Phone
The phone is where a business wins or loses the job, and it is the channel every Talkgate agent starts on. A local number is included, the number the business already advertises can be diverted to it in a couple of minutes, and calls are answered at any hour in a New Zealand or Australian voice.
What the channel gives you
Underneath the agent sits a phone product. The numbers sit on Talkgate's own carrier account, so routing is Talkgate's to change, and nobody is held hostage by their number.
Every agent is given its own number in the region the client asks for: Auckland 09, Christchurch 03, Wellington 04, or an Australian local number for an Australian business. Only numbers the carrier has never sold, or ones the platform parked itself after a cooling-off period, so nobody inherits a stranger's old number.
The usual setup. The business diverts its advertised number to the agent's number on its own carrier: forward all, when unanswered, when busy, or when off, and most set the last three together. It is the only step the client does themselves, and support walks them through the dial codes.
A number can be ported in from another provider and ported back out if the business ever leaves. A porting form collects the numbers, current provider, account details, a copy of the bill, a move date and a signature. Porting is charged once per number, with the amount stated on the form.
One general rule, then a number and a condition per line, and the same number can carry several conditions. Staff mobiles, the office line, a ring group. The onward leg is tracked back to the call, so the record shows who was put through and whether they picked up.
The clock lives on the number: New Zealand, the Chathams, or an Australian state, falling back to the area code. Trading hours, “tomorrow” and bookings read it, and after-hours, weekend and public-holiday behaviour are each set on their own. See after hours.
Over 80 English-speaking voices, New Zealand and Australian, male and female, plus te reo Māori and a wide range of languages. The whole New Zealand gazetteer, over four thousand place names, is said properly, along with the business's own words.
How a number goes live
What the business gets
Five, ten or fifteen calls can be answered at once on one number, with no queue and no hold music. Every call is logged on the dashboard with a summary, and with a recording and transcript if the business switches them on. Calls, transcription and recordings are handled in New Zealand and Australian data centres, and nowhere else. See security.
A business that already runs a phone system or carries its own trunk is connected with you during onboarding rather than through a self-serve form. How that works is on the platform page.
Two things to state plainly. Showing a number that is not held on the platform, such as the owner's personal mobile, as the outgoing caller ID is not something to promise. And the platform cannot set a client's divert for them: it cannot fix a call that never reaches it.
Sold through partners
Every agent comes with its number, so the phone channel is not an add-on to sell; it is the thing itself. Sold through partners: you set the price, Talkgate runs the platform, the numbers and the carrier relationship. You help the client with the divert on day one and own the relationship from there; porting and anything to do with an existing phone system is agreed in the briefing. See the partner programme.
Next step
A partner briefing walks through numbers, diverts, porting and transfers against your clients' actual phone setups. See also the reception agent and transfers and escalation.