> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.eat-now.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# The AI agent on the phone

> Let the AI agent pick up your customers' WhatsApp calls, when your team can't or on every call. It books, changes, cancels and answers questions, out loud.

When a customer calls you on WhatsApp, the AI agent can **pick up instead of the team**. It speaks with the voice and greeting you chose, checks real availability, books, changes or cancels a booking, and answers questions from your knowledge base. Whatever it can't do, it **passes on to the team**, who reply to the customer by message.

<Note>
  The agent on the phone builds on [WhatsApp calls](/whatsapp/calls) and on the [AI agent](/ai-agent/overview). Both must be on for your restaurant: ask your EatNow contact to enable them.
</Note>

## At a glance

<Steps>
  <Step title="The customer calls">
    Your team rings as usual. In **As a fallback** mode, if nobody picks up within the delay you chose, the agent takes the call. In **Always** mode, it picks up right away.
  </Step>

  <Step title="The agent greets the customer">
    It says your greeting word for word, then listens. It answers in the customer's language.
  </Step>

  <Step title="It handles the request">
    Availability, booking, change, cancellation, questions: it checks in EatNow, and **always reads the booking back** before confirming it.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Everything is logged">
    The call shows up in the customer's WhatsApp conversation, with a summary. The calls log keeps the outcome, the duration and the transcript.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Turn the agent on for calls

1. First turn on WhatsApp calls: **Settings → Integrations → WhatsApp → Calls** (see [WhatsApp calls](/whatsapp/calls)).
2. Open **Settings → AI Agent → Phone**.
3. Under **When the agent picks up**, turn on **Answers calls**.
4. Pick **As a fallback** or **Always**, then check the voice and the greeting.
5. Click **Try the agent** to call it from your browser before your customers do.

The first time you turn it on, **30 trial minutes** are given, once.

<Tip>
  The WhatsApp **Calls** tab sums up **Who answers**: your phones and the dashboard, then the agent, then the voicemail. Its **Let the AI agent answer** button takes you straight there.
</Tip>

## Settings

| Setting | What it does |
| - | - |
| **Answers calls** | Turns the agent on or off for calls. Off, calls work as before: the team rings, then the voicemail. |
| **As a fallback** | Your phones ring first. If nobody has picked up after the delay (5 to 30 seconds of ringing), the agent takes the call. |
| **Always** | The agent picks up right away. Your team doesn't ring. |
| **Voice** | Set by the greeting's language: a French voice for a French greeting, female or male for an English greeting, a shared voice for other languages. It stays the same for the whole call. |
| **Greeting** | The sentence said on pick-up, as written. If the customer speaks another language, it is translated. **Listen** plays it with the chosen voice. |
| **Name mispronounced?** | Write how to say the names the agent gets wrong (for example, *Say "Zinc" as "zangue"*), then listen. |

The rest comes from the AI agent's configuration, shared with messages: its persona, its [knowledge base](/ai-agent/knowledge-base), its tools (book, change, cancel) and its schedule. To change what it can do, edit it in **Configuration**.

<Warning>
  **Your greeting must say it's an AI.** The EU AI Act requires telling the customer they are talking to an artificial intelligence. The screen warns you if your greeting doesn't.
</Warning>

### The delay and the voicemail

In **As a fallback** mode, the agent must pick up **before** the voicemail. The agent's delay is therefore capped at the voicemail's, minus 5 seconds. If you later shorten the voicemail's delay, the screen shows **The voicemail answers too fast for the agent**: lengthen the voicemail's delay or shorten the agent's.

The voicemail is still useful: it takes the call when the agent can't (outside its schedule, no minutes left, service unavailable).

## What the agent does on the phone

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Book a table" icon="calendar-plus">
    It checks real availability, offers slots, asks for what's missing (name, party size, email if you require it), then reads the booking back before creating it.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Change or cancel" icon="pen">
    It finds the customer's booking from their WhatsApp number, reads the change back, and only makes it after a clear "yes".
  </Card>

  <Card title="Answer questions" icon="circle-question">
    Hours, access, parking, menu, allergies: it answers from your knowledge base, without making things up.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Hand over" icon="users">
    When it doesn't know, or when the customer asks, it passes the request to the team and tells the customer they'll get a reply on WhatsApp.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

The agent always follows these rules, whatever your settings:

* **It reads the booking back before confirming** (day, time, party size, name). Without an explicit "yes" from the customer, nothing is created. "Yes, but 9 pm instead" isn't a yes: it checks again.
* **It never asks for the number again**: it's the WhatsApp number of the call.
* **It never makes up availability**: every slot it offers comes from EatNow.
* **It answers in the customer's language** (French, English, Spanish, and your agent's other languages), formally.
* **It hangs up after the goodbye**, never while it's checking something. If the customer goes quiet, it asks whether they're still there, then hangs up.

**Set menus and products** stay with messages: the agent doesn't offer them on the phone.

## When the agent hands over

The agent passes the request to the team when it goes beyond what it can do: a private event, a complaint, a question missing from your knowledge base, a technical error, or a customer who asks to talk to someone. It tells the customer: *"I'm passing your request to the restaurant team, who will reply on WhatsApp."*

On the team's side:

* the customer's WhatsApp conversation moves to **Conversations to handle**;
* under the call line, a note says **Passed on by the AI agent**, with the customer's exact words;
* you reply by message: the call opened the 24-hour window, so it's free.

As with messages, **Save as FAQ** turns the customer's question into an answer the agent will give next time. See [Knowledge base](/ai-agent/knowledge-base).

## Try the agent

The **Try the agent** button, at the top of the Phone tab, lets you call the agent **from your browser**, with your microphone, as a customer would.

* The agent uses your real settings and checks **real availability**.
* **Nothing is booked, changed or cancelled**: an accepted booking shows as **Simulated booking**.
* The transcript shows live next to the call.
* A test call uses **no minutes** and doesn't appear in the log or the analytics.

<Info>
  The browser asks for microphone access the first time. If it's blocked, click the icon left of the address bar to allow it.
</Info>

## The calls log

The **Calls** tab of **AI Agent → Phone** lists the calls the agent took, over 7, 30 or 90 days:

* at the top, the calls the agent took (out of all calls received), the bookings it made with their covers, the questions it answered, the calls passed on to the team, and the time spent on the phone;
* for each call: the customer, the **outcome** (Booking, Change, Cancellation, Question, Passed on, No request), the duration and a one-sentence summary.

Click a call to see its summary, the booking it created or changed (one click to open), the full transcript, and **Open the conversation** to find the customer's WhatsApp thread.

In the WhatsApp conversation, and in the EatNow app, the call line carries the same summary: you know what was said without opening the log.

## Minutes and billing

The agent on the phone is counted in **minutes**, to the second, on the time it's on the line. Every AI agent plan includes minutes each month; a Voice add-on and packs add more. See [Plans](/ai-agent/pricing#the-agent-on-the-phone).

* The month's minutes go first, then the packs'.
* At **80%** and then **100%** of the minutes used, the team gets a notification.
* With no minutes left, the agent **no longer picks up**: calls ring for the team, then the voicemail. The calls it couldn't take are counted in the analytics, to help you pick the right add-on.
* Calls picked up by the team and test calls use no minutes.

Follow them in **AI Agent → Analytics & usage**, **Calls** view. See [Understanding agent analytics](/ai-agent/usage#calls).

## When the agent doesn't pick up

At the top of the Phone tab, a **The agent isn't picking up right now** banner tells you why:

| Message | What to do |
| - | - |
| WhatsApp calls are off | Turn them on in **Integrations → WhatsApp → Calls**. |
| The AI agent is in draft mode | [Shadow mode](/ai-agent/configuration#shadow-mode) is on: the agent doesn't answer the phone, since it can't hand you a spoken draft. Turn it off in **Configuration**. |
| Outside the agent's schedule | As intended: calls ring for the team. Change the schedule in **Configuration** if needed. |
| No minutes left | Add minutes in **Analytics & usage**. |
| The voicemail answers too fast for the agent | Lengthen the voicemail's delay, or shorten the agent's. |
| The voice service is unavailable | Rare and temporary: calls ring for the team meanwhile. |

In every case nothing is lost: the call follows its usual path (team, then voicemail).

## Data and recording

* **Transcripts and summaries** are kept 6 months, in the calls log.
* **Audio isn't recorded** by default. On request, EatNow can turn on recording for the agent's calls (to look into an issue, for example): an announcement tells the customer at the start of the call, and the audio is kept 30 days.
* Calls taken by your team are **never** recorded.

## FAQ

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="The Phone tab doesn't show up">
    It shows up once WhatsApp calls are open for your restaurant. Ask your EatNow contact to enable them.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="My number is in Coexistence: can the agent answer?">
    No. Meta doesn't allow calls in EatNow for numbers connected in [Coexistence](/whatsapp/coexistence): neither the team nor the agent can pick up from EatNow. You need a dedicated number, for example a [virtual number](/whatsapp/virtual-number).
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can the agent book without the customer confirming?">
    No. The agent always reads the booking back and waits for a clear "yes". EatNow enforces this rule, it's not only asked of the agent: without that yes, the booking isn't created.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Does the customer hear they're talking to an AI?">
    Yes, if your greeting says so, as the law requires. The **Phone** screen warns you if your greeting doesn't.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Can the customer ask to talk to someone?">
    Yes. The agent then passes the request to the team, who reply by WhatsApp message. The agent doesn't transfer the call: EatNow doesn't place calls.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="What if the customer hangs up halfway?">
    Whatever was already confirmed stays done. A booking the customer didn't confirm isn't created. The call shows in the log with what was said.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="The customer speaks another language than the greeting">
    The agent switches to their language as soon as it hears it. The voice stays the greeting's for the whole call.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="The agent picks up, but I'd rather take the call">
    In **As a fallback** mode, lengthen the delay: the team gets more time to pick up. In **Always** mode, the team doesn't ring: switch to **As a fallback** if you want to answer yourself when you can.
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Are test calls billed?">
    No. They use no minutes and don't appear in the analytics.
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>


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