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An agent that writes well does not automatically speak well. The same sentence that is clear on a screen can be confusing out loud, and almost every problem comes from the same cause: the caller hears it once, in order, and cannot go back. These are the changes worth making, roughly in the order they matter.

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Never lead with the wrong word

This is the big one.
Yes, you can see the dentist on Monday morning. Doctor Iyer is available on Tuesday and Thursday.
Read on a page, that corrects itself. Heard on a phone, the caller stopped listening after “yes” and is already reaching for their diary. Put the answer first:
Monday is not possible — the dentist is here Tuesday and Thursday.
Add this to How Agent should speak on the Voice page if you see it happening:

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Say it the way you would say it

Written shorthand does not survive being read aloud. The supplied instructions already cover titles and brackets. If you are quoting prices or times a lot, add:

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Keep replies short, then shorter

Two sentences is plenty. A caller cannot skim, and a long answer means either they interrupt you or they stop listening — usually both. The supplied instructions ask for one or two sentences. If yours are still long, the cause is normally your agent instructions telling it to be thorough, which is good advice for a website and bad advice for a phone.

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If callers say it talks too fast

Usually it is the length, not the pace: a forty-word reply heard once, at a normal speed, feels like a lecture. Shorten the replies first (the section above), then, if it still feels rushed, move the Speaking speed slider a little below Normal on the Playground, under the voice. It also helps on a poor phone line and with callers listening in a second language. Speaking speed It is worth telling the agent what to do when somebody asks it to slow down, in its instructions: shorter sentences and simpler words for the rest of the call.

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Do not describe things nobody can see

No lists, no links, no buttons, no “as shown below”, no “click here”. This is in the supplied instructions, and it is the first thing to re-add if you rewrite them from scratch. If you need to send somebody a link, the agent should offer to have it sent by message rather than reading a URL aloud. Nobody has ever successfully written down a URL from a phone call.

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Let people finish

People pause mid-sentence on the phone. They are checking a calendar, or thinking, or looking for their card. An agent that treats the first half-second of silence as their turn will talk over them. If callers are being cut off, say so plainly:

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Give it a first line that sounds like your business

Opening line (on the Playground, under What Agent says) is what the caller hears the instant they connect. Answer the way your staff answer. Short, names the business, invites them to speak. Anything longer and they will talk over it — which is not a failure, but it does mean nobody heard it.

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Where a new agent starts

Every new agent — from scratch, from a pre-built agent, during sign-up or through the API — starts with the Premium voice Kavya, because the first call is the impression your customers get. Premium calls are billed at the Premium per-minute price — that includes an agent you create through the API without choosing a voice. Change the voice on the Voice page, or with voice on Update Agent, and the agent keeps your choice. Agents you already have keep the voice they have.

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Pick the voice by listening

The voice list is on the Voice page. Names tell you nothing useful, so press play and hear one. Then set it, ring the number, listen to a full sentence, and change it if it grates. Do it with your actual greeting, not “hello” — the sound of a voice reading your business name is what your customers will hear a hundred times. There are three tabs — Standard, Premium and Studio — with the per-minute price on each. Premium voices are warmer and cost more per minute; standard voices are what most lines run on and nobody complains. Studio is the largest catalogue and the cloning tier, on the Pro plan and above. Listen before deciding the difference is worth the difference — on a short, transactional call it often is not, and on a line where the voice is the brand it often is. The Premium tab now lists over two hundred more voices, each named for who it is and what it is for: Ishita · Banking, Aayan · Conversational, Gokul · Narrator. Hover a voice to read it: its gender, what it is for, and its accent (Hindi, Indian English, Hindi–English mix, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Gujarati or Punjabi). Conversational, Customer care, Sales, Banking and the like are made for a live call; Narrator, News, Ads and Stories are made for reading aloud and can sound stiff in a conversation, so start with the first kind. Where one voice exists in two accents, the accent follows its name. They cost the same as any other Premium voice. Search by accent or style (type “banking” or “tamil”) to find one. Standard and Premium are available on every plan, the free trial included. Try the more expensive one early — it is easier to decide it is not worth the money once you have heard it than to wonder. Studio needs the Pro plan or above, but one voice on it previews free on every plan, so you can hear the tier before deciding whether to upgrade for it. Ignore the language a voice is listed under when you are judging it. Every voice speaks every language we support; that label is the accent it carries, not a limit on what it can say.

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When to change the model

Rarely. The recommended one is chosen for how quickly it starts speaking, which matters more on a call than almost anything else. Change it if the agent is following your instructions loosely — ignoring a rule you have stated plainly, or inventing details. Some models hold a long instruction better than others. Change it back if replies get slower; a thoughtful answer that arrives late sounds like a bad line, not a careful assistant.
Every model in the voice list is fast enough to hold a conversation. That is the filter — a model that pauses to think is not offered here at all, however good it is at writing.

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Test it the way it will actually be used

Not from a quiet room on speakerphone. Wind, traffic and a poor signal are the normal conditions for a customer ringing a business.
If your customers speak Marathi-accented English, test in Marathi-accented English. Testing in the accent the agent finds easiest tells you nothing.
Talk over it mid-sentence. It should stop. If it keeps going, callers will hang up — being talked over by a recording is the exact thing people hate about phone systems.
“I’d like to…” then a three-second pause. See whether it waits or jumps in. This is the single most common real-world failure and the easiest to miss when you are testing carefully.