Resources & Guides

Quick-start checklist

The five steps every new account should complete before going live — AI name, working hours, services, pricing, and phone forwarding.

1. Sign in and open Dashboard → Edit AI.
2. Set your business name, type, and service area.
3. Enter your working hours and choose your emergency-call handling option.
4. Add your services and pricing policy.
5. Forward your number to your Callout AI line (see below).

Forwarding your phone number

Forward calls from your existing business number to your Callout AI number so every unanswered call is caught.

Placing a test call

Make a test call directly to your Callout AI number from the Dashboard before going live.

1. From the Dashboard, find your AI line card and click Test call.
2. Answer your phone — the AI will ring you.
3. Run through a sample enquiry: give a name, describe a job, give a callback number.
4. Check the Calls tab — the transcript and lead capture should appear within a few seconds.

Install the app & get phone alerts

Add Callout AI to your home screen and get push-notified the moment a lead comes in.

1. Open the site on your phone and tap Install app at the bottom of the screen — on iPhone use Share → Add to Home Screen.
2. Open the installed app and tap Enable alerts in the sidebar.
3. Lead alerts also arrive by email, so you never miss one.

Choosing a voice

Pick from six natural ElevenLabs voices — British, American, and Australian accents in male and female. Go to Dashboard → Edit AI → Voice and click the play button on each card to preview before saving.

Working hours & urgent transfers

Working hours tell the AI when to offer live transfers vs. take a message. Three modes:

• Always available (24/7): AI transfers urgently at any hour.
• Same as working hours: Transfers during hours; takes a message out of hours.
• Messages only: Never transfers — always takes a message.

Use the Escalation trigger field to tell the AI exactly when to treat a call as urgent, e.g. "caller mentions flooding, gas smell, or no heating".

Services & pricing

Enter your services so the AI knows what you offer. For pricing, choose between two modes:

• Quote exact prices: Enter a visit fee, hourly rate, and a list of job prices. The AI quotes these accurately and defers anything not listed.
• Owner will call back with price: AI never quotes a number — always defers to you. Safer if pricing is highly variable.

Knowledge base & Q&A pairs

The knowledge base is free-text information the AI uses to answer caller questions. Keep it factual and brief. Good things to include:

• Qualifications and accreditations (Gas Safe registered, NAPIT, etc.)
• Payment methods accepted
• Warranty or guarantee terms
• Areas you don't cover

Q&A pairs let you provide exact answers to specific questions — the AI uses your exact wording when a caller asks that question.

Google Calendar booking

Connect your Google Calendar so the AI can book appointments live on the call.

1. Go to Account → Integrations → Google Calendar.
2. Click Connect Google Calendar and authorise access.
3. The AI will check your free/busy times and offer slots to callers in real time.
4. If a slot is taken between the AI checking and the caller confirming, the AI offers the next available slot.

Booking URL (Calendly / Fresha / Booksy)

If you use a third-party booking tool, paste its URL in Edit AI → Booking URL. The AI will collect the caller's name and number, then tell them you'll send a booking link — it doesn't try to book on your behalf.

Transcripts & recordings

Every call appears in the Calls tab with a full transcript, duration, and any details the AI captured. The lead panel shows:

• Name — caller's name as confirmed on the call
• Number — callback number, read back digit-by-digit by the AI
• Urgency — emergency, urgent, or routine
• Summary — brief description of what the caller needs

Call recordings (Pro plan and above) add an audio player to every call so you can listen back to the whole conversation.

Leads — your contacts

Every caller is added to Leads automatically, one row per contact. Repeat callers are grouped by phone number, with counts of their live appointments and orders plus a booking badge. Search and filter to prioritise follow-ups.

Enquiries — CRM pipeline

The Enquiries page is your action inbox for service requests and orders. Work each one through New → Contacted → Quoted → Won → Lost as a table or a drag-and-drop Kanban board, with per-enquiry follow-up dates and overdue reminders.

Bookings — your calendar

Appointments the AI books into your connected Google Calendar (Pro plan and above) appear under Bookings, marked Confirmed or Cancelled. Reschedule or cancel and the Google event updates automatically. Undated requests wait on Enquiries with a Book it button.

Insights — caller trends

The Insights page (Pro plan and above) turns your calls into trends: call volume over time, busiest hours, the services callers ask about most, and how many leads and bookings you captured.

Exporting your data

Export your captured leads as a CSV (opens straight in Excel or Google Sheets) from the Leads page or your Dashboard. You can also download all your data — account, AI lines, and every lead — as JSON for a full backup or GDPR copy.

Inviting team members

Give staff access to calls, contacts, and the dashboard without sharing your login. Go to Account → Team → Invite. Team members can view everything but cannot change the AI configuration, billing, or API keys.

Managing your subscription

Upgrade, downgrade, update payment details, or cancel through the Stripe billing portal. From any account page click Billing in the sidebar. Changes to your plan take effect immediately. Downgrading removes access to plan-gated features (recordings, warm transfer, etc.) at the end of your billing period.

Adding another AI line

Your plan includes multiple AI lines — Standard 1, Pro 2, Business 5, Enterprise unlimited — each with its own number, voice, and configuration. Add one at Dashboard → Add another AI. Lines are included up to your plan's limit at no extra charge; to run more, upgrade your plan. Minutes are pooled across every line. The last line can't be removed — cancel the subscription instead.

Webhook (Zapier / Make / CRM)

Every captured lead is POST-ed to your webhook URL within seconds of the call ending. Set your URL in Account → Integrations → Webhook URL. The payload is signed with X-Callout-Signature: sha256=<HMAC> (HMAC-SHA256 over the raw request body, hex-encoded) using your signing secret — shown next to the Webhook URL field once you save one. Use the Send test lead button to confirm delivery before relying on it.

{
  "event": "lead.captured",
  "business": "My Heating Co",
  "line": "Main line",
  "call_id": "uuid",
  "at": "2026-06-10T09:14:00Z",
  "lead": {
    "name": "John Smith",
    "phone": "07700900123",
    "service_needed": "Boiler service quote",
    "urgency": "routine",
    "address_or_postcode": "M1 2AB",
    "email": "[email protected]",
    "preferred_callback": "tomorrow morning",
    "notes": ""
  }
}

import crypto from "node:crypto";

// rawBody = the exact bytes received. Do NOT JSON.parse then re-stringify.
function verify(rawBody, signature, secret) {
  const expected = "sha256=" + crypto
    .createHmac("sha256", secret)
    .update(rawBody)
    .digest("hex");
  const a = Buffer.from(signature || "");
  const b = Buffer.from(expected);
  return a.length === b.length && crypto.timingSafeEqual(a, b);
}

import hmac, hashlib

def verify(raw_body: bytes, signature: str, secret: str) -> bool:
    expected = "sha256=" + hmac.new(
        secret.encode(), raw_body, hashlib.sha256
    ).hexdigest()
    return hmac.compare_digest(signature or "", expected)

REST API & API keys

Pull your calls, leads, and line data into your own systems using the REST API. Generate a key at Account → API Keys. Keys begin with sk_ — treat them like passwords and never expose them client-side. Available endpoints:

• GET /api/v1/calls — call history with transcripts.
• GET /api/v1/leads — leads rolled up per caller.
• GET /api/v1/enquiries — item-level service requests & orders.
• GET /api/v1/lines — your AI lines and their status.

All list endpoints accept limit (1–500, default 100), offset (default 0), and since (ISO 8601).

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_…" \
  "https://calloutai.co.uk/api/v1/leads?limit=20&since=2026-06-01"

{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "uuid",
      "created_at": "2026-06-10T09:14:00Z",
      "name": "John Smith",
      "phone": "07700900123",
      "message": "Needs a boiler service quote",
      "urgency": "callback",
      "source": "call",
      "trade": "Heating & Gas"
    }
  ],
  "count": 1,
  "limit": 20,
  "offset": 0
}

Native integrations (Pro+)

Business plan accounts can connect Slack, HubSpot, and Zendesk directly from Account → Integrations. Leads are pushed as Slack messages, HubSpot contacts, or Zendesk tickets — no Zapier required.

AI not answering calls

• Forwarding not set up: Check your call divert is pointing to your Callout AI number (shown on the Dashboard).
• Line not provisioned: The Dashboard shows a green "Active" badge when provisioning is complete. If it shows "Provisioning" or "Error", contact support.
• Account paused: A failed payment pauses the AI. Update your payment method in Billing and the AI resumes automatically.

Transcripts not showing

• Transcripts typically appear within 5–30 seconds of a call ending. Refresh the Calls tab.
• Very short calls (<10 seconds) may not generate a transcript if the caller hung up before speaking.
• If transcripts are consistently missing, contact support and we'll check your line's configuration.

Google Calendar not booking

• Go to Integrations — if the status shows "Disconnected", reconnect via OAuth.
• Ensure the calendar you want the AI to use is the primary calendar on the Google account you connected.
• If slots show as busy when they shouldn't, check you haven't accidentally blocked off time in Google Calendar.

AI giving wrong answers

• Open Edit AI → Knowledge base and add or correct the specific information.
• For exact answers to recurring questions, use Q&A pairs — the AI will use your exact wording.
• Add clear instructions in Special instructions to override any default behaviour.

Still need help?

Can't find what you're looking for? Our team is on hand to help.