Have your AI agent call a number
Have your organisation's AI agent ring a number on a line and talk with whoever answers, toward a goal you give it.
Where to find it
Settings › Phone lines › Settings › Have the agent call a number (or step 6 of the Setup wizard)
Open this screen
Steps
- Open Settings › Phone lines, press Settings on the line and scroll to Have the agent call a number.
- Optionally describe What should the agent do on this call?, for example asking whether an order arrived.
- Under "Caller ID (call from)", keep your line's own number or choose another tab. Type the number to call in "Test call number". Numbers of other lines are not offered: a call from this card always speaks as this line's agent. To test another line's agent, open that line's card.
- Press Agent, call this number, check the number shown in “Call …?” and press Yes, call this number. If it is not the number you meant, press Change the number; nothing is dialled until you say yes.
- When the carrier accepts the call, the screen says so; when it is answered, your agent talks with them. When the call ends, the card says why, in plain words.
Settings on this screen
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| What should the agent do on this call? | The goal of the call. The agent works toward it in its own words; nothing is read out word for word. | Optional |
| Test call number | Type the phone number to ring, with its country code (for example +1 212 555 0123); a number starting with 0 is read as a Japanese number. The box starts empty. The number the call will ring is shown under it, and a number that cannot be read is marked. The service's test numbers are suggested as you type, and a test call can ring only those. The note under the box shows how many test calls are left this hour. | — |
| Caller ID (call from) | One tab per number of your account you can call from. Each tab shows the number, its line and the agent that talks on the call ("No agent" when the number has no line). Your line's own number is selected first, with a check mark. The phone you call shows this number. | The line's own number |
Troubleshooting
"This organisation has no agent of its own linked, so there is no one to hold the conversation."
Set up your AI agent first (Setup wizard step 2).
"AI answering is not configured on this service yet, so this agent cannot answer calls. Your agent and its knowledge base are kept as they are."
AI on calls is not switched on for this service yet. Your agent and its knowledge are kept.
“The call dropped because speech recognition failed to start. We retried without custom words.”
Speech recognition did not start on the first try, so the test call was placed once more, automatically, without the custom words for your product names. It is retried only once. If the retry drops too, wait a few minutes and try again.
What do the messages under the test call mean?
When the call ends, the card says why in plain words: the person on the phone hung up, your agent ended the call, no one spoke for a while, the call reached its time limit, the phone was not answered or the line was busy, the call reached voicemail, the phone network could not connect the call, or the call service had a problem. Details shows the service's own code, for support.
“The number to call is not the one you confirmed. Check it and confirm again.”
The number changed after you confirmed it. Enter it again and confirm the number shown.
"A test call can only ring the test phone number, so no call was placed."
Test calls go only to the test phone number. To call someone else, use the dialer.
"That number is not an active number of this workspace, so no call was placed. Choose another number."
Choose another number from the list. Only your own account's numbers can be used.
"Enter a phone number with its country code, for example …."
The number could not be read. Type it with its country code, for example +1 212 555 0123, or as a Japanese number starting with 0.
“That number belongs to … A call from this line speaks as this line's agent …”
Each line's card calls with its own agent. A number that belongs to another line would show that line's number with this line's agent, so it is refused and nothing is dialled. Open that line's own card to test its agent.
Tips
- Whoever answers can talk over the agent; it stops to listen.
- Test calls ring only the test phone number, so a test never reaches a number you did not mean.
- When the number you call is in your phone book, the agent can be told that business's name and the contact's name for this call, so it knows whom it is calling. When the number is not known, nothing is filled in.
- Once the call is answered, the agent waits for the person to speak first. If nobody speaks for 8 seconds, or the carrier detects an answering machine, it leaves one short message (your business, what the call is about, and that you will call back) and hangs up. The call is then listed as a voicemail.
Good to know
- Each call is real and billed.
- The do-not-call list and calling holidays do not apply to these test calls. Each one is still confirmed before it is dialled and recorded.
Related how-tos
- Hear your line on a real phone Have your line ring your own phone and answer it the way a caller is answered, or call the line from any phone.
- Outbound call agents (AI batches) Have your AI agent call a list of numbers, one at a time, with the goal and calling instructions you set, and see what came of each call.
- Phone lines See every phone line, whether your AI agent answers it, and open a line to set its number, AI agent, language, hours and who callers are put through to.
- Test incoming and outgoing calls Try your line before switching it on: on screen, on your own phone, and with your agent calling a number.