How Vociply works
On this page
Fifteen minutes here will save you hours later. Every page in these docs assumes you know these five words and what they mean to each other.
The five pieces
A Vociply setup is always the same five things. Some setups use two of them, some use all five, but there is never a sixth.
| Piece | What it is | Think of it as |
|---|---|---|
| Agent | The AI personality that talks. It holds the instructions, the voice, the language and the model. | The employee |
| Phone number | A real number. Inbound, it is where callers reach the agent. Outbound, it is what shows on the recipient’s screen. | The desk phone |
| Knowledge Base | Documents and web pages the agent can look things up in — price lists, policies, product sheets. | The binder on the desk |
| Tools | Actions the agent can take mid-call: transfer to a human, hang up, send an SMS, call your own API. | The buttons on the phone |
| Integrations | Your other software — CRM, calendar, spreadsheet, inventory — connected once, then reachable during a call. | The computer on the desk |
The employee metaphor is worth holding onto. You would not expect a new hire to quote prices without a price list, book without calendar access, or escalate without a number to escalate to. An agent is exactly the same, and most disappointing agents are disappointing because they were given the job but not the tools.
An agent is not a phone line. The same agent can be in fifty conversations at once, each completely separate. This is why Vociply replaces a queue rather than a person — nobody is ever on hold waiting for the agent to be free.
What happens on a call
The loop below runs several times a second, for every turn of the conversation. You never configure any of it directly — but knowing it exists explains almost every piece of tuning advice in these docs.
Where the other pieces join in
At the third stage — the agent thinks — three things are available to it:
- Its instructions, which it has read in full before every reply. This is why instruction length affects speed, and why contradictory instructions produce erratic agents.
- Its Knowledge Base, which it searches only when the caller asks something that needs it. A 200-page manual costs nothing until it is queried.
- Its tools and integrations, which it can choose to use. If the caller asks about Thursday and the agent has calendar access, it will pause, actually check, and answer with the real answer. That pause is normally a second or two, and it is worth it.
You do not script this. You attach the tool and describe in the instructions when it should be used — “when the caller wants to book, check availability first” — and the agent works out the rest, including asking for a date if the caller has not given one. That is the whole reason it is worth using AI here rather than a phone menu.
Four ways a call starts
Everything Vociply does comes down to how the call begins. Each of these has its own page, and picking the right one is most of the design work.
A number is attached to an agent. Anyone who dials it reaches the agent. This is the receptionist, the support line, the after-hours line.
Upload contacts, pick an agent, set a schedule. The campaign works through the list and stops when it is done. Reminders, follow-ups, collections, surveys.
A form is submitted or a lead lands, and the agent phones them within seconds — before a competitor does. This is the highest-value pattern on the platform.
Call IQ records calls your own salespeople make and turns each one into a draft sales order. Nobody talks to an AI.
The mental model that keeps you out of trouble
Three ideas explain most of what confuses new users.
1. Connecting an app is not the same as an agent using it
These are two separate steps and people miss the second one constantly. Connecting HubSpot on the Integrations page tells Vociply your account exists. It does not give any particular agent permission to touch it. You then attach the integration to the specific agents that should use it. See Giving an agent access.
2. Instructions are policy; knowledge is reference
Facts the agent must apply to every call — tone, escalation rules, what never to say — go in the instructions. Facts it might be asked about — 400 product prices, a refund policy, a 30-page handbook — go in a Knowledge Base. Putting reference material in the instructions makes every call slower and the agent less obedient.
3. Minutes are the meter; everything else is a limit
You are billed for talk time. Agents, knowledge bases and integrations do not cost minutes — your plan simply caps how many of each you can have. A phone number is a separate small monthly rental. See Plans, minutes & billing.
What it cannot do
Worth knowing now rather than discovering during a demo.
- It cannot see. No video, no screen sharing, no reading a document the caller is holding.
- It cannot press buttons in a system it has no connection to. If your booking software is not in the integrations list and has no API you can reach via n8n or a webhook, the agent cannot use it.
- It will not reliably read out long strings. Sixteen-digit numbers, IBANs and reference codes over the phone are a bad experience with a human too. Send those by SMS with a tool.
- It is not a lawyer or a doctor. Regulated advice should be scripted, gated, or transferred to a qualified human. Say so explicitly in the instructions.
Questions people ask at this point
Which AI model is my agent using?
By default, Claude Haiku 4.5 — fast and inexpensive, which matters when a caller is waiting. You can switch to Kimi K2.5 for a bit more reasoning, or bring your own OpenAI key to use GPT-4o. Change it in Agents → Edit → Instructions.
Are calls recorded, and where do recordings live?
Yes, and they appear in Call History with a transcript. Recordings are encrypted at rest and in transit. Some jurisdictions require you to tell the caller — Consent & calling rules covers where and how to say it.
What happens if the agent gets stuck?
Whatever you told it to do. With no escalation path it will keep trying, which is the worst outcome — so give every production agent a transfer_call tool and a plain rule: “If the caller is frustrated, asks for a human, or you have failed twice, transfer them.”