Taking a call with Call Assist

What Call Assist is#

Call Assist is an optional add-on for a Helpdesk Agent, a Sales Expert or a Team Expert. While you are on the phone with a customer, it listens to the call and shows you the answer from your own documents on your screen. When the call ends, it writes the summary and files the call as a ticket or a lead (a Team Expert keeps the call on its Calls tab).

It does not answer the phone, make calls, or speak to the caller. You stay on the call and decide what to say.

If the Calls tab on your agent says Coming soon, Call Assist is not on sale yet. Call Assist is not available to businesses in the United States.

What you need#

• A computer with Chrome or Edge. Call Assist does not run in the phone app.
• A Helpdesk Agent, Sales Expert or Team Expert with Call Assist added. The account owner adds it from the agent's Calls tab.
• The Call Assist tick on your own login. The owner sets this under Users; someone added to the team later starts without it.

Taking a call#

1. Open your agent and choose the Calls tab.
2. Press Open the call window before you pick up. A small window opens beside your work.
3. The first time on a computer, say how you take calls. You only choose this once; the window remembers it on that computer.
   • A call in a browser tab (Teams, Meet, a web phone): choose the tab and switch on Also share tab audio.
   • A calling app on this computer: choose Entire screen and switch on Also share system audio. Use a headset. On a Mac, Chrome or Edge needs one permission first: System Settings ▸ Privacy & Security ▸ Screen & System Audio Recording, then tick your browser (macOS 14.2 or later).
   • A phone on speaker next to the computer: it uses your microphone, so it hears both of you. Your own words count as listening and may show an answer.
   • A desk phone or mobile: you type what the caller asks. Nothing is listened to.
4. Press Start. Under it, a small drawing shows the switch to turn on in your browser's sharing box. Every call after the first opens straight on the Start button, with the way you chose shown under it.
5. Ask the caller first. Tell them an assistant is listening to help answer their questions. When they agree, press They agreed. If they say no, press They declined.

Until you press They agreed, nothing the caller says is used. On a call in a browser tab or a calling app, pressing They agreed also pops the answers out into a small window that floats over your call. If you share your whole screen in the meeting, that window shows too, so share one window instead (or use Hide answers).

Changing how you take calls#

Press the ⋯ menu at the top right of the call window, then How I take calls, and tick another way (or press Change under the Start button). The window remembers it on that computer, so a headset app at the office and a browser tab at home can each have their own. If you change it during a call, that call carries on as it is and the new way is used from your next call.

During the call#

• Each time the caller asks something, an answer card appears, usually about 3 seconds after they finish. The headline is the thing to say first; the source document is shown underneath.
• As soon as the caller has asked, a yellow line shows Checking your documents, with the documents it is looking in (for example Looking in: Delivery zones). When the answer is ready the line turns green, Found in your documents, and names the document the answer came from. If the answer is not in your documents, it says so.
• Not in your documents means the answer is not in what you have given your agent. Nothing is guessed.
• You can type a question yourself at any time.
• Under each answer are buttons. More detail gives the fuller explanation: figures, limits and exceptions. Steps to fix (Helpdesk Agent) is a walk-through to read out; on a Sales Expert it is Ways to reply, for when the caller pushes back on price or timing (a Team Expert has neither). Likely next questions shows what the caller may ask next; tap one to answer it. Each is written when you press it, from your documents, and uses a little of your allowance the first time. Pressing it again shows the same answer and costs nothing.
• Sometimes a card adds Ask them: a question to put to the caller, when the answer depends on something they have not said yet (which suburb, which size).
• Pin keeps an answer in a strip at the top for the rest of the call. Pinned answers are ticked for the follow-up email.
• Ask about this tags your next typed question with that answer, so "what about weekends?" stays on its subject.
• More on a card: Copy the answer, Fix what was heard (correct the question and look it up again in the same place) and Hide this answer (a wrong card is folded away and left out of the record and the email).
• Under each answer is where it came from: the document, the section and, when we know it, when that document was last updated.
• Heard so far shows the name, email and phone number the caller gives, as they say them. Each is marked check the spelling until you tick it. They fill in the form after the call. A card number is never shown.
• Who is calling? Type a name, email or phone number to see that person's earlier tickets, leads and calls. When an email or number the caller says matches someone on file, the window offers Link this call. You can also start from a ticket or lead: press Call about this there and the call starts already linked to it.
• If you are reading an older answer when a new one arrives, the window does not move. A bar shows the new question and its answer; press it to go there.
• A slow answer says Still looking, then offers Try again. Trying again is charged once.
• Pause stops listening for a moment (for example while the caller reads out a card number).
• The ⋯ menu at the top right holds the rest: Hide answers clears the screen if someone is looking over your shoulder, and Pop out opens the floating answers window again if you closed it.
• After three minutes with nobody speaking, the window pauses itself and says so. It never ends your call. Press Resume to carry on. On a very long call it asks Still on this call?
• If the window can hear you but not your caller, it says We can't hear your caller and shows what to switch on.
• Add a note to self as you go; notes are kept with the call.
• If your internet drops, the window says so. Your call carries on and answers return when the connection does.

After the call#

Press Finish (it does not hang up your phone). Call Assist writes a short summary and a to-do list, and fills in the caller's name and contact details where they said them. Check them, then choose:

• New ticket (Helpdesk Agent) or New lead (Sales Expert), or add the call to one that already exists.
• Keep the call only, if it needs no ticket or lead.
• Discard, to throw the call away.

On a Team Expert there are no tickets or leads, so the call is kept on the Calls tab with its summary, to-dos, the caller's details and the answers shown: press Keep this call.

The form also lists the questions answered on the call. Tick the ones to put in the follow-up email (pinned answers are already ticked). On a Helpdesk Agent, say how it ended: solved on the call closes the ticket, needs follow-up leaves it open. On a Sales Expert you can say how interested the caller was (Keen, Interested or Just asking) and set a reminder date to follow up.

On the ticket or lead afterwards, Draft the follow-up email writes the "as promised" email from the answers you ticked and the to-do list, into the normal reply box. Nothing is sent until you press send.

Filing a call does not email the customer. If you close the window before filing, the call waits under Calls to file on the Calls tab. The account owner can also file a call a team member left unfiled.

What it did this month#

The top of the Calls tab sums up the month in one line: how many calls, how many answers were found on them, and about how much time looking things up that saved. The account owner sees the whole team's calls, under Recent calls too; everyone else sees their own. The weekly summary email adds the same for the week, and answers found on calls count in your questions answered.

Your settings#

On the Calls tab, the account owner can change:

• Most listening in one day (minutes). A safety limit: when a day's calls reach it, answers stop until tomorrow. The call itself is not affected.
• Words the assistant should listen for. Product names, codes and places, so they are heard correctly.

In a franchise, head office switches Call Assist on and chooses which assistants at each location have it, and it may set the daily limit for every location.

What is kept, and what is not#

• The sound of a call is never stored.
• The words of a call are never kept. They are deleted as soon as the summary has been written, and there is no setting that keeps them.
• The summary, the answers shown, your notes and the caller's details stay with the ticket or lead.
• A call kept on its own (no ticket or lead) is deleted on the same schedule as your conversations.

Your responsibilities#

You must tell every person on the call that an assistant is listening, and have their agreement, before pressing They agreed. The rules on listening to calls differ between countries and states, and meeting them is your responsibility. See our Terms.

What it costs#

Call Assist is a monthly add-on for each agent you add it to. It includes about 20 hours of calls a month: an estimate from our own measured calls, for an hour of steady talk with questions asked, so quieter calls go further. Calls and chats share that capacity, and listening uses it whether or not an answer is shown. Busier months can add a top-up pack. The current price is on the Call Assist page and on your agent's Calls tab.

When Call Assist is available you can add it while you buy an agent (in the cart, or with one tick at checkout), or later from that agent's Calls tab.

Cancelling#

The account owner can cancel Call Assist from Account Details. The agent and its plan are not affected, and calls already taken can still be filed.