AI phone answering on the levelpartner.ai platform picks up the calls your team cannot: after hours, during lunch, when every line is busy. A voice agent answers in your firm's name, finds out what the caller needs, captures their details in the CRM and books a callback or a meeting. This guide is about the overflow problem specifically, the calls that currently ring out or land in voicemail, and how to stop losing them.
What happens to your missed calls today
Count them before you change anything. Most firms of 20 to 200 people have a phone system that reports missed calls, and many owners never look at it. When they do, the number is usually higher than expected, and concentrated in early mornings, lunchtimes and the first hour after close.
A missed call from a new prospect is rarely a patient caller. They ring the next firm on the list. Voicemail does not save them; few people leave a message, and fewer still wait for a callback. AI phone answering turns those moments into a conversation, a captured contact and a next step.
How it differs from voicemail and answering services
Voicemail records. A human answering service takes a message and emails it to you. A voice agent on the platform does more: it answers questions from your knowledge base, books directly into a calendar, writes the call summary onto the contact record and triggers whatever workflow you have attached, such as a confirmation text.
The trade-off is nuance. A good human answering service handles an upset caller better. An AI agent handles volume, consistency and the 2am call better. Many firms use the agent for overflow and keep people for the main daytime line.
Before you start
- A phone number on your account, or a forwarding rule from your existing number for unanswered calls.
- Your opening hours, team availability and the calendar the agent may book into.
- A short script: how the agent greets callers and the three or four questions it must ask.
- A knowledge base covering location, services, fees you are happy to state and what happens after the call.
- A rule for urgent calls: who gets notified and how.
How to set it up
- Go to AI Agents > Voice AI and open Agent List.
- Click + Create Agent, select Create Custom Agent, then Continue.
- Enter an Agent Name and select a Voice.
- Select a Model and Language, and set the Timezone.
- Write the prompt: find the reason, collect details, book or call back.
- Configure the Welcome Message with your firm's name and click Save.
- Open Knowledge Base and select the base for routine questions.
- Open Actions, click + New Action and select Appointment Booking.
- Name it, define its trigger, choose your calendar and save it.
- Open the Deploy tab and select your phone number.
- Under Call Routing, choose Use as Backup for unanswered calls.
- Under Working Hours, set a Custom Schedule for after-hours cover.
- Review forwarding, timeout, voicemail and fallback for the number.
- Save the deployment settings.
Where this pays off for each industry
Agencies lose new-business calls that come in while the team is in client meetings. Consultants miss calls during workshops and travel. Mortgage brokers lose evening calls from applicants who only have time after work. Real estate teams get weekend calls about listings when nobody is at a desk. The pattern differs, but the fix is the same: answer every call, capture every caller, book the next step.
Say the firm misses about 60 calls a month after 6pm, and perhaps ten of those callers ring back the next day. With AI phone answering, all 60 would be answered. If about 40 leave full details and around 15 book a call with an adviser, that is 15 booked conversations from calls that would otherwise mostly be lost.
Running time each week
Set-up takes most of a day, chiefly writing the script and testing it. After that, listen to five call recordings a week and read the summaries of any call that ended without a booking. That review takes about 40 minutes and is where most improvements come from.
Owners often give the voice agent a long greeting with a tagline and a menu of services. Callers want to know they reached the right place and get to the point. Keep the greeting under ten seconds and ask what they need straight away.
When not to use AI on the phone
If your callers are frequently distressed, such as people in financial difficulty or clients in a dispute, route those calls to a person or a voicemail with a promised callback. Do not let the agent give regulated advice or confirm anything contractual. If you need the agent to transfer calls live during the day rather than cover overflow, read the AI phone receptionist guide instead. For a high-volume inbound line, the AI call centre article covers the operational side.
Troubleshooting
Callers hang up during the greeting. It is too long or sounds like a sales message. Shorten it to the firm's name, the automated assistant disclosure and one question.
The agent mishears names and emails. Ask callers to spell their email address and confirm it back. Send a text afterwards so they can correct any detail by reply.
Calls during the day go to the agent. The forwarding rule is set to always rather than to unanswered calls. Check the ring time before forwarding and your business hours.
No one sees the call summary. Summaries land on the contact but nobody is notified. Add an internal notification step to the post-call workflow.
Frequently asked questions
Can the agent answer calls on our existing number?
Yes, by forwarding unanswered or after-hours calls from your current number to the number the agent uses. You keep your published number and your existing phone system.
How are AI calls billed?
Call minutes and AI usage are billed as used, on top of your licence. There is no separate subscription for the voice agent: the agent itself runs from €0.080 a minute, with the model's tokens and the call minutes added. Low-volume overflow lines usually cost very little to run.
What if a caller wants a real person?
The agent can take a message, book a callback slot or transfer to a number you specify, depending on your rules. Tell callers upfront that they can ask for a person. The AI receptionist article covers transfer rules across phone and chat.
Will it work for outbound calls too?
Voice agents can make outbound calls, but that is a different job with different rules on consent. In the US, the FCC ruled in February 2024 that AI-generated voices count as artificial voices under the TCPA, so automated calls of this kind need the person's prior consent. For the follow-up use case, see AI follow up.