Set up inbound voice

Get a business phone number, short greeting, handoff rules, and the after-hours test call you should not skip.

Before you buy a number

Voice is not a shortcut around a broken knowledge base. Train the site and docs, give at least one provider real hours, and get calendar sync green in chat first. Callers are less patient than chat visitors; they hang up instead of debugging your setup with you.

Confirm voice is included on the plan. If it isn’t, the inbound screen will say so - don’t fight the UI or guess at phone settings hoping it unlocks.

Decide what “handoff” means for your org before go-live: warm transfer to a human, take a message, or offer a callback. After-hours rules should be explicit. “Just be smart” is not a rule.

Wire-up

Go to AI Agent → Inbound. Search and purchase a business phone number for your market, or follow the forwarding instructions if you keep your existing business line and send overflow / after-hours to AptaBook.

Keep the greeting short. Callers hang up on 40-second intros that list every service you sell. Name the business, say you can help book or answer common questions, then stop talking.

Define who gets the warm transfer during business hours, and what happens nights and weekends. If nobody answers the transfer target, the caller hears failure - even if the AI did everything right. Test the human leg the same day you test the bot.

The only test that matters

Call from a personal cell after hours. Ask something your site actually answers (hours, parking, a real service). Then try to book. Then try a question that should escalate.

Open Call history and read the transcript. Fix knowledge gaps and mapping errors there - not in a slide deck for the team meeting. If the transcript invents a fee, find the stale PDF and retrain.

Repeat the call once from a noisy place (car, sidewalk). If the agent mishears your service names, add clearer wording in knowledge or shorten the menu of bookable services until recognition is reliable.

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