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Phone voicemail (Twilio)

Give customers a phone number — callers leave a voicemail, the transcript arrives in the Inbox and your team calls back.

With phone voicemail, customers can call a phone number for your store. They hear your greeting and leave a message; Twilio records it and writes it down, and the message arrives in the Inbox as a conversation with a Phone badge for your team to call back. Kalfa AI does not answer calls. Phone voicemail is included in every plan.

Before you start: you need a Twilio account and a phone number with voice from Twilio. Twilio bills you directly for the number, incoming calls, recordings and transcription. Only an Owner or Admin can connect a number.

How it works

  1. A customer calls your Twilio number.
  2. They hear your greeting, then a tone, and leave a message of up to two minutes (pressing # ends it).
  3. Twilio sends the recording and its transcript to Arasta.
  4. A conversation appears in the Inbox with a Phone badge, the caller's number and the transcript. It waits for your team, with a handover summary like any other handoff.
  5. An agent plays the recording, calls the customer back and writes what was agreed as an internal note.

Calls from the same number within 48 hours join the same conversation.

Step 1 — Get a number in Twilio

  1. Create an account at twilio.com and upgrade it from trial (trial numbers play a Twilio message before your greeting).
  2. In the Twilio Console open Phone Numbers → Buy a number and buy a number with Voice in the country you need. Some countries ask for an address or business documents first.
  3. Open Account info on the Console home page. You need the Account SID (starts with AC) and the Auth Token.

Step 2 — Connect the number

  1. Open Stores, choose your store and open the Channels tab.
  2. In Phone, paste the Account SID, the Auth Token and your Phone number in international format (for example +442071234567).
  3. Optionally write a Greeting. Leave it empty to use the default text in your store language.
  4. Click Connect number. Arasta checks the values with Twilio; the Auth Token is stored encrypted.

A number can be connected to one store only.

Step 3 — Paste the webhook in Twilio

  1. Copy the Voice webhook URL that Arasta shows.
  2. In the Twilio Console open Phone Numbers → Manage → Active numbers and choose your number.
  3. Under Voice configuration, set A call comes in to Webhook, paste the URL, choose HTTP POST and save.

Step 4 — Test it

Call your number from another phone and leave a short message. It appears in the Inbox within two minutes, and step 4 on the Channels tab turns green.

In the Inbox

  • Phone badge and number — the caller's full number is shown to people who can reply; in lists it is masked (•••• 0456). A withheld number cannot be called back.
  • Play recording — every voicemail has a player under its message. The audio stays at Twilio and is streamed through Arasta only to signed-in team members.
  • Transcript — the message text is Twilio's transcript. If the transcript is late, the voicemail first shows as [voicemail without transcript] and the transcript follows as an internal note. Twilio transcribes English best; for other languages listen to the recording.
  • Call back — the reply box is replaced by a Call back button (it opens your phone app). Write what you agreed as an internal note and resolve the conversation.

Greeting and language

The greeting is read by Twilio's text-to-speech in your store's default language. Change it any time under Phone settings on the Channels tab.

Privacy

Callers' numbers are stored encrypted. Recordings are not copied to Arasta. When a conversation is deleted (by you, by a customer data deletion or by your retention period), Arasta also deletes its recordings at Twilio. If you disconnect the number first, delete old recordings in the Twilio Console yourself.

Turning it off

Disconnect number under Phone settings stops new voicemails; existing conversations stay in the Inbox. Also remove the webhook (or release the number) in Twilio, or callers will hear Twilio's error message.

Troubleshooting

  • "Twilio did not accept the Account SID and Auth Token" — copy both again from Account info; a token you rotated in Twilio must be pasted again here.
  • "This Twilio account has no such number" — check the international format and that the number belongs to this account (not a subaccount).
  • Callers hear an error — the webhook is missing or wrong in Twilio, or the number is disconnected in Arasta.
  • No voicemail in the Inbox — very short or silent messages are ignored. Check the webhook is set to HTTP POST.
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