AI Voice Agents ยท contact centre automation
AI voice agents for business calls and customer-service workflows
AI-powered voice agents designed to handle defined business call workflows and hand conversations to people when human judgement is needed. Vantrel scopes the job with you, sets the rules, and runs it.
What it is
What an AI voice agent is, who it is for, and what it can do
An agent takes on one job with a clear trigger and a clear end, does it within rules set for it, and runs on the business phone system, so the phone layer and the people are designed in from the start.
An AI voice agent is software that holds a spoken conversation with a caller to complete one defined job, inside rules the business sets, and passes the call to a person when the job needs human judgement. It suits a business that has call types which recur in the same shape, such as bookings, confirmations or a known set of enquiries, and wants them handled consistently, in and out of hours, without adding people to answer them.
Defined call workflowsWhat an agent can take on
- 01Answering defined call typesthe call types you name, in the hours you set
- 02Capturing caller informationname, reason for the call and the details the job needs
- 03Handling common enquiriesquestions with a known answer from material you approve
- 04Bookings and scheduling, where configuredagainst the calendar the business already runs
- 05Qualification, where configuredthe questions you would ask first, recorded for a person
- 06Confirmations, where configuredreading a booking or detail back to the caller
One job, traced
A booking agent, from trigger to what is recorded
An illustrative job: a booking agent for a business that takes appointments by phone. Everything here is an example of how such a job is defined, not a description of a live agent; a real agent is scoped from the business's own call types. The anatomy is the same for each job; what changes is where the agent stops and who it hands to.
- 01Trigger
A call to the bookings number, in or out of hours.
Inbound - 02What the agent uses
The booking calendar the business already runs, and the rules the business gives it (hours, services, how long each takes).
Your systems - 03What it does
Identifies the reason for the call, offers available times, makes or changes the booking, and reads the confirmation back.
Agent - 04Where it stops
A request outside its rules, a caller who asks for a person, a question it cannot answer from what it has.
Boundary - 05Who takes over
A person, with the caller's name, the reason and what has happened so far passed along; your own staff or Vantrel's human answering team, set for your business.
Person - 06What is recorded
The booking in the calendar, and a note of the call for the business.
Recorded
What runs the agent's calls
Numbers, a phone system, a site's connection
An agent answers calls on numbers, through a phone system, over a site's connection. It sits behind a number or a call-flow step, so the business's existing numbers and routing carry on, and it is designed as part of the call flow rather than bolted on beside it.
When a person takes over
Each row ends with a person
- 01The caller asks for a person
The agent stops and hands over, with the context passed.
Your staff or Vantrel's team - 02The request is outside its rules
The call goes to a person, with the context passed.
Your staff or Vantrel's team - 03A sensitive topic, a complaint, or a caller in difficulty
The agent hands over.
A person
What a discussion covers
The job, the systems, the hand-off, the test
What drives the cost is the number of jobs, the call volume, the share handed to a person, the systems the agent connects to, and the phone layer where one is needed. Platform-specific details, including integrations and how calls are handled and stored for your set-up, are confirmed during solution design rather than assumed.
- The job: the call types, where they come from, and how often
- The systems the agent needs: the calendar, the record, the knowledge it answers from
- The hand-off: who takes over, by what route, and in which hours
- Testing before go-live, agreed with you
Questions
What is an AI voice agent?
Software that holds a spoken conversation with a caller to do one defined job, such as taking a booking or answering a common enquiry, within rules set for it, and hands the call to a person when the job needs human judgement.
What happens when the agent cannot help?
The call goes to a person, with the caller's name, the reason for the call and what has happened so far passed along. Who that person is (your own staff or Vantrel's human answering team) and by what route is set for your business.
Do we need a new phone system?
No. The agent sits behind a number or a step in your existing call flow. Where the phone system needs changing for other reasons, that is a separate decision.
Which systems does it connect to?
That depends on the job. Which integrations are available for your calendar, records or knowledge sources is confirmed during solution design.
Is this an AI receptionist?
Answering calls is one job an agent can do, and it is described on the Business Call Answering page. This page is about the wider range of defined call workflows an agent can take on.
How is a job scoped?
From the business's own call types. Vantrel sets the rules with you, and how the agent is tested before go-live is agreed during solution design.
Discuss one job you would hand to an agent
Bring the job that eats the most time, how often it happens, and who should take over when the agent cannot continue.