Put your agent on the phone

Attach a number, choose a voice, test a call, and handle callbacks, bookings and calls you make yourself from a lead's page.

4 min read Updated October 15, 2026

Once this is set up, customers can ring a number and talk to your agent, the agent can call people back when they ask, and your team can ring leads from the browser and hand the call to the AI part way through.

You'll need

  • The voice channel, which comes with the Professional and Enterprise plans. See Plans.
  • The owner or manager role to set up channels and settings.
  • A phone number in your organisation's pool. If there isn't one, contact Subcontext to have one provided.
  • An agent with a promoted (live) version.

Sort out phone number compliance first

Some numbers need a regulatory bundle before they can be used. If your organisation needs one, the agent's Channels tab links to Phone number compliance. Fill in the form there and submit it. Once it says Approved, carry on. Switch on Phone number compliance updates in notification settings to hear when it changes.

Attach a number

  1. Open your agent from Agents and press Channels.
  2. On the voice card, press Enable, then Configure.
  3. Under Phone number, pick one from Available numbers and press Attach.

Choose how it sounds

  1. Choose the Speech provider: OpenAI Realtime or ElevenLabs.
  2. Pick the Voice. With ElevenLabs you can also choose the Brain that reasons on calls.
  3. If you sell insurance, choose a Default journey so calls start in the right questionnaire.
  4. Press Save.

Check the call settings

In Settings, the Voice tab has: - Voice channel recording consent prompt: spoken at the start of every call. Keep it unless you're sure you don't need it. - Voice call recording retention (days): how long recordings are kept. - Scheduled callback voicemail message: left when a callback reaches an answering machine.

Test a call

  1. On Channels, check the agent shows Live under Voice.
  2. Ring the number yourself. Check the greeting says it's an AI assistant.
  3. Find the call in the inbox with the Voice filter. Listen plays the recording.

Callbacks

When a caller asks to be rung back later, the agent books a follow-up. You can book one yourself from a conversation with Schedule follow-up. All of them are on Follow-ups, where you can Reschedule or Cancel pending ones.

If nobody answers, the agent leaves your voicemail message (if you set one), tries once more, then sends a text saying sorry it missed them. The follow-up then shows as Missed. No callbacks are placed during your outreach quiet hours.

Bookings

To let the agent book appointments on calls, tick Allow booking on a new version and promote it. Appointments appear on Bookings.

Call a lead from their page

  1. Open the lead and press Call. It rings them from your browser. The button appears once one of your agents has a voice line.
  2. The call is recorded, so tell them at the start. If their number is on the TPS register and they haven't asked you to call, you're asked to confirm first.
  3. To pass the call to the AI, press Hand over to AI, add anything it should know (it didn't hear your conversation) and press Hand over. You can keep listening.
  4. After the call, press Log how it went, choose the outcome and press Log it.

If something goes wrong

  • Status is No number: attach a number on the voice channel's Configure page.
  • Status is Agent not live: promote a version.
  • The Call button is refused: it may be quiet hours, or they've asked not to be called.

More in Voice and Follow-ups.

Or ask the assistant: it can do these steps for you, asking before each change.

Using Subcontext?

Sign in and the assistant can do these steps for you. New here? We'll show you around.

Sign in Talk to Subcontext