# CellCog Phone Guide Your AI employee can have a real phone number, the way it has an email address. People call the number and talk to your employee: its voice answers at once and its own judgment is behind every answer, exactly as in a meeting. You watch every call in the **Phone** app on the Employee Computer and manage the number in the **Settings** app. Your employee can also place calls, to people who expect them, once you have verified your business (see Outbound Calling below). Calls only for now; texting is next. --- ## Getting a Number Every employee's computer shows the Phone app. Until the employee has a number, the app has one screen: **"{Name} doesn't have a phone number yet."** with an **Ask {Name}** button. 1. Click **Ask {Name}**. The chat opens with a message ready to send: "Get yourself a phone number" 2. Your employee comes back with a few available numbers in your company's area code (from the business address on file; if there is none, it asks you which area code you want), each with its monthly cost in credits 3. Tell it which one you want. Your yes in chat is the go-ahead; a number is a small recurring monthly charge to your credits, so the employee never gets one without it 4. The number is live within moments. Calls work right away, and the Phone app turns into the phone The number belongs to your employee: it appears on its profile and in its email signature. Give it to customers and partners, put it on a website, or forward your own business line to it at your carrier. One number per employee. **A number in another country.** Your employee can hold a local number in any country the carrier sells them in (the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Japan, Mexico, Brazil and about forty more; the list is the carrier's and the Phones page shows it). Ask in chat: "Get yourself a UK mobile number." Most countries require the business to be registered with the carrier first, with the documents that country asks for (a company registration extract, a proof of address, sometimes a representative's ID); the employee tells you when that is the case and the record is filled once, on the Phones page, under Compliance, Countries. Canada and the United States need no registration. A local number means people in that country reach your employee without dialing abroad, and your employee's calls to them show a local caller ID. --- ## What Happens When Someone Calls **Your employee answers.** Its voice picks up within seconds, in the same voice it uses in meetings, on the same standing briefing: what the platform knows about it plus the briefing the employee keeps for itself (its positions, what it is working on, the questions it expects). Callers are told at the start that they are talking with an AI employee at your company. **The employee's judgment is behind the voice.** Anything that needs a decision, its memory or a commitment goes to the employee itself while the conversation continues, the same way it works in a meeting. Every call wakes the employee: the phone rings for a few seconds while it joins, and the voice already knows who is calling when it picks up. The call is transcribed (no audio is recorded), and the employee reads every word. **It can hand the call to you.** Once you have verified your own phone number in Settings (below), the voice can transfer a caller to you. **One call at a time.** Your employee holds one live conversation at a time, whether in its chat, in a Google Meet, Zoom or Microsoft Teams meeting, or on the phone. A second caller hears a busy signal, and the call shows in Recents as missed; the employee sees it and follows up the way a person would, for example by email if it knows the caller. The same happens when the phone is off or your balance cannot fund the call. **No voicemail, no message taking.** An AI employee is always there, so there is nothing between the caller and your employee. A caller who wants to leave a message just says it; it is in the transcript with everything else. Some things the employee never does on the strength of a call alone: it does not commit your company to dates, prices, scope or promises, and it does not send, schedule or change anything without its normal approvals. If you call and ask it to do something that needs your approval, it confirms with you in chat before acting. --- ## The Phone App Once the employee has a number, the Phone app looks like the phone app you already know. On a phone-sized screen there are two tabs at the bottom, **Recents** and **Contacts**; on a desktop the list is on the left and the detail on the right. The header shows the number (tap to copy) and a live dot while a call is on. ### Recents One row per call: who called or was called (the name when the employee knows them, otherwise the number with its city and state), a direction glyph (an outgoing arrow for a call the employee placed; missed and declined calls in red), the time, the duration, and the one-line notes the employee wrote after the call. A call the employee is placing shows "Calling…" with the live dot until the person answers. Chips filter **All** and **Missed**. The app badge counts missed calls since you last looked. ### Call Detail Who called or was called and their number, when, how long, the outcome (for a call to the employee: answered, transferred to you, missed because the employee was busy, or declined because the phone was off or the balance could not fund it; for a call the employee placed: answered, voicemail, no answer, busy, failed or cancelled), the employee's notes ("Notes pending" until it writes them), what the employee did afterwards (the task it created, the email it sent), the full transcript, and the credits charged. For a call the employee placed, the detail also shows why it called ("Placed for") and on what basis the person expected the call, and a **Do not call** mark when the person asked not to be called again. A call in progress shows the transcript as it lands and an **End** button. ### Contacts People the employee knows who have a number: past callers, people the employee called, your leads with a phone, and you. Tap a person to see their calls. Contacts are for reading; nothing is dialed from here. --- ## The Phones Page Once more than one employee has a phone, you want one place for all of them. **Phones**, under **Apps** in the sidebar, is that place: every number in your organization on one screen, what is happening on each right now, and the business the carriers see behind them. **Numbers.** One row per number: the number and its city, the employee holding it, its state (Answers calls, On a call now, Calling, Phone off, or Held until a date after you release it), calls today and this month, the credits those calls used, how many calls it has placed today against its daily limit, and when it was set up. Employees without a number are named under the table; ask them in their chat. Click a number to open it: its facts, the phone on/off switch, its recent calls, a link to the employee's Phone app and its chat, and **Release**. While any employee is on a call, a **Now** band at the top lists the live calls with **End** on each. **Calls.** Every call across the organization, newest first, with filters for missed calls, one employee, calls received or placed, domestic or international, and the outcome. Each call is classed by the countries on both ends: a call from a UK number to a UK number is domestic, from a US number to a UK number international. When your numbers span more than one country, a strip above the table shows each country's numbers, its calls this month by class, and its registration state. A row opens the call in the employee's Phone app, transcript included. **Compliance.** Everything the organization needs before the first placed call lives here, and a strip under the page title shows its state every day: - **Business identity.** The one place your business is verified for placing calls (see Verify your business, once), for the whole organization. An organization admin fills it in; every member can see whether it is verified, and each employee's Settings app shows the same status with a link here - **Countries.** One record per country and number type your organization holds or wants numbers in, with its state: Draft, Under review, Approved, or Needs changes with the carrier's reason. **Add a country** opens the form for that country, rendered from the carrier's own requirements: the business fields, the documents (uploaded here, stored with the record so a resubmission never asks you twice), and an address in the country when the number type requires one. Save a draft, submit, and the state updates as the carrier reviews it. Countries that need no registration say so. The business identity above is the same kind of record for US and Canadian numbers - **Your number.** Your own verified number, the one every employee reads - **Do not call.** The numbers people asked us never to call again. Employees add a number when someone asks on a call; an admin can add one here too, for example after a request by email, and remove one. No employee in the organization calls a listed number - **Calling rules.** The rules every placed call follows, shown as facts: who can be called, calling hours, daily limits, one retry, no recording, the disclosure on every call. They are the platform's and the same for every business. The one exception is your own verified number: when you ask an employee to call you, it calls at any hour and as often as you ask - **Coming later.** Texting registration and recording consent, which arrive with their features The page reads the same records the Phone app does; releasing a number or turning a phone off here is the same action as in the employee's Settings. --- ## Calling Your Employee Yourself Add your own phone number under **Phone** in the employee's Settings app and confirm it with the code you receive. It is one number for your account, so every employee you own knows it. Once verified, two things change: the voice can **transfer** a caller to you, and when **you** call your employee's number, it knows it is you. A call from you is you speaking, the same as a message in the chat: your employee treats it as your instruction, and the sidebar shows the same meeting tile you see for a meeting in the chat, with an **End** button (the audio is on your handset, so there is no mute). Anything that needs your approval still confirms in chat. --- ## Outbound Calling Your employee can place calls from its own number, to people who expect the call and know your business: an applicant for a job you posted, someone who asked to be called back, a customer, a partner, a person who opted in to calls from you. It never calls strangers. ### Verify your business, once Every call your employees place goes out under your business, never under CellCog: the carriers see your business as the caller, and your legal business name is the caller name where the network shows one. The phone networks score the identity behind a number, so a registered business keeps your employees' numbers trusted and answered. Before the first call, verify your business on the **Phones** page (under **Apps** in the sidebar), under **Compliance**, **Business identity**. An organization admin fills it in once, for every employee: 1. Click **Verify your business**. Only the business address on file is filled in; you type everything the carriers verify: the legal business name and your business registration exactly as they appear on your tax records (in the United States, as printed on your IRS EIN confirmation letter, CP 575 or 147C; the carriers match the name against the number, so a brand name or website is refused), the business type, the industry and the website (with https://, like https://example.com). Your own verified phone number (see Calling Your Employee Yourself) is the contact number on the registration, so verify it first 2. Submit. The registration goes to the carriers; approval usually takes 1 to 3 days 3. Once the block shows **Verified**, every employee in your organization can place calls, and their calls carry your business name **Your business registration.** The form asks for the identifier your country issues and picks the type from your business address: an EIN in the United States, a Business Number in Canada, a Company Number in the United Kingdom, an ACN in Australia, a CIN in India, a VAT number in the European Union, a DUNS number anywhere, or another registration you name (a trade license, for example). The address is your business's real address in its own country. A business does not need to be in the United States to verify. **The carriers' signature and caller name.** The phone networks sign calls (so they are not labeled as likely spam) and show a caller name only for businesses registered with an EIN or a DUNS number. A business verified with any other registration places calls under its own name without that signature; its status says so and offers **Add an EIN or DUNS number**, which reopens the review. A DUNS number is issued free by Dun and Bradstreet to a company anywhere in the world. A personal account (one that signed up with a consumer email address) cannot verify a business: the carriers require a business registration. It keeps everything on this page except placing calls; booking calls to businesses are the one exception (see Calling businesses for you). Every organization admin gets an email when the registration is sent to the carriers, when it is approved, and when it is rejected. If it is rejected, the carrier's reason shows in the same block with the fields to change, the email says the same with a button back to the form, and you can edit the form and submit again. Until the business is verified, an employee asked to place a call tells you so in one line, with the link to the Phones page. This registration covers calls placed from US and Canadian numbers. A number in another country places calls under that country's own record, the one on the Phones page under Compliance, Countries; once the carrier approves it, the employee holding that number can place calls from it. ### Asking for a call One sentence in chat: "Call Priya Shah at +1 415 555 0123 about the PM role; she applied Tuesday; ask her availability for an interview next week." That sentence is the go-ahead, and it tells the employee why the person expects the call. The employee dials from its own number right away, or sets a one-time routine when you name a time. An employee working from a standing task with nobody in the chat needs a standing approval that names the kind of call, for example "interview scheduling calls to applicants, up to 10 a day". ### What the person hears The employee's voice, the same one it uses on every call. It knows it is calling on behalf of your company and what about, and the person is told they are speaking with an AI employee at your company. The employee's own judgment is behind the voice from the first ring, exactly as on an incoming call. The Phone app shows the call in Recents while it runs, with **End**. - **Voicemail.** When a call reaches voicemail, the employee leaves one line and hangs up, as a person would. On a call it places, its first words wait a moment for the line (a few seconds at most), so it never talks over a voicemail greeting. The call shows as Voicemail. A phone that screens unknown callers can sound like voicemail for a moment; if the person then picks up and speaks, the employee carries on with the call, and it shows as Answered - **No answer or busy.** The call shows as No answer or Busy. The employee may try that number once more the same day; after that it reaches the person another way, or tells you - **Do not call.** When a person asks not to be called again, the employee marks the number and no employee in your organization ever calls it again. The mark shows on the call's detail - **Calling hours.** Calls go out between 8:00 am and 9:00 pm in the person's local time (from the number's country and area code); in the United Arab Emirates between 9:00 am and 6:00 pm, the window its law names. Outside those hours the employee waits, or tells you - **Numbers outside the US.** Your employee can call numbers in every country the carrier allows low-risk calls to, which is most of the world; the few it does not are refused by name and the employee tells you. The carrier's charge for the leg to that country is passed through on top of the call's usual metering; the Billing Guide says how. A local number in the person's country (see Getting a Number) makes the call domestic and shows them a local caller ID - **Daily limits.** Each number places a limited number of calls a day, lower while the number is new, so your numbers stay trusted on the networks. The employee tells you when a limit is reached ### Calling businesses for you Your employee can phone a business for you as its customer: book a table or an appointment, change or cancel one, or ask about availability or hours. Ask in chat: "Book me a table for two at Lucali on Friday at 8." You name the business and what you want; the employee finds the number the business publishes on its own website or map listing and calls it. It never picks businesses to call on its own, and it never calls a business to sell, pitch, survey or collect anything. - **How the call opens.** "Hi, this is {employee}, an AI assistant calling on behalf of {your name}. This call is transcribed, and you can reach me back at {its number}." The business can call that number back, and your employee answers - **No business verification needed.** Any account can place booking calls, a personal account included. Without a verified business the call goes out without a caller name, so some phones may show it as unknown or likely spam - **Limits.** US businesses only, at most 2 booking calls a day to the same business from all AI employees on CellCog, and the usual calling hours and daily limits - **"Don't call us."** If a business asks not to be called, in any words, no AI employee on CellCog places a booking call to it again - **You are the caller.** You direct your employee's calls and are responsible for them, as the Terms of Service (section 9.14) say. The call shows in Recents marked **Booking**, with what was asked and where the number came from --- ## Settings In the **Settings** app on the Employee Computer, the **Phone** section holds: - **Phone on / off.** Off means callers hear a busy signal and the call shows in Recents as declined with "phone off". Turn it back on any time - **Your number.** Your own verified number (above) - **Outbound calling.** Whether your business is verified for placing calls, with a link to the Phones page, where the registration lives (see Outbound Calling) - **Release.** Gives the number up. Callers hear a busy signal for 30 days, then the number is gone; the monthly charge ends at the next cycle. You can also ask the employee to release it in chat Deleting an employee releases its number the same way. --- ## What It Costs A phone number is a small recurring monthly charge in credits, the carrier's own price for that country and number type; your employee quotes the exact figure from its receipt when it offers you numbers, and it appears in your credit history each month. If your account cannot fund a month's renewal, the number is renewed once on credit (your balance goes negative by that amount) and you get an email naming the date it is released unless the account is funded by then; still unfunded at the next renewal, the number is released and callers hear a busy signal for 30 days. Calls are metered from what they used: the seconds of voice time, the quick-answer model's work and the carrier's charge for the call, each at cost with the usual credit conversion, and the employee's own thinking bills as it always does; each call's record shows the credits charged. A call the employee places is metered the same way as any call; a call nobody answers costs nothing. Calls to numbers outside the US are priced separately from US calls; the Billing Guide carries those figures once set. Verifying your business is free. See the [Billing Guide](./CellCog_Billing_Guide.md), "What Work Costs". --- ## What Is Stored - **The transcript** of every call, kept with the call record in the Phone app - **A record of the call**: who called, when, how long, the outcome, the employee's notes and what it did afterwards - Calls are not recorded as audio Records are kept with the employee and are deleted when the employee is deleted. --- ## Coming Next - **Texting and the Messages app.** Text messaging uses the same business verification as outbound calling, so a verified business is ready for it when texting arrives - Your name and logo on the screen of mobile phones you call (branded calling), blocking a number, and numbers in the few countries the carrier does not sell to us (the United Arab Emirates, India, Singapore among them) --- ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Does the employee tell callers it is an AI? Yes. Every call, whether someone called the employee or the employee placed the call, opens with the fact that they are talking with an AI employee at your company. ### Can my employee call anyone I name? It calls people who expect the call and know your business: applicants, people who asked to be called back, customers, partners, people who opted in. It does not cold call strangers, and it never calls a number that asked not to be called again. It reaches numbers in the US and in every other country CellCog has opened for calls (see Outbound Calling). Your business must be verified first (see Outbound Calling). It can also call a US business you name to book, change or cancel something for you, with no verification needed (see Calling businesses for you). ### What happens if my employee is already on a call? The second caller hears a busy signal and the call shows as missed in Recents. The employee sees the missed call and follows up as a person would. ### Can I listen to a call live? You can read the transcript as it lands in the call's detail, and end the call from there. There is no live audio in the browser; if you want to talk, call the number yourself. ### Can I dial out or text from the Phone app? No. The Phone app shows you what happened; the employee is the one on the phone. To have it place a call, ask it in chat (see Outbound Calling). Texting is coming next. ### Can my employee have a number in another country? Yes, in every country the carrier sells numbers in; the Phones page lists them. Most countries require your business to be registered with the carrier first, with the documents that country asks for; you fill that record once on the Phones page, under Compliance, Countries, and the employee gets the number in chat once it is approved. Canada and the United States need no registration. The United Arab Emirates, India and Singapore are not sold to us today; your employee can still call numbers there from its US number, at international pricing. ### My business is not in the United States. Can my employee place calls? Yes. Verify the business on the Phones page with the registration your country issues (a Company Number in the UK, a CIN in India, a VAT number in the EU, a trade license named as another registration, and so on); the form picks the type from your business address. Only an EIN or a DUNS number earns the carriers' signature and a caller name on US networks; add a DUNS number (free, from Dun and Bradstreet) to get both. A business in India, the United Arab Emirates or Singapore holds a US number (or one from another country the carrier sells) and calls home at international pricing, since no number is sold to us in those countries. ### Can I keep my existing business number? Not by porting it yet. You can forward your existing line to the employee's number at your carrier. ### Is the call recorded? The transcript is kept; the audio is not. --- ## Related Guides - [Meetings Guide](./CellCog_Meetings_Guide.md) - [Contacts Guide](./CellCog_Contacts_Guide.md) - [AI Employees Guide](./CellCog_AI_Employees_Guide.md) - [Approvals & Safety Guide](./CellCog_Approvals_and_Safety_Guide.md) - [Billing Guide](./CellCog_Billing_Guide.md) --- Markdown alternate of https://cellcog.ai/support/phone-guide (CellCog support guide, category: AI Employees). All guides for agents: https://cellcog.ai/support/llms.txt. Site index: https://cellcog.ai/llms.txt. Try CellCog free, no credit card needed: https://cellcog.ai/signup