Set up call representatives

Build the roster of people Steer Phones can attribute calls to — add representatives one at a time or import a team, link their extensions, and deactivate people who leave.

A call representative is a person who handles calls for your shop, such as a service advisor or a front-desk employee. After each analyzed call, Steer Phones works out which representative actually spoke to the customer and shows their name on the call. That attribution powers the Representative column and filter in the Call Log and the per-person views in Coaching and the Leaderboard.

A representative is not the same as an extension. Several people can share one phone, and one person can answer at more than one desk, so Steer Phones can only attribute calls to people on the roster you build here.

Before you start

• You need manager-level access to add, edit, import, or deactivate representatives. Anyone with access to the phone system can view the list.
• Create the extensions your team uses first, so you can link them. See Manage extensions.

Add one representative

1. Open Settings > Call Insights > Representatives. The page is titled Call Representatives.
2. Select Add.
3. Enter the person’s Name as you want it to appear on calls — for example Mike R.. The name is required, must be unique within the phone system, and cannot be Unknown.
4. Optionally enter a Description, such as Service advisor, front desk.
5. Under Extensions, select the extensions this person usually answers. Linked extensions are hints that help the analysis choose the right person; they are not a hard assignment, and a call answered on a linked extension can still be attributed to someone else.
6. Leave Status set to Active and save.

Import a roster

Use import to add a whole team at once.

1. On the Representatives page, select Import.

2. Paste one row per person as comma-separated values in the order name,description,extensions. Separate several extension numbers with semicolons. For example:

   name,description,extensions
   Sarah,Front desk,101;102
   Mike R.,Service advisor,103
   Dana,,104

   Only the name is required. A header row is detected automatically, and up to 255 rows are accepted per import.

3. Review the preview. Each row shows whether it will be created, skipped, or blocked, and nothing is saved until you confirm.

4. Fix or remove any blocked rows, then import. A summary shows how many representatives were created and how many were skipped.

Import only adds new people. A row whose name already exists is skipped — import never updates an existing representative or reactivates a deactivated one. Edit those from the list instead.

Edit, deactivate, and reactivate

• Edit: Select the edit action on a row to change the name, description, linked extensions, or status.
• Deactivate: When someone leaves, select Deactivate instead of deleting them. They are removed from the roster the analysis chooses from, and their name stays on the calls they already handled.
• Reactivate: If they come back, select Reactivate on the same entry so their history stays in one place.

Adding, deactivating, or relinking representatives only affects calls analyzed afterwards — calls that were already analyzed stay attributed to the same representative entry. Renaming an entry changes the name shown on all of its calls, past and future, so to record a different person, add a new representative instead of renaming an existing one.

How attribution works

Only active representatives are offered to the analysis. When nobody on the roster fits the call, the call shows Unknown rather than a guess. A call with no conversation to analyze, such as a call nobody answered, has no representative.

Troubleshooting

Related guidance

• Configure call analysis settings.
• Coach your team with call scores and sentiment.
• Use call history and insights.