the platform has no control over, and closes a survey blind spot. It also gives the agent a wrap-up window with the external party after the customer hangs up, which is useful for confirming next steps.

Choose OFF only where the intended workflow is genuinely a handover: for example, introducing a customer to a partner or field engineer and then stepping out. Be aware that surveys will not be sent on those calls.

How survey triggering works

Three rules explain every outcome in this article.

1. A survey is sent only when a platform agent hangs up. External parties cannot trigger one.
2. A survey is never sent when the customer hangs up, regardless of who else was on the call.
3. In a multi-party call, the survey is sent only when the last remaining agent hangs up while the customer is still on the call.

Rule 3 is the reason the setting matters. With the setting OFF, an agent leaving a three-way call is not ending the customer's call, only stepping out of it, so nothing is triggered. With it ON, the same action ends the customer's call, so the survey goes out.

Known limitations

1. Handed-over calls never receive a survey. Once Agent A has left a non-merged external transfer, only the customer or the external party can end the call, and neither triggers a survey. If survey coverage matters for these calls, the workflow needs to be a three-way transfer with the setting ON, not a handover.
2. Direct agent-to-agent transfers behave inconsistently. When a call is transferred to a named internal agent and that agent hangs up, no survey is sent. The same call transferred through a queue does send one. This appears to be a defect and is under review. Confirm before publishing.
3. Recording and reporting after an agent leaves. With the setting OFF, the customer can continue talking to an external party after every agent has left. Whether recording, CDR capture, and quality monitoring continue for that portion of the call is not yet confirmed and should be verified before recommending OFF to regulated customers.

Common questions

A customer spoke to us and then to a supplier, and never got a survey. Why?

The call was almost certainly a handover rather than a three-way transfer. Once the agent leaves a handover, no remaining party can trigger a survey. Check whether the setting is ON and whether agents are merging the call rather than transferring out of it.

The external party got cut off when the agent hung up. Is that a fault?

No, that is the expected behaviour with the setting ON. The agent holds the call open, so their hang-up ends it for everyone.

Our agents are still talking after the customer has gone. Is the call still billed and recorded?

The call is still live between the agent and the external party until one of them hangs up. Billing and recording treatment for this segment to be confirmed.

Does the survey ever go to the external party?

No. Surveys are offered to the customer only.

Does this setting affect internal transfers?

No. Inbound calls, queue transfers, and agent-to-agent transfers behave the same whichever way it is set. See the appendix.

Appendix: survey behaviour on non-external calls

For reference. None of these are affected by the setting.