1. Start with the calls your Kelso team cannot reliably answer
Kelso’s municipal population estimate is useful geographic context, but it cannot tell you how many people will call your firm or when they will call. Instead of sizing a phone system from population, examine your actual unanswered-call pattern across the Kelso service area and the rest of Cowlitz County. Include calls outside office hours, calls that arrive while staff are already speaking with someone, and calls that reach voicemail during holidays or breaks. Bosseo’s public AI Answering page describes team-first routing: calls ring your people first, and the AI answers when nobody picks up within 20 seconds. It also states that the system handles up to 20 simultaneous calls.
Recommended approach
Review a representative period of call records and mark each unanswered call by time, existing-client status, apparent practice area, urgency, and eventual outcome where known. Use that review to decide whether your priority is after-hours coverage, overflow protection, or both. Do not treat Kelso’s population as a forecast of call volume.
