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Voice AI

Set up your Voice AI agent to answer customer inquires over the phone. The AI agent gives information on store info, recent orders, inventory info, and more.

Overview

Every missed call is a lost sale.

Voice AI answers your store phone in the voice you choose. It verifies callers before discussing anything account-level, checks orders and live inventory, shares points balances and rewards, and signs customers up for loyalty. When a caller needs a person, it warm-transfers with a briefing on who is calling and why. Voice runs on separate rails from SMS, so it is not filtered the way texting is.

Every call comes back with intent, sentiment, resolution, the tools the agent used, and a full transcript. Most operators have never once been able to see what their customers actually call about.

Voice AI shares its knowledge layer with Chat AI through Shared Memory. For an overview of the full suite, see Meet Astro.

This documentation goes over your Voice AI settings. View Voice AI Analytics for the related analytics.

Prerequisites

Before getting started, ensure you have:

Required Permissions:

Voice AI can be accessed by team members with the following permissions:

  • Owner

How to create a Voice Agent

  1. Go to Astro AI→ Voice AI → and click Create Agent

  2. Customize your settings. We’ll go over all of them below

General settings

  • Agent’s name: Helps you identify your agent, for internal use only

  • Recording disclosure: notifies callers that the call is being recorded

    • This message prompts at the start of the call

    • On default, we use the disclosure shown in the field

  • Greetings message: intro message to greet callers

    • Make sure your greeting message includes the {{recording_disclosure}} macro. This will always be shown at the beginning of the message

    • On default, we use the message shown in the field

    • By default. callers cannot interrupt the greeting message. The agent plays it in full before it starts listening, which ensures the recording disclosure is always delivered

    • Greeting interruptions: When enabled, this will allow customers to bypass the greeting/required disclosure when they ask a question.

      Note: Be mindful of how long your greeting message is. Callers, by default, have to listen to the entire message before they can speak. Once the greeting finishes, callers can interrupt the agent normally

  • Extra instructions: Any additional details for how the agent should behave or greet callers

  • Voice: the selected voice your agent will use

    • Click into the field to preview available voice options and make your selection

How to reserve and assign phone numbers

  1. Go to Astro AI→ Voice AI → and click on your agent

  2. Under Phone numbers on the left side, click Get number

    1. Note: If you've already reserved one phone number and wish to reserve another, you'll see a Manage button instead

  3. Review the list of available numbers. You can filter by state or search by area code

  4. Once you find a number you want, click Reserve number

  5. Numbers are assigned to all stores on default. You can reserve multiple numbers and assign to specific locations via the “Assigned to” dropdown.

Note: To temporarily disable your voice agent, click Manage, then Unassign. Your phone number will stay reserved, but is not connected to your agent. If you Delete your agent entirely, you will lose all setup.

Knowledge Base

Your agent’s knowledge base is made up of customizable FAQs, Behaviors, and Knowledge buckets. These are best used for information that lives outside your store data, things a built-in tool wouldn’t know to look up on its own.

Best practices: avoid duplicating what's already automated

If a topic is already covered by a built-in feature (like hours, address, or inventory), you don't need to, and shouldn't, create a matching FAQ, Behavior, or Knowledge bucket for it. Doing so creates two sources of truth for the same question, which can lead to inconsistent or outdated answers if you forget to update the knowledge base later. Let the built-in tool handle it, that's what it's there for.

Quick check before adding a FAQ, Behavior, or Knowledge bucket: Ask "Is this already something the agent can look up live?" If yes, skip it. If no, it's a great candidate for adding to the knowledge base.

Also avoid duplicating information across FAQs, Behaviors, and Knowledge buckets. Have one source of truth for a piece of information. So for example, avoid adding a FAQ and a Knowledge bucket about your loyalty program benefits.

FAQs

Question-and-answer pairs the agent can reference when a caller asks something not covered by the built-in tools.

How to add a FAQ

  1. Go to Astro AI→ Voice AI → and click on your agent

  2. In the FAQ section, click +Add

  3. Add your question and answer

  4. Add keywords

    1. These are variations in how callers may ask the same question. Either add keywords manually or click +Generate keywords to have Astro AI generate some for you

  5. Click Save in the drawer

  6. Make sure to click Save on the main agent settings page as well

Example FAQs

  • “Do you have a refer-a-friend program?”

  • “How does the loyalty program work?” / “How many points do I earn per dollar spent?”

  • “What do I do about defective products?”

  • “What’s your return policy?”

Behaviors

Behaviors are conditional instructions that tell the agent how to behave when specific conditions are met.

How to add a Behavior

  1. Go to Astro AI→ Voice AI → and click on your agent

  2. In the Behavior section, click +Add

  3. Add your conditions and responses

  4. Click Save in the drawer

  5. Make sure to click Save on the main agent settings page as well

Example Behaviors

  • If the caller is not a loyalty member and asks a question about member benefits, then mention they should consider joining the loyalty program once, briefly, without being pushy

  • If the caller says they enjoyed the last pop-up event, then tell them to follow our Instagram at [username] to stay up-to-date on future events

  • If the caller says the only have a credit card, then tell them we only accept cash and debit card

Knowledge Buckets

Knowledge buckets allow you to upload files and links that agents call pull information from.

How to create a Knowledge Bucket

  1. Go to Astro AI→ Voice AI → and click on your agent

  2. In the Knowledge bucket section, click +Create bucket

  3. Add your Name

  4. Add an optional Description

  5. Select a color and icon of your choosing

  6. Add relevant files and links

  7. Click Save in the drawer

  8. Make sure to click Save on the main agent settings page as well

Syncing Knowledge Buckets

Knowledge buckets will sync information automatically, but if you feel that the agent is missing content, then you can click Sync now to force it to run a sync.

Knowledge bases: Shared Memory defaults vs Agent-level

There can be two types of FAQs, Behaviors, and Knowledge buckets displayed in your agent settings:

  1. Those pulling from Shared Memory. These are shared across all agents

    1. These have a Shared Memory • Default tag, which helps differentiate them from agent-specific ones

    2. If you don’t want your agent to use a Shared Memory default, disable the Status toggle

      1. The table is filtered to the Enabled status on default, which shows you only the Shared Memory defaults that your agent is actively using

    3. Editing a Shared Memory FAQ or Behavior at the agent-level:

      1. Any changes at the agent-level will create an override copy that only applies to the specific agent you are editing. The Shared Memory default will disable and a new version will be created with your edits

      2. Any changes to a Shared Memory FAQ or Behavior in your agent-level settings will not push back to the Shared Memory page

    4. You cannot edit or create an override copy of Shared Memory Knowledge buckets. Instead, disable the Shared Memory default, and create a new Knowledge bucket in your agent's settings

  2. FAQs, Behaviors, and Knowledge buckets created specifically for this agent

    1. These do not have a tag

    2. Agent-specific ones will always be enabled (the Status toggle is locked), unless you Delete it to prevent the agent from using it on future calls

    3. FAQs and Behaviors per location

      1. On default, Currently Editing will show Default Preset (Shared) to indicate that these apply to all locations

      2. Select a location from the Currently Editing dropdown if you want to create any per location

Tools

  • Order Lookup: allows the agent to look up the caller’s past orders (up to 30 days) and order statuses. The agent will verify the caller’s identity first

  • Inventory Summary: allows the agent to give a category-level summary of the stock available at your store

    • Note: Inventory pulls directly from your connected POS

  • Inventory Search: allows the agent to give more specific product-level details (search by product name, product-level stock)

    • Note: Inventory pulls directly from your connected POS

  • Store Lookup: allows the agent to give your store’s phone number, address, and hours of operation. It can also confirm whether the store is open or closed at the time of the call

    • Note: Make sure to add your location’s phone number and address in Retail Location settings.

    • Note: Hours pulls from Google business profile based on the address you have listed in Retail Location settings

      • To use custom hours, enable "Use custom hours", select your store, then edit store hours.

  • Transfer to Human: allows the agent to warm-transfer the call to a live representative

    • When enabled, fill out the "Transfer phone number" field where calls will be connected to

    • When a caller asks to speak to a human or live representative, the agent will call the transfer number, give a brief overview of the call, then complete the transfer

  • Hang up: allows the agent to hang up the call once the caller confirms they are done needing assistance. This also allows the agent to end the call if the caller repeatedly asks off-topic questions

    • When enabled, fill out the "Custom hang-up message field" for the agent's closing response

  • Customer Rewards: allows the agent to review a caller’s loyalty point balance and available rewards/discounts. It verifies the caller’s identity first via 2FA if your phone number is not recognized.

  • Customer Insights: allows the agent to share a caller’s purchase history patterns, favorite brands, and shopping trends. It verifies the caller’s identity first via 2FA if your phone number is not recognized.

  • Loyalty Signup: allows the agent to enroll callers into your loyalty program when they express interest in signing up

    • When enabled, select which form you’d like the agent to use during signups

    • Note: Signature cannot be collected via the voice agent. Make sure the form you select has Signature marked as optional

  • FAQ Search: allows the agent to look up information provided in the knowledge base settings (FAQs, Behaviors, and Knowledge buckets)

  • Weather Lookup: allows the agent to give the weather at store locations

How to place a test call

Place a test call in your settings dashboard:

  1. If you have not already, reserve a phone number for your agent

  2. On the left side under your phone number, you should now see a Talk to agent button

  3. Click Talk to agent to place a test call from your settings dashboard

    1. Note: these calls are not recorded and will not show up in Voice AI Analytics. This is purely a quick way for you to place a test call

Place a test call using your personal phone:

  1. If you have not already, reserve a phone number for your agent

  2. Using your personal phone, dial the number that you have reserved

    1. Note: these calls are recorded and will show up in Voice AI Analytics where you can review the call log details and see the inner workings of the agent’s tools

Voice Analytics Overview

On your Voice AI page, you'll see a brief analytics overview for your voice agent(s). This includes:

  • The number of calls received in the last 7 days

  • Resolution rate

  • Average call duration

  • Number of voice agents and stores

  • How many calls are currently live

Click the View full analytics button to view your full Voice AI Analytics.

What the agent can’t do

We covered what the voice agent is set up to do, but it’s also important to discuss what the agent can’t do for your callers.

The agent can’t:

  • Answer any questions outside the scope of our built-in tools or your custom knowledge base

  • Troubleshoot technical issues (e.g. errors while submitting online orders, resetting passwords, etc.)

  • Provide or change personal information (e.g. name, phone number, address, or billing information. Also general loyalty member info such as opt-in statuses, loyalty expiration, etc.)

  • Place orders. This includes online or in-store orders; also can’t place holds or reserve items

  • Redeem rewards/discounts

  • Process returns or issue refunds

  • Provide personal or order information to guest callers. Callers must be verified (have an existing account).

  • Send information via text or email (e.g. the caller asks the agent to send the store’s information via text or email. The agent will only ever send verification codes to verify a caller’s identity)

  • Review previous call logs or notes. The agent has no memory of a customer’s previous calls

  • Speak languages other than English. The agent is limited to English-only for this release

  • Provide advice regarding any personal matters

Need Help?

If you need assistance, reach out to AIQ Support anytime via chat widget within your AIQ Dashboard.

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