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Your first test call and chat
How to test your receptionist by phone and website chat, what to check in the dashboard afterwards, and what to change if it got something wrong.
Before your customers rely on your receptionist, ring it and chat to it yourself. It takes ten minutes and shows you exactly what callers will hear.
Make a test call
Ring your business number from your mobile, once call forwarding is set up (see The setup guide). If you forward only "when I don't answer", let it ring until your receptionist picks up, after about 20 seconds.
Try these:
- Listen to the greeting. Does it use your business name and sound right?
- Ask your opening hours.
- Ask the price of something you offer.
- Ask something your customers often ask, such as parking or whether you take card payments.
- If your plan includes bookings, book an appointment. Otherwise ask for someone to call you back.
- Say goodbye and hang up. The call should end politely.
If you turned on summary texts in the setup guide, a text about the call arrives on your mobile afterwards.
Test the website chat
If your plan includes website chat, go to Settings, open Website chat and click Open the chat. The chat opens in a new tab, exactly as visitors see it. Ask the same kinds of questions as on the phone. You can also try it on your own website once the chat is added. See Website chat.
What to look for in the dashboard
- Conversations. Your call or chat appears at the top of the list. Click it to read the summary and the full transcript, word for word. See Conversations.
- Bookings. A test booking appears under Upcoming, marked "to confirm". See Bookings.
- Callbacks. A call-back request appears under Waiting. See Callbacks.
- Overview. Bookings to confirm and callbacks waiting show under Needs attention.
Tidy up afterwards so test entries don't get mixed up with real ones:
- Cancel the test booking with Cancel on the Bookings page. If you use plugins that text customers, such as appointment reminders or a cancellation list, they can act on a cancellation too, so cancel with that in mind.
- Mark the test callback done with Mark done.
- Delete the test conversation if you like: open it and click Delete this conversation. This can't be undone.
If an answer was wrong
Your receptionist answers from what you've told it. Read the transcript to see exactly what it said, then fix the source:
| What went wrong | Where to fix it |
|---|---|
| Wrong or missing facts: prices, services, parking, closures | Settings, the panel What (your receptionist's name) should know. See Settings. |
| A question it must answer word for word every time | Settings, Set answers. See Set answers. |
| Too formal, too chatty, used a word you don't like | Settings, the panel How (your receptionist's name) talks. See How your receptionist talks. |
| Offered a time you can't do, or booked something it shouldn't | Settings, Booking rules, and check Opening hours. See Booking rules. |
| The greeting | Settings, Phone greeting. |
| The call didn't reach your receptionist, or the voice was wrong | See Your phone line. |
| The chat looked wrong or didn't appear on your site | See Website chat. |
Changes in Settings go live within a minute. Then test again.
Still not right? Email hello@callscovered.ai with the time of the call and what you expected to hear.
Still stuck? Write to hello@callscovered.ai with your business name and what you were trying to do, and a person will reply.