How Calls Work

Every call that comes into your number follows a consistent flow. Understanding it helps you configure your agent effectively.

The Call Lifecycle

1. Ring and Pickup

When someone dials your number, the call connects to your AI agent within seconds. Your agent answers with a greeting you've configured, either a standard "Thank you for calling [business name]" or something custom. If call recording is on, the greeting includes a short recording notice.

If you have multiple locations, each phone number maps to a specific location. Your agent automatically loads the correct location's hours, address, and knowledge for that number.

2. Conversation

Your agent listens to the caller, understands their intent, and responds naturally. The conversation uses real-time speech-to-text and text-to-speech with sub-500ms latency. Callers can interrupt (barge-in), ask follow-up questions, and change topics mid-conversation.

During the call, your agent may:

• Search your knowledge base for specific information (facts, FAQs, procedures)
• Check calendar availability and book appointments
• Look up information in your own systems through API tools you've connected
• Take messages, capture callback requests, or take an order
• Transfer the call to a team member

3. Intent Detection and Resolution

Your agent works out what the caller needs and follows the instructions in the matching intent you've configured. If you have an "appointment scheduling" intent, your agent recognizes when a caller wants to book and follows that flow. If an escalation rule matches (for example, the caller asks for a person), the call is routed accordingly.

Outcomes are tracked for every call:

• Resolved: the caller's need was fully addressed
• Routed: the call was transferred to a team member
• Callback: a callback was requested and logged
• Voicemail: the caller left a message for your team (this is how it appears in your call list)
• Order: the caller placed an order
• Failed: the call couldn't be completed (rare)

4. Post-Call Processing

After every real conversation, several things happen automatically:

Call Summary: AI generates a 2-3 sentence summary of what happened, classifies the intent, and identifies the outcome. This appears in your dashboard immediately.

Sentiment Analysis: The caller's emotional state is scored on a 1-10 scale, tracking the arc from start to finish. Did they start frustrated and end satisfied? The sentiment score and drivers are captured and shown for context; sentiment is not part of the quality score.

Quality Scoring (Watchtower): Each conversation is run through a fixed list of pass/fail checks (resolution, accuracy, professionalism, escalation handling) plus any expectations you add, judged against the knowledge and rules Allison had on that call. Every fail quotes the transcript and is verified by a second pass before it counts. The results roll up into your Agent Health Score. Robocalls, wrong numbers, and instant hang-ups are filtered out so they don't distort your score. See "Watchtower — AI Call Quality Monitoring" for the full list of checks.

Notifications: If the call generated a message, callback request, order, or escalation, your configured recipients receive email notifications with the full context.

Extracted Data: Structured information from the call (caller name, appointment details, issue description) is extracted and stored.

Call Duration and Call Minutes

Your plan includes a monthly allocation of call minutes. We bill the time a caller is connected to your AI agent — every connected minute counts toward your plan, verifiable line by line. Ringing before the agent picks up doesn't count, and the portion after a transfer disconnects your agent doesn't count.

After-Hours Calls

Your agent answers around the clock. Outside your configured business hours (set per location in Schedules), it lets callers know you're closed and keeps helping: it answers questions, takes messages, offers callbacks, and books appointments as normal. The one difference is that it doesn't transfer calls to your team while you're closed; anything that needs a person becomes a message for the next business day.