In short#
Your call script tells me how to behave when someone is talking to me on the phone. It lives in Settings → Telephone → Call instructions, in the Call script field.
The structure is the same as for written instructions. What changes is the situation. On a call the caller has no screen, cannot scroll back, and cannot reread your sentence. I say one thing, the caller answers, I continue. Everything below exists because of that.
Five habits carry most of the result: one question per turn, a <attends> pause where I must stop talking, never spelling out an email address, numbers written in words, and never repeating a name back.
Same structure as written instructions, plus live-call extras#
Write the call script exactly like your other instructions: your rules at the top, then one section per situation, in plain markdown. If you have not read it yet, start with How to write instructions. It explains the structure, the level of detail I need, and how to describe a situation so I can follow it.
To find the right place in settings, see Where to edit instructions.
Then add the voice layer on top. A good call script is shorter and more spoken than a messaging script. Short sentences. One idea per sentence. No bullet lists that I would have to read out loud. If a paragraph would take me more than about fifteen seconds to say, split it.
One question per turn#
In writing you can ask three things in one message and the reader answers all three. On a call that does not happen. The caller answers the last question, forgets the other two, and you lose the information you needed.
So write your scenarios as a chain of single questions, and say so explicitly in your rules.
## Booking a viewing
Ask one question at a time and wait for the answer before the next one.
1. Ask which property the caller is calling about.
2. Ask on which days they are available.
3. Ask whether they prefer the morning or the afternoon.
4. Confirm the appointment out loud before ending the call.The same applies to choices. Offer two options, not five. If you need a long list, ask an open question instead and let the caller say what they want.
The <attends> pause#
Sometimes I have to stop talking and let the caller speak, think, or fetch a document. Write <attends> on its own line at that exact point in the script.
I finish the sentence before the tag, I stay silent, and I continue with what comes after once the caller has answered. I never say the tag out loud, and the caller never hears it.
## Checking availability
Tell the caller that you are looking at the calendar and ask them to stay on the line.
<attends>
Give the two earliest slots, one after the other.Three things to keep in mind.
Keep the tag exactly as written,
<attends>, in every language. It is a convention my instructions understand, in your French, Dutch and English scripts alike. Do not translate it.Do not invent variants.
<wait>,[pause],...or an SSML tag are not recognised, and text to speech may read them out loud as words.Use it where a pause is real: before a lookup, after a question that needs thinking, before a transfer. A pause every three lines makes the call feel slow.
Do not spell emails letter by letter#
Spelling an address on the phone fails twice. My speech to text turns single letters into guesses, so the address I write down is often wrong. And reading it back takes forever, which makes the caller give up.
Write the rule into your script and give me a way out.
Never spell or dictate an email address on a call.
If the caller needs a document or a link, offer to send it by WhatsApp or SMS.
If nothing can be sent, note the request and tell the caller a colleague will follow up.The caller's phone number arrives with the call and is stored with the conversation, so I do not need to ask for it. Asking anyway makes the call longer and adds another chance to mishear something.
If you really need an address, prefer a channel where the caller can type it: a message, a form, or a follow up email.
Numbers, times and prices in words#
Write numbers in words in your script: eighty, not 80. A quarter past nine, not 9:15.
Digits are read by text to speech, and some voices pronounce them in English even in the middle of a French or Dutch call. Words are read in the language of the sentence, so they always come out right. This matters most for prices, opening hours, durations, floor numbers and reference numbers.
Opening hours: from nine in the morning to half past five in the afternoon.
The viewing fee is eighty euros.
The office is on the second floor.Do not repeat names back#
If I repeat the caller's name, I repeat what my speech to text heard, not what the caller said. A wrong name spoken out loud sounds worse than no name at all, and spelling it back turns a thirty second call into two minutes.
Take the name as it comes, use it once at most, and move on. You will see the transcript afterwards and can correct the spelling there.
Do not repeat the caller's name back and do not spell it.
Write the name down as heard and continue with the next question.The greeting is not the script#
The first sentence the caller hears comes from Greeting & sound, not from the call script. Keep the two apart.
The greeting is one short line: who is answering and an invitation to speak. The call script covers everything after that: the rules, the situations, the questions, the closing.
If you write your welcome sentence into the script as well, I say it twice. If you write your whole flow into the greeting, I say it before the caller has said a word.
Good to know#
Browser tests in Settings → Telephone → Tests run the same call script, so they are the fastest way to hear your wording, your pauses and your question order. Integrations and call transfers are often unavailable there, so test those on a real line.
If I fail to understand an answer twice, I continue with what I did catch instead of asking a third time. Write your scenarios so they still make sense with one detail missing.
Read your script out loud before saving. Anything you stumble over, I will stumble over too.
Keep instructions and situations, not word for word speeches. Fixed sentences belong in your rules only when the exact wording matters, such as a legal notice.