Guides by topic
Guides on business calling
Phone menus, ring groups, transfers, after-hours calls, recording disclosure and running your calls on your own Twilio account.
9 guides and 1 free template, each working in any tool.
Guides
- What a 15-person team should budget for a CRM, a help desk and a phone systemA 15-person team’s monthly bill for a CRM, a help desk and a phone at Zoho, Freshworks and Pipedrive, read October 26, 2026, and how to budget your own. 8 minute read.
- How to choose a CRM with a built-in phone for a small businessThree ways to join calls and customer records, the questions that decide it, and what calling with a phone menu costs five people at five vendors. 9 minute read.
- Using your own Twilio account for business callsWhat it means to bring your own Twilio account to a CRM or phone tool, what to set up first, and a month’s bill worked out line by line. 8 minute read.
- Handling calls after hours as a small businessThree ways to handle calls when you are closed — a closed message, voicemail, an on-call person — and how to make sure no message is lost by morning. 6 minute read.
- How to route calls to the customer’s account ownerRing the person who looks after a customer first, for a few seconds, then the usual group. How callers are recognized and why the wait stays short. 6 minute read.
- How to set up a phone menu for a small businessA phone menu that gets callers to the right person in one choice: how many keys, what to name them, open and closed hours, and how to test it. 6 minute read.
- Telling callers a call is recordedWhy announcing every recorded call is the simple habit, what to say, who should listen, and how long a small business should keep recordings. 6 minute read.
- Warm transfer vs cold transfer: which to useA cold transfer passes the caller on immediately. A warm transfer lets you brief a colleague first. When each fits, and what the caller hears. 6 minute read.
- What is a ring group, and how should it ring?A ring group is a set of people who share incoming calls. When to ring everyone at once or one at a time, and what to do when everyone is busy. 6 minute read.
Free templates
- Phone menu script builder: fill-in templates for your greeting, menu and voicemailFill-in-the-blank scripts for a phone greeting, menu, hold, closed hours and voicemail, with three worked versions and how long each line takes to say.
Beside these guides
- Calling in ContactRollCall groups, menus, hold and transfer in the browser.
- Calling cost calculatorTwilio’s per-minute rates against per-seat plans.
- A CRM with a phone system built inUse case.