Approved, VIP and blocked callers: set it up once

The school rings at 2:40

You're on a roof, or in a meeting, or driving. The phone goes and you can't get to it. If it's someone selling solar panels, fine. If it's the school office, that's a different call altogether, and whatever answers for you ought to know the difference.

A good human assistant learns this in their first month. They know your partner's voice, they know which client you'd leave a meeting for, and they know who gets "I'll pass that on" and nothing more. An AI line doesn't have a first month. It has a list. You tell it who's who, once, and it treats people accordingly from the next call on.

Four kinds of caller, plus you

On a CosVoice line every caller falls into one of four groups. Three of them you choose. The fourth is everybody you haven't listed.

Then there's you. Your own mobile is what we call the owner line. Calls and texts from it aren't treated as a caller getting in touch. They're instructions, and the line reads back what it heard.

• Approved. A warm welcome, and room to leave real detail.
• VIP. The warmest welcome, all the time they need, and a promise that you'll see this right away. Use it for family.
• Blocked. A short, polite wall.
• Everyone else. A helpful assistant that never gives out your details.

Who belongs on the approved list

The people you deal with every week or so, and would want treated like they're known. Your contractor. Your accountant. The supplier who rings every Monday. The three clients who make up most of your work. The neighbor with your spare key.

What does approved change? The tone, mostly, and the depth. An approved caller is welcomed like someone expected, and can leave the whole story: the amounts, the dates, the options, what happens next. You get all of it in the written summary.

Don't overthink the list. If you'd be glad to see the name come up on your phone, they're approved.

Who deserves VIP

Fewer people than you think. A VIP caller is treated warmly, given all the time they need, and told you'll see this right away. That only keeps its meaning if it's rare.

Know what VIP doesn't do, too. It doesn't put the caller through to you, and it doesn't ring your mobile while they hold. The line takes the details, tells them you'll call back, and the written summary reaches you as soon as the call ends.

Family first, which is what we suggest it for. Your partner, your kids, a parent. Then the places that ring about family: the school office, the childminder, whoever looks after your mom on Tuesdays. After that, maybe one person from work. Your best client, or a business partner who only phones when something is on fire.

Here's a test. If this person rang, would you read the summary the minute it arrived and call straight back? Then they're VIP. If you'd be fine reading about it at four o'clock, approved will do.

Who to block, and what they hear

Blocked callers get a short, polite wall. No lecture, no run of questions. The call is brief and it ends.

Use it for numbers you already know you don't want: the sales line that rings every week, the former supplier who won't take the hint. And you can only block a number you know. Spam from a new number each time isn't something a block list can catch, so don't expect it to.

Everyone you didn't list

Most callers are here, and that's how it should be. A stranger gets a helpful assistant. It finds out who's calling and what they need, and writes down the details. What it won't do is give out yours. Your mobile number, where you are, when you'll be back: none of that is for strangers.

So a new customer is never turned away for not being on a list. They get a proper conversation and you get their details in writing. The list isn't a gate. It's there so the people you know aren't handled like people you don't.

One thing to know: the line recognizes people by the number they ring from. If the school calls from a line you haven't saved, it's treated as a stranger until you add that number too. Big offices often have more than one.

Where to set it up

In Settings, in the part that deals with your contacts. For each person you add a name, a phone number and a role, and you can remove anyone later.

If you've connected an assistant such as Grok, ChatGPT or Claude, it can manage the list for you. Tell it "add the school office as VIP" and give it the number. Managing contacts is one of the things a connected assistant can do, and the docs list the rest.

Roles aren't the only way to shape a call. Your standing instructions, also in Settings, hold the context the line should always have, like how to handle the school when it does ring.

A first list to copy

If you're new to this, start small. Here's a sensible first evening's work, and it's about ten names.

• VIP: your partner, your children, a parent, the school office.
• VIP, from work: one person. Your best client, or whoever rings only when it matters.
• Approved: your regular contractor, your accountant, your two or three steadiest clients, a neighbor.
• Blocked: nothing yet. Add numbers as they earn it.

Then let the calls tell you

If you forward the calls you miss on your mobile to the line, the list does double duty, since the same people get the same treatment there. What happens when a stranger calls your line goes further into the screening side, and the trust page sets out the rules the line keeps on every call.

Then, after a couple of weeks, look through your call history. Anyone who rang twice and isn't on the list probably should be. Anyone you marked VIP who turned out to call about nothing can drop to approved. It's a thirty-second job, and it's the only upkeep the list needs.

Common questions

More on setup guides

• Conditional call forwarding, explained without the jargon
• Set up an AI phone agent in ten minutes
• Connect Claude to a phone line
• Get ChatGPT to make a phone call