Sticky agent routing sends a repeat caller back to the person who answered them last time. When the same number calls your business line again within a window you set, that team member's phone rings first. If they don't pick up, the call continues to the rest of the team as normal. Customers don't have to re-explain, and salespeople keep their own leads.
Turn on sticky routing: Open the Call Forwarding portal and enable it on a one-by-one rule.
Why it matters
Without sticky routing, a customer who calls twice can reach two different people. That causes:
- Repeated explanations. The customer tells the story again.
- Lost context. The second person doesn't know what was promised.
- Lead disputes. Two salespeople think the same lead is theirs.
- Slower resolution. The right person is found by asking around.
Sticky routing fixes this without a CRM lookup or an IVR menu. It uses one fact: who answered this caller's last call on this number.
How it works on Edesy
| Step | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1. First call | Customer calls your number. One-by-one forwarding rings the list in order. Priya answers. |
| 2. Remembered | Edesy notes that this caller was connected to Priya on this number. |
| 3. Repeat call within the window | Same customer calls again. Priya's phone is moved to the top of the list and rings first. |
| 4a. Priya answers | Connected. The window starts again from this call. |
| 4b. Priya doesn't answer | After her ring time, the call moves on to the next people in the usual order. |
| 5. After the window | The memory has expired; the call follows the normal list. |
The memory is per business number and per caller number. If the customer calls from their office line instead of their mobile, they count as a new caller.
Choosing the sticky window
The window is how long Edesy remembers the last person. You set it in hours, from 1 hour to 8,760 hours (one year).
| Business | Typical conversation length | Window to start with |
|---|---|---|
| Food delivery or same-day service | Hours | 4 to 24 hours |
| Retail and D2C enquiries | A few days | 72 hours |
| Real estate, education, loans | Weeks | 14 to 30 days (336 to 720 hours) |
| B2B account management | Months | 90 days or more (2,160+ hours) |
| Clinic follow-ups | Treatment cycle | Length of a typical treatment |
Too short and repeat callers get a random person again. Too long and a lead stays with someone who has left the team or changed roles. If someone leaves, remove their number from the rule: a caller can't be stuck to a number that's no longer on the list.
Sticky routing vs other ways to reach "the right person"
| Method | How the right person is found | Effort for caller | Setup |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sticky agent | Last person who answered | None | One setting on a one-by-one rule |
| IVR menu ("press 1 for sales") | Caller chooses a department | One key press | Build a menu in IVR Studio |
| Direct numbers per person | Caller dials a person's number | Must know the number | One number per person |
| Contact center skill routing | Agent skills and queues | None | Full cloud contact center |
For most small and mid-size teams, sticky routing plus one-by-one forwarding covers the common case without a menu or a contact center.
Good uses
- Inside sales. The salesperson who took the first enquiry gets the callback, so leads stay with their owner.
- Loan, property and admissions counselling. Long conversations with documents and follow-ups.
- Field services. The coordinator who booked the visit handles "the technician hasn't arrived" calls.
- Account managers. Regular clients reach their own manager without a menu.
Where it doesn't help
- Shared support queues where any agent can solve any issue. Ring-all is faster there.
- Callers who use many numbers. Each number is a separate memory.
- Rotating shifts. If the last person is off shift, their phone still rings first. Their ring time is wasted before the next person is tried. Keep that person's ring time short, or pause or edit the rule for shift changes.
Setting it up
- On the Call Forwarding portal, create the rule for your business number with one by one as the ring strategy, and order the team. Sticky agent only works with one by one.
- Open the number's Call handling card in the Voice app (voice-app.edesy.in). That's where the ring time per person and sticky agent settings live. 15 to 20 seconds per person is a reasonable start.
- Turn on sticky agent and set the window in hours.
- Keep call screening on so a voicemail can't become the "last person who answered".
- Call from a test phone, let one person answer, hang up, then call again and check that the same person rings first.
You can also set sticky_enabled, sticky_window_hours and per-number ring times through the forwarding
rules API. See the
call forwarding docs.
Measure it
Use the call logs and analytics to check:
- How often repeat callers reach the same person (look at connected number by caller).
- Time to answer on repeat calls vs first calls.
- Calls that went past the sticky person because they didn't answer. If that number is high, the window may be too long or the ring time too short.
Price
Sticky routing is included with call forwarding: Rs 1.00 per minute plus number rental (Rs 499 a month for a mobile or 92-series number), plus 18% GST. See call forwarding pricing and the full features list.
Related reading: simultaneous vs sequential forwarding and call screening.