It is 9:12 pm on a Saturday. A patient of record at Riverside Dental bites down on a popcorn kernel and feels a crown crack. He calls the practice. The call is answered, he explains what happened, and he is offered a transfer to the emergency line. The emergency line is the front desk phone, and it rings in a dark, locked building.
Nobody did anything wrong. The transfer was set up with a Tuesday afternoon in mind, and on Tuesday afternoons it works.
The question was never whether to transfer the call. It was who is actually there to take it.
A regular Call Transfer in Yobi has two parts: a reason and a destination. "When a caller has a dental emergency, transfer to this number." One reason, one number, every hour of the week.
A practice runs on a clock. At 10:00 am the right person for an urgent call is at the front desk. At 9:00 pm it is whoever is on call. That is the trouble with after-hours emergency calls at a dental office: the caller is the same, and the person who can help is not.
That leaves a practice with a choice. Point the emergency transfer at the on-call number and it rings a dentist's cell in the middle of a workday. Point it at the office and it rings an empty building at night. The American Dental Association's guidance on emergency treatment says: "The dentist must be available for patients of record anytime an emergency occurs, no matter when that might be." One all-hours destination makes that harder than it needs to be.
Scheduled Transfers adds the missing part: when. You attach a transfer, with its own reason and its own destination, to a schedule. After hours, emergencies go to the on-call dentist. At lunch, billing questions go to your office manager.
Your AI agent checks the schedule when the call comes in and offers the transfer you set for that time. Scheduled Transfers is available now for all Yobi customers. No upgrade required. No additional cost.
You set it up in AI Studio, in two parts: first the schedule, then the transfer that uses it.
On a call, your agent reads the schedule at the moment the call starts. If a schedule matches, its transfer takes priority for that call. Your regular Call Transfers stay in place at all hours. Before transferring anyone, the agent asks the caller to confirm.
Here is how that Saturday night call goes once an After Hours transfer is in place:
Caller: "I cracked a crown and it really hurts. Is there anyone I can talk to tonight?"
AI agent: "I am sorry, that sounds painful. I can connect you with our on-call dentist. Would you like me to transfer you now?"
Caller: "Yes, please."
AI agent: "Connecting you now."
Use the After Hours schedule (5:00 pm to 9:00 am by default; click Edit to match your hours) to send emergency calls to the on-call dentist's number. During the day, the same kind of call still goes to your front desk through your regular Call Transfers, if you have one set up.
Patients call on their lunch break, which is often when your team is on theirs. A Lunch Break schedule can send billing or insurance questions that need a person to your office manager.
Add a Holiday or Vacation/Closure schedule for the dates you are away and send urgent calls to the colleague or practice covering for you. When the dates pass, the schedule stops matching. Holiday dates are for one year, so add next year's when you plan your calendar.
Before: One destination per reason, all week. Either the on-call phone rings during the workday, or the emergency transfer rings an empty office at night.
After: The same kind of call reaches a different person depending on the hour, the day, or the date, and you set it up yourself in AI Studio.
Many calls never need a transfer at all, especially once you have added your hours, services and FAQs. Scheduled Transfers is for the calls that do.
If you are already a Yobi customer, open AI Studio, add an After Hours schedule, and attach your on-call number. Log in to dashboard
If you are not using Yobi yet, see how an AI receptionist gets the right call to the right person at the right hour. Book a Demo or call Kate at 609-507-2178.
No. It is available now for all Yobi customers, with no upgrade required and no additional cost.
Yes. They stay available at all hours. A scheduled transfer takes priority during its schedule and does not replace them.
Yes. Under Transfer Type, choose Team Member and select someone on your Yobi account, or choose Phone Number for any outside line such as an on-call cell.
The more specific schedule wins, and only its transfer is offered. A specific date comes first, then a date range, then a combined schedule, then days of the week, then a time range.