---
title: "Answer phone calls with your bot"
description: "Give your bot a phone number so it answers calls using your knowledge and power-ups, and transfers callers to your team when they ask for a person."
canonical_url: "https://chatthing.ai/docs/channels/phone"
last_updated: "2026-10-15"
---

# Answer phone calls with your bot

**Available on:** Standard, Pro, Enterprise plans.

Give your bot a real phone number. Callers hear your bot answer in a natural voice, using the same knowledge and power-ups it uses in chat, and it can transfer the call to your team when someone asks for a person. Every call is saved as a transcript in your conversations.

> **Requirements**
>
> - **Plan:** Standard, Pro or Enterprise. On Free and Basic the **Phone** card shows an upgrade notice.
> - **Voice minutes:** calls use minutes from your team's voice add-on. Each pack includes 60 minutes a month, shared by every bot on your team. See [Voice minutes](https://chatthing.ai/docs/account/voice-minutes).
> - **A phone number:** rented in Chat Thing and billed monthly on your voice subscription. Numbers are available in the **United States** and the **United Kingdom**.
> - **Who can do this:** [team owners and admins](https://chatthing.ai/docs/account/teams#what-each-role-can-do).

## How it works

1. You rent a phone number in Chat Thing. Publish it, or keep your existing business line and forward the calls you miss to it.
2. When someone calls, your bot greets them, says it's an AI assistant and answers from your knowledge.
3. If the caller asks for a person, the bot can transfer the call to a number you choose. If nobody picks up, the bot takes a message.
4. After the call, you get a summary by email or text, and the transcript appears in your conversations alongside your other channels.

The Phone channel uses the same voice engine as [voice calls in the web chat](https://chatthing.ai/docs/channels/website/voice), so the voice, language and answer-length settings work the same way.

## Turn on the Phone channel

1. Open your bot and select the **Channels** tab.
2. Turn on the **Phone** card. Chat Thing opens the phone channel settings.
3. Work through the sections in order: **Test line**, **Phone number**, **Answer when you can't**, **After each call**, **Greeting and voice**, **Transfer to your team** and **Protection**.
4. Click **Save**.

> **Phone numbers**
>
> Type phone numbers the way you normally would, such as `07700 900123` or `(212) 555-0123`. Numbers without a country code are read for your Chat Thing number's country, and Chat Thing saves them in international format (`+447700900123`). For a number in another country, include its country code.

## Try it on the test line

You can hear your bot on a call before renting a number. Every team gets **10 free test minutes a month** on a shared test line, separate from your voice packs.

1. In the **Test line** section, enter **Your phone number** (for example `07700 900123`) and click **Get a test PIN**.
2. Note the PIN. It lasts 24 hours and is only shown on this page. **New PIN** replaces the old one.
3. Call the test line number shown on the page **with your caller ID visible**, and enter the PIN when asked. Your bot answers as it would on its own number.

Test line limits:

- Up to five callers per bot, and ten test calls per caller per day.
- Test minutes include any transfers you try, and reset on the first of each month (UTC).
- Anyone with your PIN and caller ID can reach this bot's test line, so keep the PIN private. Your carrier's usual call charges apply.

If the section says "The shared test line is not available yet", rent a number and test on that.

## Get a phone number

If your team doesn't have a voice subscription yet, the **Phone number** section links you to **Billing** to set one up first.

1. In the **Phone number** section, choose a **Country**: United States or United Kingdom.
2. **United States:** optionally enter an **Area code (optional)**, such as `415`, to get a local number.
3. **United Kingdom:** UK numbers are mobile numbers, and UK rules require a registered business address. Fill in **Business name**, **Street**, **City**, **County or region** and **Postcode**.
4. Check the price shown, then click **Get a number**. The monthly charge is added to your voice subscription, charged pro rata from today.

The number is answered by your bot straight away.

## Answer when you can't

The **Answer when you can't** section sets how calls reach your bot:

| Option | What happens |
| --- | --- |
| **Keep my number** (recommended) | Your existing business phone rings as normal, and the calls you miss are forwarded to your bot |
| **Ring me first** | You give out your Chat Thing number. It rings your phone first, and your bot answers if you don't |
| **Assistant answers** (default) | You give out your Chat Thing number, and your bot answers every call straight away |

### Keep your existing business number

You don't have to publish a new number. Keep the number on your van, website and Google listing, and forward the calls you miss to your Chat Thing number.

1. Choose **Keep my number** and enter **Your business number**.
2. Pick **Its phone network** and whether to forward **calls I miss, decline or can't take** (recommended) or **every call**. On most mobile networks you can also choose how long your phone rings first.
3. Copy the code shown, dial it on the phone with your business number and press call. The section also shows the code to undo it, and tips for your network. Digital landlines are set up in your provider's app instead.
4. Click **Test forwarding**. Chat Thing rings your business number from your Chat Thing number. **Don't answer it.** If your network forwards the call back, you'll see **Forwarding works**. If the call was answered (by you or your voicemail) or rang out, the section says which and what to change.
5. Click **Save**.

Test calls are short and never reach your bot. You can run five an hour. Your phone carrier may charge you for forwarded calls.

### Ring your phone first

Choose **Ring me first**, then enter the **Phone to ring first** and how long to ring it (10 to 30 seconds). When a call comes in, you hear who is calling and press any key to answer. If you don't, or your phone is off, your bot answers.

- Calls you answer use voice minutes at half rate (two minutes of talking uses one minute) and can last up to an hour. If you're low on minutes, a call you answer isn't cut short: it uses whatever minutes are left.
- If your minutes run out, your phone still rings. Only the bot stops answering, and callers you miss hear that you can't take their call right now.

### Release a number

Click **Release number** if you no longer need it. Callers can no longer reach your bot on it, and the monthly charge is adjusted on your next invoice. Chat Thing holds the number for **seven days** before returning it to the carrier. If you released it by mistake, contact support within those seven days.

## Greeting and voice

| Setting | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| **Spoken greeting** | The first thing callers hear, for example "Thanks for calling Acme. How can I help today?" Chat Thing always adds a short AI disclosure if your greeting doesn't make it clear the caller is talking to an AI. Leave it blank for a default greeting. |
| **When someone calls again** | **Start a new conversation** (default) or **Continue their previous conversation**, so the bot can see what was said last time. |
| **Call voice** | 13 voices with British, Irish, Australian, North American and other accents. Press play for a prerecorded sample; it uses no call minutes. |
| **Voice instructions** | Personality, tone and speaking style. Drafted from your bot's instructions the first time. Your bot still answers using its own instructions, knowledge and power-ups. Click **Regenerate from system prompt** for a fresh draft after changing the bot's instructions, then review and save. |
| **Spoken language** | **Use the bot's default language**, **Auto - follow the caller**, or a fixed language |
| **Answer length** | Short (up to 90 words), Medium (up to 180) or Long (up to 300). Shorter feels more natural on the phone. |
| **Maximum call duration (minutes)** | 1 to 15, default 5. Thirty seconds before the limit, the bot starts wrapping up. |
| **Monthly minutes for this bot (blank = team allowance)** | Cap this bot's monthly minutes, or 0 to pause new calls without turning the channel off. The cap doesn't reserve minutes for the bot. |

> **Keep answers short**
>
> Callers can't skim. Short or medium answers, a greeting that names your business, and bot instructions that ask one question at a time all make calls feel more natural.

## Transfer to your team

1. Turn on **Allow transfers**.
2. Enter your **Team phone number**, such as `07700 900123`. Transfers stay in the same country as your Chat Thing number (UK to UK, US to US). Premium-rate and other expensive destinations are blocked.
3. Set **Ring for (seconds)**: 10 to 60, default 25.
4. Choose **If nobody answers**: **Return to the bot to take a message** (default) or **Apologise and end the call**.

The person answering hears who is calling and must press a key to accept. That means voicemail can never take the call, and the bot never tells the caller they're connected until someone has really picked up.

- The bot tries one transfer per call. If it fails, it apologises and offers to take a message.
- When taking a message, the bot asks for the caller's name, a callback number if it doesn't have one, and what they need, and confirms it back.
- The time your team member spends on a transferred call uses voice minutes at half rate, and a transferred call can last up to an hour.
- Until you add a team phone number, the bot takes messages instead of transferring.

The [Talk to a human](https://chatthing.ai/docs/power-ups/talk-to-a-human) power-up also triggers a transfer on phone calls.

## Protection

Anyone can dial a public number, so these limits protect your minutes:

| Setting | Range | Default |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Calls at the same time** - extra callers hear that all lines are busy | 1 to 20 | 3 |
| **Calls per caller per day** - callers over the limit are asked to try tomorrow | 1 to 500 | 30 |
| **Reject withheld numbers** - callers who hide their number hear a short message and aren't connected | On or off | On |
| **Blocked numbers (one per line)** - up to 200 numbers | - | None |

Your bot's normal usage limits also apply. If the bot has reached its message token limit, callers are told the assistant is unavailable. If your team has run out of voice minutes, callers are asked to try again later. No minutes are used on rejected calls.

## After the call

### Call summaries by email and text

A few seconds after each call, Chat Thing summarises it and tells you who called, why, how urgent it is, the details they gave (such as a postcode or a preferred time) and what the bot told them would happen next. Set this up in the **After each call** section.

| Setting | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| **Email a summary** | On by default. Summaries go to up to three addresses, or to the team owner if you don't list any. |
| **Text a summary to** | Up to three mobile numbers. Texts come from your Chat Thing number, so this needs a UK Chat Thing number, and texts go to UK mobiles. |
| **Send a text for** | Every call, or only urgent calls. |
| **What the text includes** | The caller's details and what they need, or just who called with a link. The second is more private, for example for clinics that don't want patient details on a lock screen. |
| **What counts as urgent for you?** | Describe it in plain words, such as "burst pipes, no heating" or "severe pain or swelling". Without it, the bot uses common sense. |
| **Tell me about hang-ups** | Callers who hang up before speaking are often worth a call back. |

Spam, sales calls and wrong numbers are summarised but never emailed or texted. Calls you answered yourself aren't summarised. Click **Send a test summary** to see exactly what arrives.

### Recent calls and transcripts

- **Recent calls** on the settings page lists the 50 most recent calls: who called, why they called (urgent calls are marked), when, how long, and how the call ended (Completed, Answered by you, Transferred, No answer, Rejected or In progress). Test-line calls are marked. Click **View chat** to read the transcript.
- Every call is saved as a conversation, showing a phone icon and the caller's number (or "Withheld caller"). The number is also saved in the conversation's user data, so webhooks and power-ups can use it.
- Transfers are recorded in the transcript as system notes.
- Phone conversations appear in [analytics](https://chatthing.ai/docs/manage/analytics) and trigger [webhooks](https://chatthing.ai/docs/developers/webhooks) like any other channel. The [Call ended](https://chatthing.ai/docs/channels/phone#call-ended-webhook) webhook sends every call's summary to your CRM, job management or booking software.

Power-ups that run on the server (such as sending email, calling your API, Notion, Zapier and Slack) work during calls. Power-ups that run in the visitor's browser, such as website SDK power-ups and display cards, don't.

### Call ended webhook

The **Call ended** webhook fires a few seconds after a call ends, once the call has been summarised. Add it on your bot's **Webhooks** tab like any other outgoing webhook; see [Webhooks](https://chatthing.ai/docs/developers/webhooks) for setup, custom payloads, signing and retries. Spam and sales calls fire it too, so you can decide what to keep.

| Field | Type | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `event` | string | `call.ended` |
| `timestamp` | string | When the event was sent (ISO 8601) |
| `conversation.id`, `botId`, `botName`, `channelType`, `conversationLink` |  | The call's conversation. `channelType` is `phone` |
| `call.callerNumber` | string or null | The caller's number in international format, or `null` if they withheld it |
| `call.startedAt`, `call.endedAt` | string | When the call started and ended |
| `call.durationSeconds` | number | How long the call lasted |
| `call.answeredBy` | string | `assistant`, `team` (someone on your team answered after the call rang your phone first) or `nobody` (the caller hung up before speaking) |
| `call.testLine` | boolean | Whether the call came through the shared test line |
| `call.callerName` | string | The caller's name, if they gave it |
| `call.reason` | string | Why they called, as a short headline |
| `call.summary` | string | One to three sentences on what they need |
| `call.urgency` | string | `urgent`, `normal` or `low` |
| `call.callType` | string | `enquiry`, `booking`, `existingCustomer`, `complaint`, `spamOrSales`, `wrongNumber` or `other` |
| `call.followUp` | string | What to do next |
| `call.promised` | string | What the bot told the caller would happen |
| `call.callbackNumber` | string | A different number the caller asked to be called back on |
| `call.details` | array | Facts the caller gave, as `{ "label", "value" }` pairs, such as a postcode or a preferred time |

An empty string means the caller didn't say. In a custom payload, the short names `{{callerNumber}}`, `{{callerName}}`, `{{reason}}`, `{{callSummary}}`, `{{urgency}}` and `{{followUp}}` are available.

```json
{
  "event": "call.ended",
  "deliveryId": "d3c5a9e8-1b2c-4f5a-9b8d-1a2b3c4d5e6f",
  "timestamp": "2026-03-10T12:20:00.000Z",
  "conversation": {
    "id": "abc-123",
    "botId": "def-456",
    "botName": "Support bot",
    "channelType": "phone",
    "conversationLink": "https://app.chatthing.ai/app/conversations/bot/def-456?conversation=abc-123"
  },
  "call": {
    "callerNumber": "+447700900123",
    "startedAt": "2026-03-10T12:16:30.000Z",
    "endedAt": "2026-03-10T12:19:45.000Z",
    "durationSeconds": 195,
    "answeredBy": "assistant",
    "testLine": false,
    "callerName": "Sam Taylor",
    "reason": "Book an appointment",
    "summary": "Sam wants an appointment this week and asked about prices. They are a new customer.",
    "urgency": "normal",
    "callType": "booking",
    "followUp": "Call back to confirm a time",
    "promised": "Someone will call back today",
    "callbackNumber": "",
    "details": [{ "label": "Preferred time", "value": "Thursday morning" }]
  }
}
```

## Minutes and billing

- Each call reserves up to its **Maximum call duration** when it starts, or less if your team's remaining minutes, this bot's monthly limit or the time left in the billing period is smaller. A call needs at least 30 seconds to start, ends when its reserved time runs out, and gives back what it didn't use.
- Call time includes silences and pauses while the bot looks things up. Looking things up also uses your plan's message tokens, as in chat.
- Time a person on your team spends on a call (after a transfer, or when **Ring me first** puts a call through to you) uses minutes at half rate.
- There are no overage charges. When minutes run out, the bot declines new calls until you add more or the allowance renews. **Add minutes now** on the billing page adds packs to the current period straight away; changing your monthly packs takes effect at your next renewal. With **Ring me first**, your phone still rings. Chat keeps working.

See [Voice minutes](https://chatthing.ai/docs/account/voice-minutes) for packs, adding minutes and renewals.

## Current limits

- Numbers are available in the US and UK only.
- Call audio isn't recorded; transcripts are text only.
- The Phone channel texts call summaries to your team, but it doesn't text callers or receive texts. It only calls out to ring your own phone or test your forwarding.
- You can't port in an existing number. Forward it instead.
- Your team can't join a live call from Chat Thing. Use transfers to reach a person.

## Check it works

Call the test line or your new number, ask a question your bot should answer, then ask for a person to test the transfer. Check the call appears under **Recent calls** and that the summary arrives. If you forward your existing number, run **Test forwarding** too.

## Troubleshooting

### "Phone numbers need an active voice subscription" when renting a number

Your team doesn't have a voice subscription yet. Follow the **Enable voice calls** link in the **Phone number** section; a team owner can add the subscription in **Billing**.

### The UK address was rejected

The carrier checks UK addresses against the business name. Check the postcode and use the registered business name exactly.

### Callers hear "this number is not in service"

The number isn't attached to an enabled phone channel. Check the **Phone** card is on and the number is listed in the settings.

### Callers hear "we cannot take calls right now"

Your team has run out of voice minutes, or this bot's monthly minutes cap has been reached.

### Transfers are never accepted

The person answering must press a key to accept. If calls go to voicemail first, increase **Ring for (seconds)** or check the team number.

### Calls end after a few minutes

Raise **Maximum call duration (minutes)**. Longer limits reserve more minutes per call.

## Related

- [Set up an AI receptionist for your phone line](https://chatthing.ai/docs/use-cases/ai-receptionist): Turn your bot into an AI receptionist that answers your business phone, answers questions from your content, takes messages and transfers callers.
- [Voice minutes and phone numbers](https://chatthing.ai/docs/account/voice-minutes): How voice billing works - monthly packs of call minutes shared by your team, phone number rental, how minutes are counted and what happens when they run out.
- [Let visitors talk to your bot with voice calls](https://chatthing.ai/docs/channels/website/voice): Add a call button to your web chat so visitors can have a spoken conversation with your bot, using the same knowledge, power-ups and conversation.