Interruptions.<\/strong> If the customer starts talking while the agent is talking, the agent should stop and listen. If it keeps going with its sentence, the conversation breaks down.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nAnd if you serve customers in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands, or the Valencian Community, test Catalan or Valencian live. A spec sheet saying “multilingual” doesn’t mean it understands it well with real accents and vocabulary.<\/p>\n
4. Look at what it does with data, not just what it says<\/h2>\n
An agent that only informs is worth little. The value is in what it leaves done after hanging up: the appointment created in the calendar, the record in the CRM, the alert to the salesperson, the conversation summary.<\/p>\n
Ask whether those integrations exist for your<\/em> specific tools and, above all, who sets them up. A provider having an integration with your CRM doesn’t mean they’ll be the ones to build it. Often it means there’s an API and the work is yours.<\/p>\n5. Demand access to the conversations<\/h2>\n
You should be able to read the transcripts and listen to the recordings of every call the agent handles, from day one and without requesting them by email.<\/p>\n
It’s the only way to know whether it works. “Calls resolved” statistics are calculated by the system itself and always look good. Real conversations don’t. That’s where you discover the agent has been giving the wrong opening hours for two weeks.<\/p>\n
6. Ask how it gets corrected and how long that takes<\/h2>\n
This is the criterion that separates serious providers from the rest, and it almost never shows up in comparisons.<\/p>\n
Your business changes: you raise prices, change hours in summer, add a service, close for renovations. Each of those changes forces you to touch the agent. The right question is twofold: how long do you take to apply a change, and how many changes are included in the fee?<\/strong> If the answer is “you do it yourself from the panel,” you know that recurring work has just landed on your team.<\/p>\n7. Calculate the price the way you’ll actually pay it, not the way it’s presented<\/h2>\n
There are two pricing models and they can’t be compared directly:<\/p>\n
\n- Per minute or per call.<\/strong> Attractive at low volume, unpredictable when a spike hits. Ask what happens the month you double your calls.<\/li>\n
- Flat fee.<\/strong> Predictable, more expensive if you barely use it. Ask what limits that fee has before overage charges kick in.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
To either one, add what doesn’t appear on the website: setup, integrations, and in-house maintenance hours if the model is self-service. Always compare the twelve-month cost, not the first month’s fee.<\/p>\n
8. Confirm where the recordings end up<\/h2>\n
Calls contain personal data, so the processing falls under GDPR. Three questions that should have a written answer in the contract: in which country the recordings are stored, how long they’re kept, and whether the conversations are used to train models.<\/p>\n
That last one matters more than it seems: if your calls feed the provider’s general model, you’re handing over information about how your business operates. It should be possible to turn that off.<\/p>\n
9. Run the test no salesperson will propose<\/h2>\n
Before signing, ask for a test number and call it yourself. But not with a rehearsed call: call from the car on hands-free, call with the air conditioning on, cut your sentence in half, ask something odd.<\/p>\n
Then run the ultimate test: give the number to two people on your team who know nothing about the project and ask them to call the way a customer would. In twenty minutes you’ll know more than you would after three sales meetings.<\/p>\n
10. Decide who will be the internal owner<\/h2>\n
Even if the service is managed, someone at your company needs to be the point of contact: who reviews, who approves changes, and who flags it when something in the business changes.<\/p>\n
If you don’t name that person, the project is left without an owner and the agent ages. If you name them and they don’t have an hour a month free, choose the managed model and save yourself the headache.<\/p>\n
How to use this list in practice<\/h2>\n
You don’t need to score all ten criteria with every provider. On the first call with each one, raise just 2, 6, and 7: what happens when the agent doesn’t know, how long they take to apply a change, and how billing works the month volume spikes.<\/p>\n
With those three answers, your candidate list drops to two, and that’s when it’s actually worth spending time on real testing.<\/p>\n
If you’d rather start with data instead of demos, at Glofera we run a free analysis<\/a> of how your company’s calls come in today. We tell you which part makes sense to automate, which doesn’t, and at what volume it pays off. No obligation.<\/p>\nFrequently asked questions<\/h2>\nWhat’s the best AI agent for phone support?<\/h3>\n
There’s no single best one in the abstract: it depends on which calls you want it to handle, which tools it has to integrate with, and whether your team can maintain it. The same agent that’s excellent at screening calls can fall short at booking appointments with real availability.<\/p>\n
How much does an AI voice agent cost for an SME?<\/h3>\n
It varies a lot depending on the billing model (per minute or flat fee) and whether it includes setup and maintenance or just the license. What’s comparable isn’t the monthly fee, but the total twelve-month cost, including setup, integrations, and in-house hours.<\/p>\n
Can I try a voice agent before signing up?<\/h3>\n
Yes, and you should. Ask for a test number and make real calls in bad conditions: with noise, interrupting, and asking unplanned things. The salesperson’s guided demo is no use for evaluating anything.<\/p>\n
What happens if the agent gives a customer wrong information?<\/h3>\n
That’s why access to transcripts and periodic conversation reviews are essential. Without that loop, the error gets caught when a customer complains, which is late and expensive.<\/p>\n
Do I need technical skills to manage a voice agent?<\/h3>\n
In the self-service model, yes: someone has to write scripts, connect integrations, and fix errors. In the managed model you don’t need a technical profile, but you do need someone who knows the business well and approves changes.<\/p>\n
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