Getting Started with Forethought Voice

Forethought Voice makes customer support faster and easier—no long wait times or complicated IVR menus. With human-like interactions, it efficiently resolves both simple and complex issues in a single phone call.  Forethought Voice is available to all customers on the Professional and Enterprise tier. 

Key Benefits of Using Forethought Voice

• Fast Support. Solve customer inquiries in seconds with accurate, real-time responses—no wait times, just solutions.
• Perform Tasks. Handles common tasks like checking orders, managing subscriptions, and resetting passwords. With Autoflows and Action Builder, you can create custom actions that automate these processes—enhancing your AI agent’s capabilities for a smoother, more efficient customer experience. 
• Seamless Agent Handoff. When a call needs a human touch, Forethought Voice transfers key details—caller info, sentiment, and call summary—so agents can jump in with full context.
• Multi-Language Support. Speak your customers’ language. Assign unique phone numbers for different languages to provide localized, seamless support.

Use Case

Before setting up Forethought Voice, it's important to understand how it enhances customer support. Consider this scenario:

A customer just bought a new product online. Two days later, she wants to check her order status, so she picks up her phone and dials the store’s support number.

Instead of waiting on hold or navigating a maze of menu options, she’s instantly greeted by an AI voice agent:

📞 "Hello. This is [AI Voice Agent Name] from XYZ customer support. How can I help you today?"

She asks about her order status. The AI voice agent quickly verifies her order ID, retrieves the details, and responds:

📞 "Your product has already shipped and will arrive tomorrow!"

In under a minute, the customer gets the answer she needs—no long wait times, no frustration. She hangs up, relieved and impressed by the seamless experience.

With Forethought Voice, businesses can:

• Deliver instant, personalized customer support
• Reduce agent workload by handling routine inquiries
• Provide a seamless, stress-free phone support experience

Set Up

To start using Forethought Voice, you first need to integrate a phone number. For a detailed guide, see Forethought Voice Integration.

Set up Phone Number

Set up a phone number to integrate with your help desk or phone service. You can customize each number with different voice settings and languages. Follow these steps to set up your phone number:

1. Go to Solve > Configuration > Voice tab > Phone.
   
2. Click + Phone number.
   
3. Enter a 3-digit US or Canadian area code to search for available numbers.
4. Select the phone number(s) you want to add.
   Note: You can add up to five phone numbers.
5. Click Add to complete the setup.

Configure Forethought Voice

Customize your AI voice agent to match your brand and business needs by following these steps:

1. In the Voice configuration page, click Voice.
   
2. On the right side of your screen, click Voice.
3. Select the phone number you want to configure with your call center.
   
4. Configure these settings to personalize the AI voice agent: 
   • Language: Select the language for your AI voice agent. This language will be used for both greeting and the entire conversation. Each phone number can have only one assigned language.
   • Company name: Enter your company’s name.
   • AI agent name: Name your AI agent.
   • Greeting: Customize the initial message that callers will hear.
   • Default handoff number: Enter a phone number. This phone number will be used in cases of unexpected errors or interruptions. 
   • AI voice: Choose from a diverse range of AI voice personalities, including male and female voices with unique characters and accents. Whether you need an American man, a British woman, a helpful French lady, or many more, there's a voice to match your needs.

Connect your Knowledge Base

By integrating your knowledge base, you can improve the accuracy and relevance of responses provided by your AI voice agent. To connect your knowledge base, follow these steps:

1. In the Voice configuration page, click Knowledge.
   
2. Click + Connect new integration, then follow the instructions on the Integrations page.
3. Return to the Voice configuration page and click Build Knowledge Retrieval in workflow. 
   • The Knowledge Retrieval workflow allows your AI voice agent to search your connected knowledge base for relevant information to answer customer inquiries and provide solutions.

Set up Fallback

If the AI voice agent cannot answer a question after searching the knowledge base, the Fallback workflow is triggered. This ensures the caller receives a predefined response before being transferred to a human agent.

To set up Fallback: 

1. Go to the Voice configuration page and click Fallback.
   
2. Click Build Fallback in workflow. 
3. Customize the Fallback message to match your brand’s tone.
4. Click Publish to save and activate the fallback workflow.

Create a Workflow

After integrating your help desk and configuring your AI voice agent, you can create a workflow. We only support creating workflows with Autoflow for Forethought Voice, as it provides the most natural, human-like conversations. 

To create a workflow, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Solve > Workflow Builder > Voice.
   
2. Click + Create New… > Intent.
   

3. Create an Autoflow policy to give instructions to your AI agent.

   💡 Use the available actions at the right side of your screen to allow Autoflows to do more complex tasks, such as forwarding phone calls, searching for articles in your help center, storing and retrieving context variables, etc.

Preview your Workflow

Before going live, test your workflow  to ensure it works as expected:

1. Click Preview.
   
2. In the top left corner, allow microphone access to interact with your AI voice agent.
3. You can speak directly from your desktop without dialing the actual number. Simply click Start and begin asking questions based on your configured workflow earlier.
   

   

4. View the transcript of your conversation on the right side of the screen.
5. If you want to end the conversation manually, simply click End. Alternatively, the AI voice agent can end the call automatically when it detects that your issue has been resolved—for example, if you say, "Thank you and goodbye."

Publish Workflow

• Once everything is set up and tested, click Publish to activate your workflow. Your AI voice agent will then be able to handle phone calls, interact naturally with customers, and effectively address their inquiries.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)