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.

Where to find it

Settings › Phone lines › Settings › Hear it on a real phone

Open this screen

The Hear your line on a real phone screen on a computer

Steps

Open Settings › Phone lines, press Settings on the line and scroll to Hear it on a real phone.
Under “Language on this call”, pick the language the agent should speak. It starts on the line's own language (Japanese unless you chose another).
Under "Caller ID (call from)", keep your line's own number or choose another tab. Type the number to call in "Test call number". Press "Call my phone with this line". Numbers of other lines are not offered here: this call always speaks as this line's agent.
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.
Answer when it rings: your AI agent answers in the voice live calls use. Choose the voice changes it.
Under Or call the line from any phone, the line's number is shown when real calls to it follow these settings; otherwise it says why not.

Settings on this screen

Setting	What it does	Default
Language on this call	The language the agent greets, answers and listens in for the whole call. It changes only when the person asks for another language, or speaks two full sentences in a row in another one.	—
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
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.	—

Troubleshooting

"A real phone cannot ring yet: telephony is in simulator mode. The platform operator switches it to Twilio."

Real calls are not switched on for this service yet; the platform operator switches telephony to the carrier.

"There is no number to call from yet."

Request a number for your organisation on Phone numbers.

"Too many test calls this hour. Please try again later."

If a test call was refused, check the number is on the approved test list and that calling rules (suppression list or a calling holiday) are not blocking it.

"Calls to this number do not follow these rules yet. Switch them on for live calls first."

Switch the line's AI agent on first.

The agent answered in a language I did not pick.

It moves only when the person asks for another language, or speaks two full sentences in a row in another one; short answers such as “yes” never move it. To return, ask for your language, for example “In Japanese, please”.

The test speaks a different voice than the one I chose.

At the top of the test, “Voice in these tests” shows the voice you will hear, and you can change it there. A Vapi voice plays through Vapi on every test and shows as “… · Vapi”. If the page names the standard phone voice instead, it also says why (for example, Vapi is not connected on this service), and you can choose “Pick a voice Call can play”.

“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.

Tips

Notifications are not sent during the test, but if you ask for a person, the line really rings who it puts callers through to.
When you choose a Vapi voice (such as Emma), every test and call on the line runs on Vapi, from the greeting and the recording notice on: the real-phone test, the agent’s calls and incoming calls. The test card shows “Emma · Vapi”. If Vapi cannot play it, the card says why before you call.
With a Vapi voice, the voice speaks the line’s language. If the voice you chose cannot speak it, the test card says so before you call.
Test calls ring only the test phone number, so a test never reaches a number you did not mean.
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.

Good to know

Each test is a real, billed call.
The test call is listed once in call history, marked as a test, with its transcript and length. No notifications are sent.