Agent Capabilities — What Your Agent Can Do
Written By Anand Raj
Last updated 6 days ago
Agent Capabilities is where you tell the AI receptionist what it's allowed to do on a call. Each capability is a switch — turn on the ones you want, leave the rest off.
What your agent can do
Appointment Scheduling — the agent can book, reschedule, and cancel appointments with your providers (requires a scheduling integration). When enabled, you can also spell out your Cancellation Rules and Rescheduling Rules — for example how much notice is required, cut-off windows, or which appointment types can't be moved. The agent follows these rules whenever a caller asks to cancel or reschedule.
Transfer Call — the agent can transfer live calls to the Operators you configured earlier in Operator Details. For each transfer rule, you can either:
Pick a single Operator, choose a Transfer Mode (e.g. Warm Transfer or Cold Transfer), and describe when to transfer to this operator.
Or pick a Group of operators with a Ringing Strategy:
Simultaneous — all selected operators are called at once, first to answer gets the call.
Sequential — operators are called one after another in the order you set, until someone answers.
Note: Group calls only support Warm Transfer. If no operator picks up, the agent takes a note and notifies you.
During Call: Send SMS to Caller — the agent can text the caller mid-call (e.g. send a booking link, address, or intake form). You'll set an SMS Message Template and When to Send it.
SMS setup requirements vary by country:
in the United States, A2P Brand and Campaign registration is required.
In Canada, SMS is available with Agency-provided phone numbers, while customer-owned numbers require SMS hosting to be enabled.
Notify Business via SMS — after the call ends, the agent sends an SMS notification to the Operator when it completes an action such as scheduling an appointment or processing a refill request.
Notify Business via Email — same as above, but the notification is sent by email to the Operator when the agent completes an action (appointment scheduled, refill processed, etc.).
Take Note — if no staff member is available and the caller wants to speak with staff, the agent captures the caller's note (name, number, reason) for follow-up.
Spam Call Auto-Termination — the agent detects spam, hangs up immediately, and blocks the number. You can also list common spam patterns (for example robocalls, silent calls, repeated hang-ups, or known spam phrases) so the agent recognizes and terminates those calls faster.
Emergency Call Handling — configure how the agent handles emergency-related calls. Choose either End call with a message (e.g. "If you're experiencing a medical emergency, please hang up and call 911…") or Transfer to an emergency number. You can also list the Emergency Types your business considers an emergency (for example: chest pain, severe bleeding, burst pipe, gas leak) so the agent knows exactly which situations should trigger this flow.
How to choose
Turn on what you actually want the agent doing. A few guidelines:
Almost every business turns on Transfer Call, Take Note, Spam Call Auto-Termination, and Emergency Call Handling.
Turn on Appointment Scheduling only if you've connected a scheduling integration (e.g. Tebra, Google Calendar, your EHR). Fill in Cancellation and Rescheduling Rules if you want the agent to enforce them.
Turn on SMS or email notifications so your team always knows when the agent completed an action on a call.
Turn on During Call SMS if you want the agent to send links (booking, intake form, location) while talking to the caller.
For Transfer Call, use an Operator for one specific person, or a Group when any of several people can handle the call. Choose Simultaneous for fastest pickup, or Sequential if you want calls to follow a priority order.
For Emergency Call Handling, pick End call with a message if you're not equipped to respond to emergencies, or Transfer to an emergency number if you have an on-call line that should take those calls. List the emergency types that apply to your business.