Set up the voice agent to answer your phone

The voice agent answers calls to your number. It talks to the caller, answers from your knowledge, and takes a message or puts them through to you. During a call it can text the caller from your number, note what they said, correct their name or email on their record, and stop recording if they object. Every call is summarised and transcribed.

Before you start

• You are an owner or an admin.
• A phone number with calling turned on, under Settings › Texting › Numbers.
• A knowledge base with the facts callers ask about (see Build a knowledge base).

Steps

1. Open AI Agents › Agents and choose Voice agent.
2. Pick a Voice. Voices cannot be played on this page; you hear the one you chose in step 12. Choose a Language, or leave Auto — whatever the caller speaks.
3. Write the Greeting, the first thing a caller hears. Example: "Thanks for calling Bright Dental, how can I help?"
4. Leave Say it is an assistant on for calls that come in. The sentence callers hear is shown below the switch. On calls the agent makes, it always says so.
5. Choose whether to Record calls. When it is on, callers are told before anything is kept. When it is off, you still get a written summary and a transcript.
6. Under Put callers through to, type the number to transfer to, for example your front desk. Leave it empty and it takes a message instead.
7. Under Outside your hours, choose what it does when you are closed: Answer as usual, day or night, Take a message and say someone will come back to them, or Say you are closed and when you open again.
8. Under Knowledge the assistant may use, tick the bases it answers from.
9. Read the Instructions. They start from what you told your inbox assistant; change anything that is different on the phone.
10. Press Save, then Publish. A message says "Published. Calls to your number are answered now." The line at the top changes to Live.
11. Under Numbers it answers, turn on the switch beside each number the agent should answer. It now says "Answered by the agent."
12. In Try it, type your mobile number under Call this number and press Call me. Answer and talk to it as a customer would. The box shows the price per minute before you press.
13. Open AI Agents › Logs and choose Calls. Your test call is listed. Press it to open Call details, with the summary and the transcript.

What happens next

Calls to a number you switched on are answered by the agent. A number you left off rings the way it always has. Save keeps your changes without touching the phone; Publish is what changes it.

In Calls, filter by What came of it (for example Message taken, Passed to a person, Question answered), by Which way (in or out) and by When. Messages the agent took are added to the caller's contact record, and a new caller becomes a new contact.

Calls are charged by the minute from your wallet. The last 30 days at the bottom of the page shows your calls, minutes and cost.

The voice agent cannot book appointments. Have it text callers your booking link, or use a workflow agent (see Book appointments with an agent).

For clients of an agency

The price per minute in Try it is the one that applies to your account, which your agency may set, or it says the minutes are covered for you.

Troubleshooting

The tab says "You need a phone number first". Press Go to Numbers, get a number, then come back.

"None of your numbers takes calls yet". Your numbers are set up for texting only. Open Settings › Texting › Numbers and turn calling on for one of them.

The number switches are greyed out: "Publish the agent first". Press Publish. A number can only be answered by a live agent.

Call me is greyed out: "Turn the agent on for one of your numbers first". The test call comes from the number the agent answers. Switch one on under Numbers it answers.

Callers were told it could not text them a link. Your US texting registration is not finished, so it takes a message instead. Finish it under Settings › Texting › Registration.

It gives callers wrong prices or hours. They are missing from its knowledge. Add them, then use Try it again.

"No voices are available right now. Try again in a minute." The voice list did not load. Wait a minute and reload the page.

Related

• Build a knowledge base
• Read agent logs and usage
• Book appointments with an agent
• Why AI stopped: the switch, the limit and the wallet