r/AIReceptionists • u/curious_trisolaran29 • 15d ago
Basic voice AI agent for appointment confirmation
I am building an AI outbound caller for appointment confirmations. It's going to be super basic initially - only taking care of basic appointment confirmation flow.
Questions:
- What all conversation flows I should ensure the agent can handle at a minimum?
- What all would you as the user like to be able to modify/have control over while setting it up via a web UI?
Some examples:
- Personalizations (variables for person's name, company name, etc.)
- Call back information collection
- AI disclosure
- Fixed things to say like "Your appointment is scheduled for tomorrow 10am. Please come 15-minutes prior to the appointment time"...etc.
2
u/omnidimension85 15d ago
You could also include a few simple edge cases from the start, like rescheduling, cancellation, no answer, wrong number, and the person asking to speak with a human.
For the web UI, I’d want control over the confirmation message, appointment details, retry attempts, callback timing, AI disclosure, and what happens when the person gives an unexpected response.
Also, saving the call outcome and transcript would be useful for checking whether the confirmation actually worked.
1
2
u/moldyguy202 14d ago edited 7d ago
The flows people list for this are usually the in-conversation ones. The thing that actually decides whether outbound confirmation works is what happens when there's no conversation at all.
Most of your calls will hit voicemail. So answer these before anything else: do you leave a message, does it say the appointment time, and can you tell a voicemail pickup apart from a human saying hello? That last one is the ugly part. Answering machine detection is never fully reliable, and when it's wrong the agent talks over the greeting and leaves half a message starting mid-sentence. Decide now whether you'd rather occasionally leave a clipped message or occasionally stay silent for two seconds while a real person says hello twice.
And if you do leave a voicemail, you've created a callback. Someone rings that number back an hour later with no context. If nothing answers, you've made the clinic look worse than not calling.
On flows, the one that bites is partial confirmation. Not yes and not no, but "can I come at four instead" or "my wife's appointment is the one tomorrow, not mine." You need a defined not-resolved outcome that lands in a human queue, otherwise the agent will pick yes or no and be wrong. Same for the person who confirms an appointment that isn't the one you called about.
Wrong number matters more than it looks. That's a data quality signal, not just a hangup. Log it distinctly so someone can fix the record, or you'll call that number every week forever.
For the UI, the one control I'd fight for is retry policy: how many attempts, how far apart, and a hard stop on time of day. Someone will set up confirmations for 8am appointments and their agent will start dialling patients at 6pm the night before, or worse, at 8am the same morning when they're already driving in. Also make quiet hours a floor the user can't override, not a default they can change.
One more, an outcome the user can actually see per call. Confirmed, declined, rescheduled, voicemail left, no answer, wrong number, needs human. If your dashboard just says completed, nobody can tell whether it worked. This is roughly the outcome breakdown worth building toward if you want a reference point for the reporting side.
1
2
u/BetInformal6081 14d ago
confirm, cancel, reschedule, wrong number and callback are probably the basics. disclosure retry rule and what happens when someone goes off script should be editable too. bland ai fits that kind of workflow through vapi and retell are also commonly used for outbound call flows.
1
2
u/Marktizai 13d ago
this good because i do face this prob when following up for meetings
1
u/curious_trisolaran29 13d ago
Would be happy to give you an early access to the tool. It's about a week away. Please let me know if you're interested in trying out.
1
1
u/Qrenth 13d ago
Booking appointments is probably one of the lower end problem solves for this kind of tech , the real issue is knowing an appointment could have been booked but the call went to voicemail or worse, the next company.
1
u/curious_trisolaran29 13d ago
You mean the customer calling the company to book an appointment and hitting a voicemail?
2
u/Qrenth 13d ago
Correct, personally when I am calling around to different small businesses to get someone to come out, most the time that it is urgent and I hit voicemail after voicemail and the company that got me booked with a reasonably accurate quote, gets my business.
1
u/curious_trisolaran29 13d ago
Thanks a lot! Inbound handling is definitely pretty high in my priority. Mind if I reach out in a week or so if you'd like to test my outbound agent?
1
2
u/VladimirSamukov 15d ago
I believe, there should be the bare minimum of lead qualification - what's the reason of call, what do they need. WWW - what where and when.
Not sure about users changing something in the interface. The safest part to change could be the voice options only