An AI transfer to queue sends the caller to a human queue you configured: agents, skills, accepted states, priority, hours, and overflow. A transfer to a phone number or SIP URI sends the caller to that destination instead, which may be an external closer, a partner, or a single cell phone. Both options exist on the outcome. They are not interchangeable. The queue path still shows your agent the transcript and the answers. The phone path leaves your floor and your skill rules behind. Choose it only when you mean to leave. The AI does not enroll, quote, bind, or recommend on the way across either bridge. The $50 seat unlocks the profile. The minute is billed either way.
Two destinations, different rules
When an AI transfer to queue is the right bridge
Use the queue when the next speaker must be someone you license, skill, and record inside AgentTech. The destination queue lists the agents, the states they may take, and the skills with a minimum level from 1 to 10. Priority from 1 to 10 breaks ties. Hours decide whether anyone is even eligible. If the caller is in a state that queue does not accept, do not transfer. End or book. The AI's job is to capture state first so this hop is legal on your own card. A warm transfer is useful because the transcript is on the screen. Tell agents the first sentence is a confirmation, not a new interview. If they re-ask everything, the queue path is wasted and you should fix the floor habit.
Overflow stays on that queue. Voicemail, disconnect, another queue, a destination, or a waiting room are queue settings. Waiting-room defaults are a 300-second max wait and a size of 20. Those are capacity tools. They are not a reason to keep a qualified shopper in silence when you could book. Find Next Agent can try another person on decline. It cannot invent a license. If the queue is closed, the AI outcome should be a booking or a message you designed, not a transfer that rings an empty hunt group. Write the closed-hours outcome on the same card as the queue name. A transfer to a closed queue is a drop.
Caps matter on the outbound and blended queues you might bridge into as well. Max concurrent on those dial settings defaults to 10. That is a throttle, not a suggestion to pile AI transfers on top of a predictive campaign until both melt. Inbound AI should transfer into an inbound human queue that exists to take those bridges. Do not dump shoppers into a dialer queue that is already pacing a list. The caller hears hold. Your abandonment math hears a mess. Separate the queues. Name them so a supervisor can see which one receives AI bridges and which one places dials.
A phone number is an exit from your floor
Transfer to a phone or SIP URI when the next party is not an AgentTech user you can skill and license on a queue. That is an external closer, a carrier partner, or a branch phone. Type the number in E.164 or use the SIP URI they gave you. This hop does not apply your skill minimums or your state list. You are trusting the contract and the process outside the dialer. Say that out loud in the design review. If you wanted state licensing enforced, you wanted a queue. A phone number will ring whoever holds it, including a person who should not hear this product or this state. Do not use it as a shortcut because the queue felt slow to build.
The caller experience has to be honest. The transfer message should say you are connecting them, and to whom in plain language if your process requires it. It should not promise a licensed agent if you are sending them to a marketing partner who will transfer again. It should not say they are approved. Pass the context your agreement allows, and no more. A SIP header is not a place to stash a medication list for convenience. If the partner needs a field, name it in the agreement and in the test. Then place a test call and confirm they heard the right name and not the raw screening notes you would not read aloud.
External partner connectivity is a different object from this one transfer button. A standing partner center can be an external queue with its own availability check and SIP address, used as a child of a global queue. That is still a deliberate integration, not an ad-hoc number pasted into an AI outcome at 6 p.m. Queue design is the internal hop. Booking is what you do when neither hop is staffed. Pick one. An outcome that sometimes queues, sometimes dials a closer, and sometimes books, with no written rule, is three campaigns pretending to be a flow.
What each side is accountable for
On a queue transfer, you can review the AI leg and the human leg in the same recording and scoring path. The state, the skill, and the transcript are your audit. On a phone transfer, you can review the AI leg up to the bridge. After that, the other party's process is the other party's process. Your agreement has to say who records, who may sell, and who handles a complaint. Do not assume the transcript you see is the transcript they saw. Test it. If they received nothing, your agents will think the partner is 'starting cold' and the partner will think you sent an unqualified caller. Both will be guessing. Put the handoff fields in the test script and sign them off.
Complaints follow the brand the caller remembers. If your greeting named your agency and the phone path pitched a different product, you still have the first recording. Score it. A transfer is not a laundering step. Banned phrases before the bridge are still yours. Banned behavior after the bridge is why the agreement exists. If you cannot get that agreement, keep the caller on a queue you operate or take a message. Revenue from an unnamed closer is not worth a file you cannot explain. The AI will do what the outcome says. Make the outcome a destination you would describe to a regulator without a diagram.
Choose once per campaign, then test
Write the destination on the campaign card in one line. Qualified and in a licensed state: queue name. Qualified and the floor is full: book. Not qualified: end. Partner product you actually contract: phone or SIP, named. Anything else: do not transfer. Then call each branch. Confirm the queue agent sees the transcript. Confirm the phone test lands on the test handset you control before you paste a partner's production URI. Confirm a closed queue does not ring. Confirm an out-of-state caller does not leave your building. Four calls. If any of them surprises you, the outcome is wrong. Fix it while the number is still unpublished.
Revisit the choice when staffing changes. A queue that lost its licensed agents is no longer a queue transfer. It is a bridge to nowhere, and the outcome should become a booking until the roster is real. A partner number that changed is a new test, not a find-and-replace you hope is right. The AI will keep using the old URI until you edit it. Transfers do not heal themselves. Once a quarter, place the four test calls again. The button did not move. The people and the phone numbers did. Your card has to move with them.
How AgentTech splits queue and phone
queue routing is the queue: skills, states, priority, hours, overflow. AI voice agents outcomes choose transfer to that queue or transfer to a phone or SIP URI. AI receptionist and AI lead qualification both expose the choice. Use the queue for your licensed floor. Use the number only for a destination you have named and tested. The transcript rides the queue bridge onto the agent screen. The $50 seat unlocks the profile. It does not supply a license the queue forgot to require. Test the queue hop before you trust the phone hop. Test the queue hop before you trust a phone hop.
compliance scoring scores the leg you still hold. On a phone transfer, that means everything up to the bridge, which is why the pre-bridge script has to be clean. AI lead qualification should have captured state before either hop. If the state is empty, do not transfer. End or ask again within the retry count, then fall back. A bridge without a state is how the wrong person gets the call. The setting will not feel guilty. You will. Ask for the state again, then use the fallback you saved. Ask for the state again, then use the fallback you saved.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a queue transfer check state licenses?
The human queue only accepts the states and skills you assigned. Capture state before the transfer and do not bridge a state that queue rejects. A phone number does not apply those rules. That is why it is a different choice.
Can we send unclear callers to an external closer?
Do not make that the fallback. Unclear calls should decline, leave a message, or reach your own staffed queue. An outside number is for a partner you have already decided to use, on a branch you have written down.
What does our agent see on a queue transfer?
The transcript and the answers you saved, so they can confirm the reason for the call instead of restarting the interview. If they do not see those fields, fix the handoff before you add more volume.
Key Takeaways for Agency Operators
- Queue means your floor. Skills, states, hours, and the transcript.
- Phone or SIP means you left. Name the partner and test the URI.
- Full or closed means book. Not a ringing empty queue.
- State before either hop. An empty state does not transfer.
- Retest when people change. The button will keep the old number.
Design the queue in queue design when the AI is first and the held time in appointment booking when nobody can take the bridge.
