Test your assistant

What to check before real customers call it.

Open AI Receptionist → Test your agent.

Do not skip this. Reading a configuration tells you what you intended; a test call tells you what you built.

Two ways to test

Test agent in the browser — fastest for iterating. Talk to it directly from the dashboard.

A real phone call — how customers will actually experience it. Phone audio is narrower and more compressed, so always confirm on a real call before going live.

Test as your worst caller, not your best

Anyone can have a good call with their own assistant, because you know what to say. Test the awkward cases:

• Mumbling, or a noisy background.
• Interrupting mid-sentence.
• Asking something you have not covered.
• Asking for a price on your most complicated service.
• Asking for a human immediately.
• Being rude.
• Asking "am I talking to a robot?"
• Going quiet.
• Changing your mind halfway through a booking.

The checklist

Greeting — correct name, right business, and short enough not to be interrupted.

Knowledge — ask about your three most common enquiries. Every answer correct?

Prices — ask what things cost. Are the numbers right, and does it decline to guess where it should?

Boundaries — ask about something you do not do. Does it say no and offer a referral, or invent a service?

Qualification — play a good lead and a poor one. Do the scores reflect reality?

Booking — book an appointment. Does it appear in the calendar with the right details?

Transfer — ask for a human. Does the line get spoken, the right phone ring, and the whisper play?

Emergency — describe an emergency in your business's terms. Does it escalate?

Write-up — hang up and read the summary. Would your team know what to do from it alone?

Listen for these failure modes

Inventing things. The most serious. It should say it does not know.

Being interrupted. If it talks over callers, move response speed toward Patient.

Mishearing terms. Add them under Specialized terms.

Rambling. Tighten the tone instructions.

Refusing to transfer. Fix immediately — it makes callers furious.

Test the routing too

A perfect assistant on a number pointing somewhere else helps nobody. Call the actual published number and confirm the assistant answers it.

After you change anything

Retest. Prompt edits have effects you will not predict from reading them — a line added to fix one behaviour frequently changes another.

Use Version history to compare against what worked, and restore if a change made things worse.

Before going live

• Prices correct.
• Hours correct and matching Settings → Business hours.
• Transfer destination set and answering.
• Fallback set for unanswered transfers.
• Recording and AI disclosure appropriate for your jurisdiction — see Recording, consent & AI disclosure.
• Enough AI minutes for expected volume — see AI minutes & usage.