Test call

A test call checks your assistant before a customer rings. When it is done you have a score out of 100 and know whether the greeting and message-taking work. Nothing changes on your phone line, and your minute usage stays the same.

How a test call works

scoco connects a test caller straight to your assistant, through its scoco number but without the phone network. Your assistant answers as it would for any customer. The test caller holds two conversations, one after the other, in German:

1. Have I reached the right company? She asks which company she has reached and says goodbye.
2. Leaving a message with a callback number She gives her name and her request and dictates a callback number.

The two conversations are the same for every assistant. scoco then scores them.

You do not hear the test call, and calling from the browser is not possible yet. Because no phone network is involved, a test call checks neither the phone network nor your call forwarding. How to hear your assistant over the phone network and check your forwarding is under Call it yourself.

Start a test call

1. Open Assistants.
2. On your assistant's card, click Test call. If the assistant is already open, Test call is at the top of every tab.
3. Click Start. The window closes and you see Test call started. The result will appear shortly.
4. After a few minutes, open the assistant, or reload its page if it is already open. The page does not update by itself.
5. Click Test call at the top there. Previous test calls lists this assistant's last five test calls with their result. The list is only on the assistant's own page, not on the card.

The setup checklist on the Overview page also takes you to Assistants with Start a test call. The item is ticked, and then reads First call answered, as soon as your assistant has answered a call, a real one included.

In the setup wizard

In the wizard's Test call step, Start next to Watch a demo call starts the same test call. There you read both conversations live. Afterwards you, and only you, get the summary the way it arrives after a real call: by e-mail if your e-mail notifications are on, and by text message if you have set a number for that. The test call on the Assistants page sends nothing. More in Up and running in 10 minutes.

Read the result

The score out of 100 is 70 percent fixed checks and 30 percent an AI assessment of the conversations. If the assessment is missing, only the checks count. Among the checks:

• Greeting with AI disclosure
• Call completed properly
• Caller's name captured
• Callback number captured and confirmed
• Caller's reason captured

The latest score also shows on the assistant's card under Quality. Before the first test call it reads No test call yet. The trend over the selected period, and how often each check was met, is under Reports›Quality, see Reports.

You find the two conversations themselves, with their transcripts, in the Inbox under All. Once a conversation has ended it is under Resolved, not under Open.

What is different about a test call

A test call talks to your real assistant with its current settings. But it leaves no open work behind:

• It does not count towards your minute usage, nor towards the minutes of a trial.
• It triggers no notification, apart from the summary to you in the setup wizard.
• Webhooks and connected tools receive no event, not even for an appointment.
• The test caller does not become a contact.
• It creates no open questions under Knowledge gaps.
• It feeds no figure under Reports except Quality.
• Your phone does not ring before your assistant answers, not even when Paused is set at the top of the dashboard, and not for known callers either.
• An assistant that is offline still takes the test call, and works as set up during it.
• It does not count as proof that your call forwarding works. The item Activate forwarding stays open.

What a test call does not carry out

A test call calls nobody, enters nothing in your calendar and sends callers nothing. Up to that point it runs like a real call: your rules decide, and your assistant reads free times from your calendar. Then:

• Transfers: whenever your assistant would put the caller through, by a rule or not, it dials nobody. Instead of the announcement it says, in its own language, „Das ist ein Testanruf: Im echten Anruf würde ich Sie jetzt an … durchstellen. Angerufen wird niemand." (in English: "This is a test call: in a real call I would put you through to … now. Nobody is being called."), or, for the default target, the same sentence without a name. The conversation with your assistant then goes on.
• Appointments: your assistant enters no appointment in your calendar, and cancels or moves none. Nothing appears under Appointments.
• Confirmations and reminders: nobody receives an appointment confirmation or reminder by e-mail or SMS.

If a test call held any of this back, the call in your Inbox shows what a real call would have done, on the Test call: not carried out card.

Call it yourself

If you call your assistant's scoco number from your mobile, that is a real call over the phone network, and scoco bills it like any other: the minutes count towards your usage. You hear your assistant, the call appears in your Inbox, and you get the summary as after any real call. scoco does not score such a call. It also really puts callers through, enters appointments in your calendar, sends confirmations and triggers webhooks. The number is on the assistant's card.

To check that your call forwarding works, follow Set up call forwarding.

Costs and limits

Only one test call runs at a time, across all your assistants.

Common problems

There is no Start button; instead it says This assistant has no phone number yet — a test call is only possible after that. Your assistant needs a scoco number first. You find your numbers under Settings›Phone numbers.

A test call is already running. Please wait until it has finished. Another test call in your account has not finished, perhaps on a different assistant. Wait until it has been scored.

Daily limit for test calls reached — available again tomorrow. Three test calls have already been started in your account today. It works again the next day.

The status stays at Queued or Running …. The list does not update by itself. Reload the page after a few minutes.

The test call is refused with a message about the assistant's status. The assistant itself is not set to Active and answers no calls, so no test call either. The refusal does not count towards the daily limit. At the top of the assistant's page, next to its name, set the status to Active, click Save and start the test call again. This status applies to this one assistant only. The status at the top of the dashboard is a different one and does not stop a test call, see Status.

The test call ends in Error. It did not run to the end. Start it again.

The result is Not passed. Read the two conversations in the Inbox under Resolved. Under Reports›Quality, Checks shows how often each check was met. Then adjust, for example, the greeting or the knowledge and test again.

You do not see Assistants. Your role does not start test calls. Viewer also sees the score under Reports›Quality.