Once a number is connected, your clone can answer the calls people make to it. It greets the caller, answers from what it knows about your business and about the caller, takes a message, or hands the call to a person on your team. Every call ends up in Messages, with a summary and the transcript.
A newly connected number declines incoming calls until you turn answering on. Answered calls are charged to your Messaging purse (Account settings → Billing), so it needs enough balance; without it, calls aren't answered. If you haven't connected a number yet, start with Connecting your phone number.
Turn answering on
Open the number's settings
Open Connections, select your number and click Settings.
Check the clone
In the Clone card, pick the clone that should answer. Its voice, language and knowledge are what callers get. Without a clone, calls aren't answered.
Choose when to answer
In the Answer calls card, choose Always or Only outside the clone's staffed hours. See the table below.
Add a number for a person, if you want
In Hand calls to a person at, type the number of a phone your team answers, in international format, for example
+52 55 1234 5678. See Handing a call to a person.Save and try it
Click Save, then call your number from your own phone. Your clone should pick up, as long as your Messaging purse has enough balance.
| Answer calls | What happens to a call |
|---|---|
| No, decline incoming calls | Nobody picks up; the caller hears a busy tone. This is where every new number starts. |
| Always | Your clone answers every call, at any hour. |
| Only outside the clone's staffed hours | Outside your staffed hours, your clone answers. During them, the call rings straight through to your number for a person, or, if you left that empty, is declined. |
Staffed hours are the clone's Business hours, set in the clone's handover settings: either its own days and hours, or your team's Reply timing hours when the clone uses the team defaults. See Creating and configuring an AI Clone. If no hours are set, there are no staffed hours, so Only outside the clone's staffed hours answers every call.
What the caller hears
The clone greets the caller with the line's name, says it is a virtual assistant, an artificial intelligence, and that the call is recorded, for example Hi, thanks for calling Your Store. I'm its virtual assistant, an AI. This call is recorded. How can I help? Then it:
- answers from its knowledge and from what it knows about the caller, if they are already one of your contacts;
- takes a message for your team when it can't help, or offers what you chose in the line's call settings;
- hands the call to a person when the caller insists on talking to someone, if a person is available;
- never sells: a call that comes in is not a sales call, so the clone doesn't make offers on it.
A call lasts at most five minutes.
Handing a call to a person
When a caller insists on speaking with a person, your clone transfers the call to the number in Hand calls to a person at. It does that only when someone should be there to answer:
- During staffed hours, or when the clone has no hours set: the clone tells the caller it is connecting them and says goodbye. The person who picks up first hears a short spoken brief, who is calling and why, and then the two are connected.
- Outside staffed hours, or with no number to hand calls to: the clone says nobody is available right now and takes a message: the caller's name, the reason and a number to call back. Your team gets a notification.
The same number is used when someone your clone calls from this line asks for a person, but only while answering is on: with No, decline incoming calls the field disappears and is cleared when you save, so no call on this line can be handed to a person. Calls from that number to your line don't count toward the per-caller daily limit, which makes it handy for testing; the daily minutes and the three-calls-at-once limit still apply.
Keep your current line: forward it
If customers already know another number, you don't have to change it. Forward that line's calls to your connected number, and your clone answers them. Under Answer calls, open Keep your current line: forward it to this number: it lists the codes to dial on a Telcel, AT&T or Movistar mobile to forward every call, only unanswered calls, only when busy, or only when the phone is off, and the code that cancels all forwarding. For a landline, ask your phone company for call forwarding to your connected number.
Call settings: how the clone presents the line
The Call settings card in the number's settings shapes the calls the clone answers on this line:
- Line name in the greeting: the name in "Thanks for calling …". Leave it empty to use your business name.
- When the clone cannot resolve something: what it offers instead. It takes a message for your team, It gives a WhatsApp number to write to, It gives a web address, or It says a person will call back in business hours. The WhatsApp and web options ask for the number or the address.
- What this line handles, and what it does not: a short note, up to 500 characters, written the way you'd say it. The clone follows it on top of its own instructions, for example This line handles orders and delivery; for invoices, say they should write to billing.
If the line's texts contain a promotional phrase, nothing in the window is saved: it stays open, and the reason shows under the Call settings card and in a message. Take the phrase out and save again. The same happens with a transfer or WhatsApp number that isn't in international format, or a web address without a domain. A call that comes in can't sell.
Limits that protect your line
These limits stop spam callers and a stuck line from running up your bill. A call over a limit isn't answered, and the caller hears a busy tone:
- 10 calls a day from the same caller, counted over the last 24 hours. Your own number for a person doesn't count.
- 120 minutes of answered calls a day for your whole account.
- 3 calls at the same time on one number.
- Enough in your Messaging purse to cover the call. IcloneU charges answered calls there, by the connected minute; Twilio bills your Twilio account for the minutes too. See Who bills what.
Unlike the calls your clone makes, answered calls have no calling hours and no do-not-call check: the caller chose to call you.
After a call
- The caller becomes a contact. IcloneU matches the caller by phone number. Someone new becomes a contact named after their number, so you can follow up later.
- The call lands in Messages. Each caller has a call thread, marked with a phone badge. A thread you had resolved reopens when they call again. A line shows how the call ended, with a summary written in your account's language; Transcript shows the whole call and Pending: anything your business still owes them.
- You reply on another channel. A call thread has no reply box: you can't send messages from it. Reply on WhatsApp, open the contact's other conversation from the thread, or click Call the contact back and your clone calls them back about their recent call.
- Your team gets notified when it matters: Call: a message for you when the caller left a message, Call: someone wants to talk to you when they asked for a person, and Call: something to follow up when the call left something owed. Pending items are also saved in the contact's notes.
To see only calls in Messages, open Show and tick Only with calls.
Frequently asked
Check that Answer calls isn't set to No, decline incoming calls, that the number is Enabled and has a clone, and that you aren't inside staffed hours with Only outside the clone's staffed hours. Then check the limits above and your Messaging purse.
No. It takes no payments, addresses or e-mail addresses by phone.
Not on its own from an incoming call. Use Call the contact back in the call thread, or the Call me back recipe; see Calls your clone makes.
Yes. Use Only outside the clone's staffed hours with a number for a person: during staffed hours calls ring through to that number.
Last updated October 28, 2026 · Platform connections
