TR-AI

Phone voice agent

Phone voice agent

Answer and place calls on your Twilio number from your knowledge base — in several languages, with interruption handling, upset-caller hand-off, live supervision and caller ratings.

Growth Pro Open in TR-AI10 min read
  1. 1
    Enter your Twilio details
    Dashboard → Phone Agent: Account SID, auth token and the phone number. Saving checks the details without changing anything.
  2. 2
    Choose voice and language
    Pick a voice, the caller language, a greeting and optional recording-consent text.
  3. 3
    Set hand-off
    A transfer number and business hours (in your time zone). Outside hours callers can leave a voicemail that becomes a ticket.
  4. 4
    Turn on the extras
    “Text links during calls”, “Transcribe voicemail” and the call-quality options (see below).
  5. 5
    Connect the number
    Click “Connect number”: TR-AI points the number’s voice and status webhooks at itself and shows exactly what changed.
  6. 6
    Try it
    Type a question in “Try it” to see exactly what TR-AI would say.
  • Answers are shortened for speech (no links or markdown, at most a few sentences) and followed by “Did that answer your question?”.
  • Callers who ask for a person, say the answer did not help, sound upset, or are not understood are transferred or offered voicemail.
  • Paid web search and live site search are skipped on calls so answers stay fast.
  • About one AI call per caller question; yes/no, “more detail” and goodbye are handled without AI. Twilio bills its own call minutes to your Twilio account.

Call quality

SettingWhat it does
Speech recognitionAutomatic (Twilio picks), Phone call, Google telephony v2, Deepgram Nova-3 or Conversational. Nova-3 copes best with background noise and with callers who switch language.
Let callers interruptCallers can cut into an answer with a new question. Listening noises (“uh-huh”, “okay”, “mm”) never start a new question; silence and line noise are not counted as turns.
RepeatCallers can say “repeat that” or “sorry?” to hear the last answer again.
Other languagesUp to 3 extra languages. Callers say “en español” or simply speak in that language; TR-AI answers in it with a matching voice.
PronunciationHow product names are spoken (SaaS → sass, SQL → sequel), with a preview. The words also help recognition, together with product names taken from your knowledge base.
Hand upset callers to a personEach caller sentence is scored for frustration. One very angry sentence or two frustrated ones transfer the call (or offer voicemail). Shown on every call.
Rate the callAt the end of answered calls: “On a scale of 1 to 5…”. Callers press or say a number; the average shows on the page.

Outbound calls

With “Allow TR-AI to call customers” on, agents can place a call from the page (number, what it is about, optional ticket). TR-AI opens with “Hello, this is your team calling about …”, then answers the customer’s questions like an inbound call. Answering machines get a short message with a call-back request.

  • Calls are only placed within your business hours, at most once a day per number, and up to your hourly limit.
  • Numbers that texted STOP, were added to “Do not call”, or said “don’t call me again” on a call are never called.
  • Outbound minutes and answering-machine detection are billed by Twilio to your account.

Live calls and take-over

The Live calls section shows calls in progress with their transcript, updated every 3 seconds, and how the caller feels. “Take over” puts the call through to your transfer number straight away.

Texting links during a call

Links can’t be read aloud usefully. With “Text links during calls” on, when an answer cites articles and the caller’s number isn’t withheld, TR-AI asks “Would you like me to text you the link?”. Only on “yes” are the links sent by SMS from the same Twilio number — at most 3 texts per call.

Voicemail and hand-off tickets

  • Voicemails and hang-ups become a ticket in whichever of the 8 supported help desks you connected, tagged tr_ai_voice so TR-AI never answers it itself.
  • With “Transcribe voicemail” on (English voices only), Twilio’s transcript is added to the ticket — in the first comment if it arrives in time, otherwise as an internal note on Zendesk and Freshdesk.
  • If the help desk rejects the ticket, the transcript is emailed to the account owner so no call is lost.
Tips & tricks
  • Keep the greeting short — callers start talking quickly.
  • Short, spoken-style knowledge-base answers work best on the phone; long step lists are better sent as a link by text.
  • Turn on SMS links if your answers often point to setup guides — callers get the exact article instead of a paraphrase.
  • APP_BASE_URL must be your public https address for Twilio signatures to validate.
  • Add your product names to Pronunciation first — it fixes both how TR-AI says them and how well it hears them.
  • Use Deepgram Nova-3 when callers often ring from cars or busy places, or mix languages.
  • Keep outbound purposes short and specific (“your order 1001 being delayed”) — it is the first thing the customer hears.
  • Watch the “Upset callers handed over” number: a rise usually points to a topic your knowledge base answers badly.
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