Voice Assist and Call Flows

Voice Assist is enabled via CallRail’s Call Flows. If you have not added it to a Call Flow and turned the flow on, Voice Assist will not be enabled. Use Call Flows to decide when Voice Assist answers incoming calls.

1. If you want Voice Assist to answer your incoming calls during your non-business hours, you could first set up a schedule step.
2. Determine the hours you want Voice Assist to be used
3. From here, add a branch for a new step.
4. In the new step, select the Voice Assist option. The greeting you set up in step two will be copied here, but you can edit it for a specific call flow if desired.
   1. To enable Voice Assist for overflow handling during business hours or at any other time, add a Dial step, with Voice Assist answering if no one answers the call first. Before the call is routed to Voice Assist, you will want to configure the ring duration. We recommend setting the ring duration to 15 seconds (approximately 4–5 rings) or fewer. After setting the desired ring time, assign Voice Assist as the next step in your call flow.
   2. If you are using an external voicemail system or interactive voice response (IVR), select the checkbox for Prevent voicemail and automated systems from answering a call in the previous dial step. We also recommend either disabling voicemail/IVRs or adjusting their ring duration to prevent conflicts. Voice Assist may not be compatible with all external systems. For assistance with configuration, please contact your account manager.

There are two ways the Voice Assist step can be implemented: without a call transfer and with a transfer.

Without a transfer

This is the default implementation method. Once a caller reaches the Voice Assist step, the Voice Assist will collect caller information and follow all of the parameters you created earlier. Once the caller is finished, the Voice Assist will hang up the call. There cannot be any steps after this in the call flow.

Recommendation: Use this Voice Assist step instead of a regular voicemail step, as it serves a similar purpose and collects more information.

With a transfer

The Voice Assist call flow step has a checkbox labeled Enable Voice Assist to identify caller intent and route calls automatically. If you select this box and turn it on, you will be able to add steps after the Voice Assist step. In this circumstance, Voice Assist will listen for language that matches your selected intent, then initiate the next step in the call flow. The transfer branch has an intent type dropdown, a branch name, an editable keywords/phrases field (CallRail will pre-fill this with intent-specific defaults), and a button to enable caller insights.

There are 5 intent types you can choose from:

• Billing: financial and account questions
• Human Request: caller explicitly asks for a person
• Rescheduling: requests to reschedule an existing appointment
• Support: problems with existing service
• Custom intent: You can define the phrase detection and keywords.

You can create up to 10 branches using dynamic transfer. To add branches, select Add Routing Branch. Then, to add steps after each branch, select the icon to the right, as shown below. Any step can be used here except for another Voice Assist step. 

Recommendation: If the Voice Assist determines the caller wants to speak to someone, include a Dial step that connects them elsewhere, followed by a Voicemail step to end the call. If you want to provide options for a caller to select from, you could instead choose a Menu step.

In addition to creating a custom Call Flow, there are also pre-made Call Flow templates that include Voice Assist steps. These can be found on the Call Flows page (accessible by navigating to Settings > Workflow > Call Flows.

Once the Call Flow is saved:

1. Select your desired tracking number from the Settings > Numbers table.
2. In the Number options page, select Call options. This will open the menu for editing the Forward calls to option.

Select Call Flow, then choose the call flow with Voice Assist enabled. Voice Assist will begin taking and answering calls.

If you wanted to set up your Voice Assist agent first, you could instead follow the steps for creating a new number, then choose to forward the calls to your Voice Assist-enabled call flow.

Voice Assist and spam prevention

Because Voice Assist answers all incoming calls when activated, each call will count towards your usage limits. CallRail is always working to improve spam detection and prevention, but you are also able to implement your own prevention strategies by using a menu within the Voice Assist Call Flow. For example, if a caller reaches the menu and does not respond after three attempts, CallRail will automatically prevent that call from appearing in your call log. This allows you to save Voice Assist connections for legitimate leads and avoid unnecessary charges due to spam.