Guide 
Route Every Caller to the Right Branch, Every Time
Running three or four locations under one phone number is manageable until it isn’t. One HVAC group might take hundreds of calls a week, with callers asking for the wrong branch, speaking a different language, or wanting both sales and service in the same call. A single genie handling all of that gets messy fast.
The fix is a two-tier architecture: one primary intake genie that asks the right questions, then smart routing that hands the caller off to the branch genie best placed to help.
By the end of this guide you’ll have a working multi-site routing system. The intake genie triages every call. Each branch genie has its own knowledge base and lead capture fields. Routing rules handle edge cases. Lead data lands in the right inbox or CRM record. And your ops dashboard flags missed routes the next morning.
Prerequisites
Before you start, have these ready:
- An active Help Genie account with enough genie slots for your branch count plus one intake genie
- A list of your locations with the services each one offers (and any services a location does NOT offer)
- Your CRM or inbox details for each branch (email address, webhook URL, or CRM integration credentials)
- Any UTM parameters already in use across your website and ad campaigns
- Basic familiarity with conditional fields in the Help Genie knowledge base builder
If you’re starting fresh, the /trades and /automotive industry pages have pre-built playbooks you can pull into each branch genie.
Step 1: Map the Routing Logic Before You Build Anything
Grab a whiteboard or a simple spreadsheet. List every variable that determines which branch should handle a call.
Common routing variables for trades and dealership groups include:
- Location or postcode. A caller in one suburb belongs to one branch. Map the postcode ranges to each location.
- Service type. A caller wanting a new HVAC installation goes to sales. A caller with a broken unit goes to service. Some branches only do one or the other.
- Language. If one branch has bilingual staff, route non-English callers there.
- Time of day. After-hours calls might route to a single on-call branch regardless of location.
Write out the decision tree in plain language first. Something like: “If postcode is in range X and service type is repair, route to Branch B. If language is Spanish, always route to Branch C.” This becomes the blueprint for your conditional routing rules in Step 4.
Step 2: Build the Intake Genie with a Tight Question Set
Create a new genie and name it something like “Main Intake” or your business name. This genie’s only job is to ask three questions and route. It should not try to answer detailed service questions.
The three questions:
- Where are you? Ask for suburb, postcode, or the branch name they think they want.
- What do you need? Sales, service, emergency repair, parts, or general enquiry.
- When do you need it? Urgency helps with after-hours routing.
Keep the intake genie’s knowledge base lean. Load it with your location list, the services each branch offers, and a short FAQ that covers “I don’t know which branch I need.” Do not load it with detailed product specs or pricing. That’s the branch genie’s job.
Set the intake genie’s goal as “collect routing information and hand off.” Turn off lead capture fields at this stage. You’ll collect lead data in the branch genie where it belongs.
Step 3: Build Each Branch Genie with the Right Knowledge Base and Lead Capture
Create one genie per branch. Each one gets:
- A knowledge base specific to that location. Upload the branch’s service menu, pricing guides, staff bios, hours, warranty documents, and any local FAQs. An HVAC branch handling commercial installs needs different docs than the one focused on residential repairs.
- Lead capture fields matched to that branch’s CRM. A dealership’s sales branch might capture name, phone, vehicle interest, and trade-in details. The service branch captures name, phone, vehicle registration, and fault description.
- A voice and personality aligned to the branch. If Branch A serves a trade-heavy industrial area and Branch B is a premium residential suburb, the tone can differ.
Name each branch genie clearly inside Help Genie so your team can find them easily. “HVAC North Branch” beats “Genie 3.”
Step 4: Wire the Smart Routing Rules
Go back to your intake genie and open the routing settings. Build conditional routing rules using the answers from Step 2’s question set.
The structure is: if [condition] then [route to genie or URL].
Examples from an HVAC group:
- Postcode in range A-D AND service type is repair: route to East Branch genie
- Postcode in range E-H AND service type is installation: route to North Branch genie
- Language detected as Spanish: route to West Branch genie regardless of postcode
- Time is outside business hours AND urgency is emergency: route to the on-call branch genie
For a dealership group:
- Caller wants new vehicle AND location is [suburb range]: route to Sales Genie for that location
- Caller wants service booking: route to the nearest Service genie based on postcode
- Caller asks for a specific branch by name that doesn’t match their postcode: route correctly based on postcode anyway, and the branch genie can acknowledge the mix-up
Add UTM parameters if callers are arriving via specific ad campaigns. A Google Ads campaign targeting one suburb can pass a UTM tag that pre-fills the location field and skips Question 1 entirely, shortening the call.
One gotcha here: build a catch-all rule last. If no condition matches, the caller stays with the intake genie and is asked to clarify. Never let routing fail silently.
Step 5: Confirm Lead Handoff Reaches the Right Inbox
Routing a caller to the right genie is only half the job. The lead data collected in the branch genie needs to land in the right place.
Go into each branch genie’s lead capture settings and set the delivery destination:
- Email: Enter the branch-specific inbox, not a shared company address.
- Webhook: Point to the CRM endpoint for that branch. If your CRM uses location-based records, make sure the branch identifier is included in the payload.
- CRM integration: Map each branch genie’s lead fields to the correct CRM fields. A mismatch here means vehicle registration data ends up in a name field.
Test the payload by running a mock conversation through each branch genie and checking the destination inbox or CRM record. Do this for every branch before you go live. A five-minute check now saves hours of data cleanup later.
Step 6: Test with Realistic Mixed Scenarios
Clean scenarios test the happy path. You need to test the edges.
Run at least these three scenarios for each branch combination:
- Caller asks for the wrong branch by name. Does the intake genie catch the postcode mismatch and route correctly anyway? Check the routing rule order. The postcode rule should beat the branch-name mention.
- Caller is outside your service area. Does the genie acknowledge this clearly and not route to a branch that can’t help? Add an out-of-area rule that returns a polite response with a contact email.
- Caller wants both sales and service in the same call. The intake genie should identify the primary need and route there. The branch genie can note the secondary need in the lead capture field. Don’t try to split one caller across two genies mid-conversation.
For HVAC groups, also test: caller reports an emergency at 11pm. For dealership groups, also test: caller speaks Spanish and wants to book a test drive at a branch that has no Spanish-speaking staff.
Document every test result. If a route fails, fix the conditional rule before moving on.
Step 7: Add Observability So Missed Routes Surface Quickly
Routing errors that go unnoticed for a week cost real revenue. Build a simple monitoring layer from day one.
Inside Help Genie’s analytics, set up filters for:
- Conversations that ended without a completed route. These are callers who dropped off during the intake phase or hit the catch-all rule.
- Conversations where the branch genie returned “I don’t know.” This usually means the knowledge base is missing something or the wrong branch received the call.
- Lead capture completions per branch. A branch with significantly fewer completions than its call volume suggests routing or knowledge base gaps.
Set a daily email digest or webhook alert to your ops inbox. Review it each morning. Adjust routing rules and knowledge bases as you find gaps.
For a dealership group running four locations, a weekly routing review in the first month after launch is reasonable. After three months of clean data, monthly is enough.
Common Gotchas
Overlapping postcode ranges. Two branches might both claim the same boundary postcodes. Assign those explicitly to one branch. Ambiguity in routing logic causes random splits.
Knowledge base bleed. If you accidentally upload a document meant for Branch A into Branch B’s knowledge base, callers get wrong pricing or wrong hours. Keep a folder structure outside Help Genie that mirrors your genie structure.
Lead field mismatch. Different branches often use different CRM fields. Map each one individually. A shared field mapping file is a liability.
UTM parameters not passing. If your ad campaigns use UTM tags for location pre-fill, test the full URL with the tag attached before launch. A broken UTM means every caller from that campaign starts from scratch.
You’re Ready to Go Live
Multi-site call routing via voice AI is not a set-and-forget project in the first few weeks. But once your routing rules are stable and your knowledge bases are dialled in, the system handles triage at scale without adding headcount.
See how other trades and automotive businesses have structured their genie deployments on the /trades and /automotive pages. If you want to see what your setup could look like in practice, the ROI calculator can model the lead capture impact across your branch count.
Start by building your intake genie today at /explore.