Auto-Call

Clean Estimate Pro supports phone-based automations through the shared phone number in your workspace. The active telecom provider can be Esendex or Twilio, depending on the setting in Settings > Phone / Voice.

You can use phone automations for two different jobs:

• Inbound routing -- customers call your workspace number, CE Pro rings the office forwarding line, and missed calls can trigger follow-up
• Outbound workflow actions -- automations can place calls or drop voicemails as part of a follow-up sequence

The AI Voice Agent is still available as a separate layer if you want AI to answer or qualify calls, but the base call automation steps no longer depend on it.

How It Works

Inbound customer calls

1. The customer calls your workspace phone number
2. CE Pro logs the inbound call immediately
3. CE Pro rings the configured office forwarding number
4. If nobody answers, CE Pro can record voicemail
5. The call or voicemail appears in the Messages thread and admin alerts

Outbound workflow calls

1. A workflow trigger fires, such as Lead Created, Estimate Accepted, or Missed Call
2. A Make Call or Leave Voicemail step runs
3. CE Pro places the call through the active telecom provider using your workspace number
4. The result is logged into the customer thread and workflow run history

Setting Up Auto-Call

1. Configure Esendex or Twilio
2. Save the workspace number in E.164 format
3. Add a forwarding number if you want inbound calls to ring a real phone first
4. Enable voice in the Phone / Voice settings card
5. Optional: turn on voicemail, recording, and missed-call alerts
6. Build or edit a workflow that uses a phone trigger or call step

When To Use The AI Voice Agent Instead

If your goal is conversational AI, lead qualification, or AI call handling before a human joins, use the AI Voice Agent on top of the base phone setup.

The AI Voice Agent can:

• answer inbound calls to your Twilio number with an AI receptionist when that Twilio voice-agent path is enabled
• place outbound qualification calls from the AI > Voice Agent page
• step in as a fallback when speed-to-lead auto-dial cannot connect an available rep
• capture lead details, summarize the call, and create callback notes in the customer's thread
• warm-transfer qualified callers to an available rep when routing rules allow it

Step Configuration

Make Call

Use Make Call when you want the workflow to place a live outbound call.

Important settings:

• Agent Target -- who should receive the first leg when you are calling an assigned rep flow
• Whisper Message -- the TTS message the rep hears before the customer is connected
• Call Timeout -- how long to ring before giving up
• Record Call -- whether to request call recording
• If No Answer -- retry, continue, or drop voicemail

Leave Voicemail

Use Leave Voicemail when you want the workflow to drop a voicemail without requiring a live rep.

Important settings:

• TTS Message -- the text-to-speech message to leave
• Audio URL -- optional hosted audio file for Twilio voicemail-drop flows
• Voice -- the TTS voice to use when no audio file is provided

Esendex Phase 1 voicemail-drop automation uses text-to-speech scripting. Custom uploaded audio playback is still a Twilio-only path.

Triggers And Actions

Phone automations now support:

• Triggers: Call Received, Call Answered, Missed Call, Voicemail Received, Call Completed
• Actions: Make Call, Leave Voicemail

That means you can build flows like:

• missed call -> send SMS -> create task
• estimate accepted -> thank-you SMS -> make call to assigned rep
• lead created -> make call -> voicemail drop fallback

Best Practices

• Text before you call. A short SMS before the call improves pickup rates because the customer recognizes the number.
• Keep the whisper short. One or two sentences with the customer name and source is enough.
• Use voicemail intentionally. A callback promise and next step work better than a long sales pitch.
• Route missed calls immediately. A missed-call workflow with SMS + task is usually the fastest operational win.

Monitoring Call Performance

Track phone automation performance in two places:

• Workflow run history -- each run shows whether the call connected, failed, or fell back
• Messages inbox -- every call and voicemail is attached to the customer thread

If your connection rate is low, consider:

• adding a pre-call SMS so customers recognize the number
• adjusting timeout and retry settings
• checking that the active telecom number has proper caller ID configured
• confirming the office forwarding number is correct and actually being answered