Route calls to the right person

If everyone on your team takes the same kinds of appointments and shares a calendar, you don't need providers — one calendar is simpler. Add providers when:

• Different staff have different hours or days off
• Customers ask for specific people ("can I see Sarah again?")
• You want to distribute workload evenly across staff
• Different staff offer different services (one does massages, another does facials)

Providers are also how Vervox treats "resources" like bays or rooms — each chair in a salon, each room in a clinic, each bay in a mechanic shop can be a provider with its own calendar.

Open Settings → Smart Booking → Providers and click Add provider. For each provider you'll set:

• Name — what callers will hear ("Dr Sarah", "Chair 2")
• Aliases — other names the same provider goes by ("Sarah", "Dr Smith")
• Services — which services this provider can perform (optional; defaults to all)
• Google Calendar — the calendar ID to read/write to (see calendar connect)
• Hours — business hours, independent of your business hours

Save. Repeat for every provider. You can have up to 50 per business.

Each provider has their own weekly hours grid — when they're normally available. On top of that, you can add availability blocks:

• Time off — a one-off unavailability ("Sarah is away June 10-14"). The AI won't offer slots in that window.
• Extra hours — a one-off extension ("Bob is working this Sunday"). The AI can offer slots outside normal hours.
• Recurring breaks — e.g. "Sarah takes lunch every weekday 12-1".

Any change is live instantly — no redeploy.

Two routing modes control how providers get picked:

• Caller-led — the AI asks "would you like to see someone specific?" and matches on name. If no preference, it auto-assigns.
• Auto — the AI never asks; it picks the provider with the most availability (fair load balancing) without telling the caller by name.

Caller-led is the default. Use auto when provider identity doesn't matter (generic chairs, bays, resources) — it removes an unnecessary question and shortens the call.

In caller-led mode, the AI matches the caller's request against provider names and aliases. Common cases:

• Exact match — "book me with Sarah" → Sarah's calendar is checked first.
• Unavailable preferred provider — Sarah is fully booked. The AI offers: "Sarah's next opening is Thursday 3pm. Would that work, or would you like me to check another therapist's availability sooner?"
• Unknown name — "book me with Chris" but no provider is called Chris. The AI says "I don't have a Chris on the team — would you like to book with someone else?" and lists who's available.

For short-notice changes (someone calls in sick), open the provider's profile and add an availability block marked Time off for today. All already-confirmed appointments stay on the calendar (you'll need to reschedule them manually), but the AI will stop offering new slots in Sarah's calendar until the block ends.

For planned leave, add it a few days ahead so the AI starts routing callers to other providers automatically.