How Calls Work

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

The Call Lifecycle

1. Ring and Pickup

When someone dials your Allison number, the call connects to your AI agent within seconds. Allison answers with a greeting you've configured — either a standard "Thank you for calling [business name]" or something custom.

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

2. Conversation

Allison 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, Allison may:

• Search your knowledge base for specific information (policies, procedures, FAQs)
• Check calendar availability and book appointments
• Look up customer information in your CRM
• Take messages or capture callback requests
• Transfer the call to a team member

3. Intent Detection and Resolution

Allison classifies what the caller needs using the intents you've configured. If you have an "appointment scheduling" intent, Allison recognizes when a caller wants to book and follows that flow. If the intent requires escalation (configured in your escalation rules), 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
• Failed — the call couldn't be completed (rare)

4. Post-Call Processing

After every call, 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.

Quality Scoring (Watchtower) — Every AI-handled call is scored on five quality dimensions: resolution, accuracy, professionalism, sentiment, and escalation handling. These roll up into your Agent Health Score.

Notifications — If the call generated a message, callback request, or escalation, your configured team members 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 AI Minutes

Your plan includes a monthly allocation of AI minutes. AI minutes count only when Allison is actively engaged — greeting, listening, reasoning, and speaking. Ringing time, hold time, human-to-human conversation after a transfer, and voicemail playback do not count.

After-Hours Calls

Calls outside your configured business hours follow your schedule settings. Common configurations include:

• Playing an after-hours greeting and offering to take a message
• Routing emergency calls to an on-call team member
• Booking appointments for the next available slot
• Taking callback requests for the next business day

The after-hours behavior is fully configurable per location.