How to set up Voice Assist

Voice Assist is set up per company in your CallRail account. The menu can be accessed by selecting Settings, then Workflow. Voice Assist will be a link on the left-side menu.

There are five onboarding steps for setting up Voice Assist. While only the first (setting up a Business Profile) and last (enabling Voice Assist in a Call Flow) are mandatory, we recommend completing the onboarding process in its entirety.

Please note: Voice Assist requires Call recording to be enabled in your CallRail account and enabled in the Call Flow. It does not require call transcriptions or a regular/premium conversation intelligence plan. However, if transcriptions are not turned on or CI/PCI is not enabled, Voice Assist will not be able to use previous call data to create a Business Profile. This could affect Voice Assist accuracy. 

Step One: Configure your Business Profile

The Business Profile can be accessed from Settings > Workflow in the left-side menu or from a link on the Voice Assist page. It is the cognitive center of your AI agent. From this page, CallRail can automatically generate a profile for your Voice Assist to use when answering inbound calls.

1. Select the Company details tab, then enter your:
   1. Company name,
   2. phone number,
   3. and timezone.
2. Navigate back to the Smart profile tab, and enter your business hours.
3. In the Website box, enter your business URL.
4. Select Autofill from this website.

From here, CallRail will use your website and existing call transcripts, if available, to fill in the remaining fields. This step can take several minutes, depending on the amount of data that is processed. You can leave this page while the processing occurs, but you MUST return and save your profile before Voice Assist can be used.

Once CallRail has finished creating your Business Profile, a green confirmation box will appear on the page. The Company overview and Value prop, Target customers, Services, Service area, and Frequently asked questions fields will be filled in.

Take some time to review this information and make edits as needed. Make sure to follow each field’s instructions when editing (for example, use complete sentences in the Target customers field). We have some best practices for creating a Business Profile listed below.

When you are finished, select Save changes. Your profile will now be used by Voice Assist to answer incoming calls, which we will set up later in this guide.

For more information on setting up your business profile, please view this article.

Step Two: Configure AI voice settings

From the Voice Assist page, select AI voice settings. You will be redirected to a page for customizing your Voice Assist’s voice, tone, and greeting. Once you have made your selections, you can preview your agent by selecting Preview greeting.

Below the Preview greeting button is a text box titled Voice Assist call behavior (optional). Use this text box to add special instructions for how Voice Assist should behave in certain situations, like asking callers to spell out certain pieces of information for better accuracy or speaking quicker than normal. This is different from FAQs on the business profile, which focus on the information that should be given in response to certain questions. 

When you are finished, select Use this voice.

Step Three: Configure caller intake settings

From the Voice Assist page, select Caller intake settings. 

CallRail’s Voice Assist will always ask for the caller's full name, phone number, and reason for calling. If you want the Voice Assist to ask more questions, you can add them on this page. The Voice Assist will ask the questions in the order presented on this page. If you do not like the order in which the questions are asked, you can use the custom questions (described below) to set the order you want. When you are finished, select Apply selection.

There are three types of intake questions you can add, outlined below:

Standard questions

These are questions we have added based on common trends we see from our customers. These can be toggled on and off by selecting their corresponding switches on the right side of the screen. They will turn green once they have been toggled on.

Lead Qualification questions

These questions will compare what your caller is asking about to your Business Profile. You can preview what information these questions use before deciding whether or not to turn the questions on. By using these questions, you can have Voice Assist pre-screen callers and tag the call based on its findings. Tags will be created as either Voice Assist - Lead Qualified or Voice Assist - Lead Disqualified.

 For example, if a caller is based in a different city then what is on your Service Area, the caller will be tagged as Voice Assist - Lead Disqualified in your call log. 

Custom questions

Here, you can add questions that are catered to your business. To add one, select Add a custom question, then describe the information you want to collect. We have included some example prompts on the page to help guide you.

Next, give your custom question a label. This is how the question will appear in the intake settings page as well as the information captured on the timeline and call log. It will not affect the in-call experience.

When you are finished, select Save question. The custom question will appear on the client intake settings page.

You can add as many custom questions as you like, but we recommend only including two or three so that the call sounds natural.

Step Four: Test your Voice Assist agent

We recommend testing your Voice Assist agent before implementing it fully. This way, you can hear the agent's voice and cadence, confirm the information in your Smart profile is correct, and hear the custom questions you have entered.

Placing a test call counts towards used minutes and is reflected on your invoice. If you are in a Voice Assist trial, that call is free.

1. From the Voice Assist page, select Test Assistant.
2. Enter the phone number you want to pick up the test call on.
3. Select the tracking number you want to use for a test call. You can select any number associated with your company.
4. Select Start test call. A new window will appear, indicating that the test call is taking place. You can close that window at any point; the call itself will not be affected.

When you are finished with the test call, you can either proceed to step five or make further edits to your business profile using steps 1, 2, and 3.

Please note: If you are an agency working with multiple clients, we have seen success with creating a tracking number exclusively for demoing Voice Assist. This way, all you need to provide for your demo is a phone number for customers to call.

Step Five: Enable Voice Assist

Enabling Voice Assist in your Number Settings

1. Select the Settings icon on the left navigation bar.

2. Choose the company whose tracking number you'd like to update.

3. Select the Pencil icon for the tracking number you’d like to update to go to its main configuration page.

4. On the next screen, select the Pencil icon in the Call Options menu.

5. Choose to have your calls forwarded to a Number.

There are two options on this screen for turning on Voice Assist. You can have either option turned on, or both at the same time.

• After hours: your Voice Assist agent will pick up at any time outside of the business hours you entered earlier in the Business Profile.

• Overflow: your Voice Assist agent will pick up any unanswered calls after a set number of seconds. This duration can be edited by choosing a time from the drop-down menu.

Enabling Voice Assist in a Call Flow

Voice Assist can also be 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 includes a checkbox labeled "Enable Voice Assist" to identify caller intent and automatically route calls. 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: The caller explicitly asks for a person
• Rescheduling: requests to reschedule an existing appointment
• Support: problems with an 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.

Optional steps for optimizing your Voice Assist agent

Enable follow-up text messages

Please note: This feature is only available for CallRail customers who have completed 10DLC registration and have text messaging enabled in their Number settings. You can begin 10DLC registration here, or learn more in our Help Center.

From the Voice Assist page, select Text messages. 

The next screen will have message templates that can be toggled on and off by selecting their corresponding buttons. At this time, Voice Assist features an automated follow-up workflow that sends a customizable SMS to callers after the call has ended. This message can include a link to your scheduling tool of choice (Calendly, Acuity, Google Calendar, etc.), allowing callers to select a time that works best for them.

Appointment booking

These messages will be triggered when Voice Assist detects that a caller wants to schedule an appointment of some kind. You can edit both the message and include a URL for scheduling a meeting. The URL will be added at the end of the message automatically, and does not need to be typed out in the message box.

This message will apply the Voice Assist - Schedule request tag to the conversation in the call log.

Enable Voice Assist email notifications

1. From your home screen, select your account icon in the top left corner, then Notifications.
2. On the left, select Calls & texts, since we are creating a notification centered around phone calls.
3. Select Create notification.
4. Choose which company the notification should apply for. This will be the company with Voice Assist enabled.
5. Select an existing CallRail user or a new email address to send the notification to.
6. Make sure the button for receiving text interactions is not selected (Voice Assist only works with phone calls).
7. Select Customize.
8. On the next screen, select Only Voice Assist calls.
   1. You can also decide to filter based on lead qualification if you choose.
9. Select Delivery, choose your method, then select Save.