Consult Call
A Consult Call is a second phone call a service rep places while the customer waits on the original call in a hold state.
Definition
A Consult Call is a second phone call a service rep places while the customer waits on the original call in a hold state. The target can be a colleague, a queue, or an outside number. The rep gets an answer or briefs the next person, then decides what to do with the customer.
In Salesforce Voice (the product Salesforce renamed from Service Cloud Voice) the consult runs on its own leg. What the rep does with that leg at the end is the whole decision, and one of those endings is what most contact centers call a warm transfer.
Consult is not a switch an admin flips alone. The telephony vendor has to advertise it by setting hasConsult to true in getVoiceCapabilities. The dialed leg then carries an isConsultCall attribute and a CallType of Consult.
In plain English
“You are on the phone with someone and you do not know the answer. You put them on quiet hold, ring a coworker on a second line, and ask. Then you go back and tell the customer, bring your coworker in, or hand the customer over and hang up.”
Worked example
A rep at a regional insurance carrier is on a call about Case 00042318, a total-loss auto claim. The customer asks whether a rental car extension is covered. The rep adds a caller and dials the claims adjuster who handles Auto Escalations. The customer moves into a hold state and hears none of it. The adjuster confirms 14 days of rental coverage. The rep ends the consult leg and answers the customer directly instead of transferring. Salesforce logs the two legs as separate voice calls. Whether the consult leg ends up carrying its own recording URL and duration depends on the vendor writing them back. The supervisor later sees that a 90 second consult prevented a handoff.
What actually happens on the line during a consult
The customer is held, not muted
Salesforce documents this precisely: during the consult call, the other participants sit in a type of hold. That distinction matters. The consult is a separate call leg, not a mute on the same audio path. The customer cannot pick up stray words, and the two legs record independently. If you have ever heard a rep half-cover the handset on an older phone system, this is the fix. The hold treatment the customer hears comes from your telephony vendor, not from Salesforce.
Which method call ends it, and what the customer hears
Point endCall() at the consult leg and the briefing stops. The hold treatment cuts out and the rep is back alone with the customer. Reach for conference() instead and the two calls merge into one audio path, with the connector returning a HoldToggleResult carrying isCallMerged true. Only after that merge can the rep hang up and hand the customer over, which is the sequence Salesforce Help calls a transfer. The blind path skips every bit of it: addParticipant() with isBlindTransfer set to true moves the call immediately and gives the receiving rep no briefing. Blind is faster when routing is obvious. Consult earns its extra minute when the receiving party needs context.
Your telephony vendor decides whether you get it
This is the part that surprises admins. Consult is a Connector API capability. A partner connector that never sets hasConsult in its VoiceCapabilitiesResult will not surface the control, and no Setup configuration will conjure it. Methods a vendor implements around it include addParticipant, conference, swap, hold, resume, and endCall. Salesforce caps a voice call at six participants, counting the rep and the customer. A supervisor who listens in or barges does not count against that six. Check the connector documentation before promising consult workflows to a service team.
Recording and reporting spread across the legs
Each voice call supports one call recording. When a participant is added, each component voice call can be updated with its own recording URL and duration. A consult that becomes a conference therefore leaves you with a set of related records, not one tidy row. Reporting on consult behaviour means aggregating across them; a report built on one voice call quietly undercounts. The compliance angle follows. The consult leg is its own recording, so consulting an external party carries its own disclosure obligations.
How organizations use Consult Call
Reps consult a clinical specialist mid-call before confirming component compatibility, so the customer gets an answer on the first call.
Supervisors take consult calls from newer reps on disputed billing charges, which keeps the coaching off the customer leg.
Trust & references
Cross-checked against the following references.
- Manage Multiparty Calls and Consult Calls (opens in new tab)Salesforce
- Salesforce Voice with Partner Telephony Developer Guide (opens in new tab)Salesforce
- Perform a Blind Transfer (opens in new tab)Salesforce
- Call Recordings (opens in new tab)Salesforce
- Add Callers or Transfer Calls (opens in new tab)Salesforce
Straight from the source - Salesforce's reference material on Consult Call.
Hands-on resources to go deeper on Consult Call.
About the Author
Dipojjal Chakrabarti is a B2C Solution Architect with 29 Salesforce certifications and over 13 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He writes and edits salesforcedictionary.com, published by KineticBit Inc., to help admins, developers, architects, and cert/interview candidates sharpen their fundamentals. More about Dipojjal.
Test your knowledge
+5 pts / dayQ1. What state is the customer in while a rep is on a consult call?
Q2. Which capability must a partner telephony vendor declare so that consult calls work?
Q3. How does a warm transfer differ from a blind transfer in Salesforce Voice?
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