A call is a step in an automation. You add a Place Call step to a workflow, pick a script and fill in what the clone should say, and when a contact reaches that step your clone phones them. When the call ends, the flow carries on along the path named after how the call went: confirmed, declined, no answer, and so on.
You need the Expert or Enterprise plan and at least one phone number connected; see Connecting your phone number. The contacts you call need a phone number on their profile. Calls are charged to your account's Messaging purse, under Account settings → Billing, so a call the purse can't cover isn't placed.
What every call sounds like
Whatever the script, the clone opens the same honest way. It says it is the business's virtual assistant, an artificial intelligence, says the call is recorded, and checks it is talking to the right person, for example Hi, I'm the virtual assistant of Your Store, an AI. This call is recorded. Am I speaking with Ana? If the person asks whether it is a robot, it says it is the business's AI. Then:
- It speaks with the voice and in the language of the clone you choose, and goes through the script.
- It takes no payments, addresses or e-mail addresses by phone.
- It only promises what the flow really does: it doesn't say "we'll send you a WhatsApp" unless your flow sends one.
- It says goodbye and hangs up. A call lasts at most five minutes.
Add the Place Call step
Add the step
In a workflow, add a node and open the Integrations & AI group. Choose Place Call. If it isn't there, your plan doesn't include phone calls.
Choose the script
Pick one under Script. The fields below change with the script; see The scripts.
Choose the clone
Clone that makes the call sets the voice, the language and the knowledge used on the call. Leave it empty to use your account's default clone.
Choose the number, if you have several
With two or more numbers connected, a Number that calls field appears. This is the number the contact sees. Leave Default number to use the one marked as the default on Connections.
Decide on the WhatsApp heads-up
Optionally, the contact gets a WhatsApp text a few minutes before the call. See The WhatsApp heads-up.
Connect the exits
Each way the call can end is an exit of the step. Connect the ones you care about to what should happen next; see Outcomes.
Write numbers, dates and times the way a person says them on the phone, for example between ten in the morning and two in the afternoon. Never put an address, an e-mail or a card number in a field. Keep promotions out of service calls: only a sales call may offer something. You can use variables, such as the order number from the event that started the flow.
The scripts
A script sets what the call is for and how it can end. There are six:
| Script | What the clone does | What you fill in |
|---|---|---|
| Confirm a cash-on-delivery order | Goes over the order, the amount due and the delivery, and asks if the person will be there to pay. | Order number, amount due, currency, delivery date, delivery window in words, and optionally what the order contains. |
| Failed delivery: agree on a new attempt | Explains why the order couldn't be delivered and agrees on a new attempt. | Order number, why it couldn't be delivered, delivery date, delivery window, and optionally what the order contains. |
| Return a call the contact asked for | Calls back about the topic the contact asked about, answers from the clone's knowledge or takes a message. | What the call is about, and optionally where the contact asked for the call. |
| Confirm an appointment | Confirms the date and time. If the contact wants another day or time, the clone notes it and the call ends as rescheduled. | Appointment date, time in words, and optionally what it is for, where and with whom. |
| Sales call: check in on a purchase and offer something | Asks how a purchase went, mentions one offer at most and proposes the next step you chose. Nothing is sold or booked on the phone. | What they bought and when, the one thing to offer and its price (optional), and the next step: details on WhatsApp, a store visit, or a person calling back. |
| Custom script: your own objective, outcomes and rules | Follows your objective and ends on one of your outcomes, inside the same house rules. | See Writing a custom script below. |
Sales calls need consent and a REPEP check
A sales call offers something, so it needs more than an order or a request behind it. In Mexico, people who don't want sales calls sign up to the REPEP, the do-not-call registry run by PROFECO. A sales call only goes out to a contact when all of this is true:
- The contact agreed to receive sales calls, and you recorded it.
- You looked the number up in the REPEP and recorded that it is not registered. A number nobody has checked is not called.
- The contact hasn't had a sales call in the last 30 days.
- It is a weekday between 8:00 and 19:00 in the contact's time.
Open the contact
In Contacts, open the person's profile, open its Actions menu (the ⋯ button) and choose Sales call permissions… The option is there only for people who can manage contacts.
Record the consent
Tick This contact agreed to receive sales calls and say under Where the consent came from how you got it, for example a WhatsApp opt-in or a store form.
Record the REPEP check
Look the number up at repep.profeco.gob.mx and record what you found under REPEP registry (PROFECO): Checked: not registered lets sales calls go out; Checked: registered (no sales calls) keeps them off.
Confirmation and call-back calls don't use these permissions. A contact who asked not to be called gets no call of any kind, sales or not; see Outcomes.
Writing a custom script
Choose Custom script: your own objective, outcomes and rules when none of the ready scripts fits. The clone still opens with the AI disclosure and the recording notice, still confirms who it is talking to and still takes no payments by phone. You fill in:
- Objective: one or two sentences on what the call is for.
- Possible outcomes (one per line, 2 to 5): how the call can end. Each one becomes an exit of the step, so keep them short and clearly different.
- Facts the agent may say (one per line, as Label: value): everything the clone may state. What isn't listed, it doesn't know.
- Details to capture after the call (one per line, as key: what to look for): optional. Each key becomes a variable the flow can use after the call.
- Opening question, Closing lines (one per line, optional) and Extra rules (one per line, optional), to make the call sound like you.
- This is a sales call: tick it only when the call offers something. It then follows the sales-call rules above. Leave it off for reminders, confirmations and follow-ups.
If the script uses words a call can't say, the editor lists them and the call is refused until you take them out. A service call may not promote anything, and a sales call may not make claims such as guarantees or results.
The WhatsApp heads-up
Many people don't pick up calls from unknown numbers. A text first tells the contact who is about to call and lets them answer in writing instead. The text goes out on the channel the flow runs on: WhatsApp in most call flows, but in a flow that started on another channel it is a message on that channel.
Turn it on
Under WhatsApp heads-up, tick Text the contact on WhatsApp before calling.
Set the wait and the text
Choose the Minutes between the text and the call, from 1 to 60 (2 by default), and edit the Heads-up text if you like.
Cover the 24-hour window
WhatsApp only lets you send free text to someone who wrote to you in the last 24 hours. For everyone else, tick the option under Outside the 24-hour window to send an approved utility template instead. Create the heads-up template for me creates it on the flow's WhatsApp line and sends it to Meta for review; it is used as soon as Meta approves it, usually within minutes.
If the text can't go out (the contact can't be reached on that channel, or WhatsApp's window is closed and there's no template), the call is placed anyway. A sales call sends the heads-up as free text only, never as a template.
Outcomes: where the flow goes next
When the call ends, the flow continues on the exit named after the outcome. Three exits depend on the script: Confirmed, Declined and Rescheduled for service calls; Interested, Not now and Not interested for sales calls; your own outcomes for a custom script. These are always there too:
- No answer, Voicemail and Wrong person: the call didn't reach the contact.
- Asked for a person: the contact wants to talk to your team.
- Message taken: the clone took a message for your team.
- Do not call: the contact asked not to be called again. IcloneU marks the contact Asked not to be called, and no call of any kind goes to them after that. To undo it, open the contact's Actions menu and choose Allow calls again (only people who can manage contacts see it).
- No outcome: the call happened but didn't end in any of the outcomes.
- Failed: the call wasn't placed or broke off. See the next section for why a call may not go out.
The steps after the call can read {{rv_call_outcome}} and {{rv_call_summary}}. When the contact asks for another day or time, the order, delivery, call-back and appointment scripts also fill {{rv_call_new_date}} and {{rv_call_new_time}}, and the sales script fills {{rv_call_interest}} with what caught the contact's interest. In a custom script, each detail you asked to capture arrives as {{rv_call_key}}, with your key in place of key. Dates come back as YYYY-MM-DD and times as HH:MM.
When a call can go out
These rules protect your contacts. A call that breaks one isn't placed, and the flow leaves by Failed:
- Calling hours, in the contact's local time (or your account's, when the contact's isn't known): service calls between 9:00 and 20:00 any day; sales calls on weekdays between 8:00 and 19:00. Nothing rings at night.
- One call a day, two a week per contact. A call-back the contact asked for, placed within two days of their own call to you, doesn't count, and neither do test calls or calls to your own transfer number.
- Do not call: a contact marked Asked not to be called is never called.
- A number from the contact's country: the contact needs a number in Mexico (+52) or the United States and Canada (+1), and the number the call goes out from (the step's Number that calls, or your default) must be from that same country. With numbers in both countries, pick the matching one in each step.
- Enough in the purse to cover the call.
Phone calls in a sequence
A step in a sequence can be a call instead of a message. In the sequence editor, each step has a small select next to its channel mark: switch it from Message to Phone call. The step becomes a call that starts as a call-back script with no topic, so click Open workflow on the step and fill in the script the same way as above. The step keeps its platform account: that is where the heads-up goes. A sequence with a call step can also enrol contacts who only have a phone number. They have no conversation in Messages yet, so their call results show on the contact instead, for calls that connect.
Three ready-made call recipes
The recipe gallery has three recipes that call. Each needs a connected number:
- COD confirmation by phone: a cash-on-delivery order comes in, the buyer gets the confirmation text, and if they haven't replied after 30 minutes your clone calls. A confirmed order gets your confirmed tag; a declined order, a request for another day or a request for a person goes to your team; an unanswered call gets one more text. A buyer who replies YES to the text is never called. It needs a store whose new orders say they are cash on delivery, which today is Shopify.
- Call me back: gives your clone a tool for when a customer asks to be called; the flow texts them a heads-up and calls about two minutes later. It works from any channel.
- Sales call a year after a purchase: 365 days after the purchase date stored on the contact, your clone calls to check in and offer one thing. Only contacts with sales-call consent and a REPEP check are called.
Testing a flow that calls
When you test a workflow, the Place Call step only pretends to call unless you tick Place the call for real when the Place Call node runs. With it ticked, the selected contact really gets the call, and it is charged like a live call. The test doesn't wait for the call to end: it carries on along the first outcome right away and skips the heads-up text. To simply hear your clone, the test call on the number's settings is quicker; see Make a test call.
What you see after a call
- In the conversation. If the contact has a conversation in Messages, a line in it (the conversation the flow ran in, or else the latest one) says how the call ended, with a summary written in your account's language. Transcript shows the whole call, line by line. Pending: lists anything your business still owes the contact, and Details: the details the call captured.
- A filter for calls. In Messages, open Show and tick Only with calls to list only contacts your clone called or who called in.
- A notification when something is pending. Call: something to follow up tells your team what the call left owed. It is also saved in the contact's notes.
- On the contact. A call that connected is added at the top of the contact's notes, with its result, summary and anything pending, and shows as their last interaction. For a contact with no conversation yet, this is where the call is recorded.
Frequently asked
Not from a contact. The Call button on a contact's profile opens your own phone or computer to dial them yourself; it isn't a clone call. From a call thread in Messages you can use Call the contact back; see Answering phone calls.
No. It takes no payments by phone and doesn't handle addresses or e-mail addresses. Send a payment link or ask for the address on WhatsApp in a later step.
Usually one of the rules in When a call can go out: outside calling hours, the contact was already called today, missing sales-call permissions, no phone number, or not enough in the purse.
No. The clone calls numbers in Mexico (+52) and in the United States and Canada (+1).
Last updated October 28, 2026 · Automations
