Call Routing for Multi-Location Businesses: How to Get Every Caller to the Right Place

HiBell › Insights

A business with one location has a simple phone problem: answer the phone. A business with five locations has a harder one. Which store did the caller mean? Which one has the part, the opening or the person they need? And who answers when that store is slammed?

Get routing wrong and customers bounce between locations, repeat themselves three times and give up.

The usual setups and where they break

A separate number for every location

Simple and common. Each store answers its own calls. The trouble is that quality depends entirely on how busy each store is and who happens to be working. One location answers every call politely, another sends half to voicemail, and head office has no idea which is which.

One main number with a phone menu

“Press 1 for Mississauga, press 2 for Oakville.” It looks organised, but menus get long, callers press 0 to escape, and the call still rings into a busy store.

A central call centre or BDC

Good for consistency, but expensive to staff for peaks, and agents often lack the local knowledge each location has. Callers get transferred out to the store anyway for anything specific.

What good routing looks like

• The caller says what they need in their own words. No menu tree.
• The location is worked out from the conversation, the number they called or where they are, not from a button press.
• Each location keeps its own rules: hours, staff, services, what can be booked and who takes urgent calls.
• Routine requests are finished on the call, such as booking, hours and status, so only real handoffs get transferred.
• Transfers come with context. The person picking up already knows who is calling and why.
• Overflow has a plan. When a store does not answer, the call goes to another location or a callback, not voicemail.

How an AI receptionist handles multi-location routing

An AI receptionist sits in front of all your lines and answers every call the same way. It figures out the location and the reason, finishes the routine requests itself, and transfers the rest to the right store or person with a short summary. Each location’s knowledge, hours and rules are set up separately, so a caller asking about Saturday hours in one city gets that city’s answer.

It also gives head office something it rarely has: a consistent record of every conversation across every location, with the outcome attached.

Rolling it out

Start with one or two locations and one call type, usually overflow or after hours. Prove the routing works, compare answer rates, then expand. Trying to switch every location on day one is how routing projects stall.

We work with growing businesses and larger groups on exactly this. If that sounds like you, see how HiBell works for mid-size businesses and for enterprise and multi-location groups.

Common questions

What is multi-location call routing?

It is how calls to a business with several locations get directed to the right store, department or person, whether through separate numbers, phone menus, a central team or an AI receptionist.

Can an AI receptionist route calls to different locations?

Yes. It works out which location and what the caller needs from the conversation, handles routine requests itself and transfers the rest with a short summary.

Do callers have to use a phone menu?

Not with an AI receptionist. Callers explain what they need in their own words and the agent routes them from there.