Favorites: callers who ring you straight through
PhoneShield team
The people who build and run PhoneShield
Written and kept current by the team behind PhoneShield, a sister company of Byte Federal, whose staff spent years meeting scam victims at cryptocurrency ATMs with the scammer still on the line.
In this article
Introduction
A front desk is only acceptable if the people you love and the people you work with never have to talk to it. Favorites is that list. A favorite calls, your phone rings, and a whisper tells you who it is before you say hello. No greeting, no questions, no waiting.
What Favorites do
When a favorite calls
- The call is forwarded to PhoneShield like any other
- The number matches your Favorites list
- PhoneShield rings your private line at once
- You hear a whisper: “Mom”, or “Dr. Patel’s office”
- You accept, and you are talking
What they skip
- The front desk greeting and questions
- The intent classifier
- Every block list, including the shared one
- Do not disturb: favorites ring anyway
- Your assistant: Nora never answers a favorite
Included for everyone
Favorites are part of every account. There is nothing to add on.
Adding a favorite
- Open the Shield settings page
Scroll to the Favorites list.
- Add a name and a number
The name is what the whisper says. Use the full number with country code, for example +1 555 123 4567.
- Save
It applies to the next call. Remove a favorite the same way.
Number formatting
PhoneShield normalizes numbers, but the safest form is the international one: plus sign, country code, then the number, no spaces required. A favorite whose number was typed with a mistake meets the front desk.
You can also promote a caller from their call in call history: open the call and add the number to Favorites from there.
Favorites versus contacts
The Shield settings page has both a Favorites list and a Contacts list. They do different things:
Favorites
Always ring you straight through, in every mode, with the whisper. A short list of people who should never be screened.
Contacts
Names for numbers you know. Call history, messages and the whisper use the name instead of the raw number, and your assistant knows who she is talking to. Contacts still meet the front desk.
A plumber you use twice a year is a contact. Your sister is a favorite.
Favorites in every mode
Open
Everyone vetted by the front desk rings you; favorites ring you without the vetting. The difference you notice is that a favorite’s call connects a few seconds sooner and the whisper says a name you chose.
Do not disturb
Nothing rings except favorites. This is the mode where the list earns its keep: an evening with the phone quiet, and still reachable by the five people who should be able to reach you.
Receptionist
Nora answers everyone else. Favorites never hear her; they ring you directly. If you miss a favorite, that is a missed call on your phone, and you call them back like you always did.
Seeing favorite calls in history
A favorite’s call appears in call history as RANG YOU with the reason “favorite”. Because the front desk never spoke to them, there is no transcript, no message and no notification; there is nothing to summarize.
What you will not see
Favorites do not produce messages, emails, Telegram posts or webhooks. If you want to know that your sister called while you were away, your phone’s own missed-call list has it, and so does PhoneShield’s call history.
Best Practices
Keep the list short
Favorites skip everything. If the list is your whole address book, the front desk is not doing anything. Family, the school, the doctor, your best customers.
Add both of their numbers
Mobile and landline, or office and cell. A favorite calling from a number you did not add meets the front desk like anyone else.
Name them the way you say it
The whisper reads the name you typed. “Mom” is better than “Margaret Ellison (mobile)”.
Test with one of them
Ask a favorite to call you. You should hear the whisper and no front desk. If you hear the front desk, check the number matches.
Someone important who is not a favorite yet?
They will meet the front desk, say who they are, and depending on your mode either ring you with a whisper or leave a message. Nobody is turned away for not being on the list; they just have to say why they called.
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