If something about answering, forwarding, or transferring isn't working, this article walks through the most common causes by symptom. Each section links to the primary article with the fix.
My phone rings but my agent doesn't pick up
Most common causes, in order:
Live calls aren't enabled. Open Agent → Phone Setup and confirm one of the two activation modes (Forward Calls or Use CoreReach Number) is selected. See Call routing — going live and forwarding your number.
Forwarding isn't actually active on your business number. If you chose Forward Calls, you needed to dial the carrier-specific code on your business number for forwarding to take effect — re-check the dial codes shown in Phone Setup and place a test call from another phone to confirm.
Your agent's schedule is closed right now. Open Agent → Answering Hours to confirm whether your agent is set to 24/7 or to a custom schedule that excludes the current time. See Setting your agent's schedule and failover.
Your account has no minutes remaining (Limited). The Phone Setup page will show "No minutes remaining." Buy credits or upgrade — see Buying credit minutes and configuring auto-reload.
Your billing is frozen (chargeback dispute). Activation is blocked until the freeze lifts. See Invoices, payment methods, and failed payments.
Calls still go to my old voicemail
This means forwarding isn't actually live on your business number. CoreReach's UI can show forwarding as configured, but the dial codes have to be entered on your phone for forwarding to take effect.
Re-open Agent → Phone Setup, confirm you've picked your phone system type and provider, and redo the steps shown on your business number.
On a business phone system, check which line you forwarded. This is the most common cause. Forwarding your own extension succeeds — you'll even hear a confirmation tone — but it doesn't move your main business number, so callers keep reaching whoever answers it today. The instructions for your provider have a separate section for the main number, and it usually needs an administrator sign-in.
If you use call tracking (CallRail, CallTrackingMetrics), the number on your marketing forwards from that dashboard, not from your phone system. Check both.
If your provider isn't listed, choose Other — you'll get general guidance and a box to tell us what you use, so we can write proper instructions.
See Call routing — going live and forwarding your number for the full setup.
My agent answers outside the hours I set
Two settings can cause this:
You're using 24/7 mode. Open Agent → Answering Hours and confirm you've selected Custom Schedule, not 24/7. The 24/7 setting overrides any per-day hours.
Your timezone is wrong. The schedule uses your company timezone from Business Details. If that's set to a different timezone than where you actually operate, your agent's "hours" are off by the difference. See Setting your business details and FAQs to fix the timezone.
Also remember: the agent answering schedule (under Agent → Answering Hours) is separate from business hours (under Agent → Business Details). Business hours are reference info the agent can mention to callers; they don't control when the agent picks up.
Callers hear voicemail, a busy signal, or a hang-up — not the agent
This usually means failover took over. Failover fires when:
A call arrives outside your agent's schedule,
Your account has no minutes remaining, or
Your billing is frozen (chargeback dispute).
Open Agent → Failover Options to see what your failover behavior is set to (voicemail, fallback forwarding, audio message, busy signal, or reject). If failover is firing when you don't expect it, the cause is one of the two triggers above. See Setting your agent's schedule and failover.
A caller was transferred to the wrong destination
Transfer rules are evaluated in the order they were created — the first rule whose condition matches the caller wins. If a caller hits the wrong destination:
Check the order. Re-open Agent → Transfers & Escalation and confirm the rules are listed in the priority you want. Drag-to-reorder isn't supported, so to reprioritize you may need to delete and re-add rules.
Check the conditions. Conditions are short phrases your agent matches against caller intent. Vague or overlapping conditions ("asks about service" vs. "wants to know about services") can route to the wrong place.
Check the default. When no condition matches, the call goes to the default destination. If the default is what's catching your caller, that's why.
I can't turn on live calls at all (toggle is blocked)
The activation toggles are disabled when:
No CoreReach phone number is assigned — request one from the Phone Setup page.
No minutes remaining on Limited — buy credits or upgrade.
Billing is frozen — this happens during a chargeback dispute and can't be cleared from the billing page; the freeze lifts when the dispute resolves in your favor. Contact support if you believe the dispute was filed in error.
See Call routing — going live and forwarding your number and Invoices, payment methods, and failed payments.