Phone calls

Connect a Twilio Voice phone number and incoming calls land in Chatlane just like any other channel. You decide what happens when someone calls — ring your team in the browser, hold callers in a queue your agents pick from, take a voicemail, or forward to another number — optionally after a welcome greeting. You can record, transcribe, and summarise calls so your team can scan what was said, and agents can also call out from any conversation.

This article is just about regular phone calls. If you want voice calls over WhatsApp as well, see WhatsApp calling — it builds on the same in-browser answering and queue described here.

Before you start (Twilio)

• A Twilio account with a Voice-capable phone number (buy or port one in the Twilio Console).
• Your Twilio credentials. The cleanest setup is to connect Twilio once for the whole team under Team Settings → Integrations → Twilio; every voice/SMS/WhatsApp channel then reuses that connection. Alternatively you can paste an Account SID and Auth Token on the individual channel.
• For answering calls in the browser: agents need HTTPS and to allow microphone access.

You don't need to wire up any webhooks in Twilio by hand — when you set up the channel, Chatlane points the number's Voice webhook at the right place automatically.

Step 1 — Add a Phone Call channel

1. Open Inbox Settings → Channels and add a channel from the Calls category — Phone Calls (provider Twilio Voice).
2. Connect Twilio (choose your team connection, or enter the Account SID + Auth Token).
3. Pick the voice-capable number(s) this channel should answer.
4. Save. Chatlane configures the number's voice webhook and the outbound-calling app for you.

Once the channel exists, all its call settings live on the channel's own page: Inbox Settings → Channels → (your phone channel) → Voice Config.

Greeting — welcome every caller (optional)

At the top of the Voice Config tab you can switch on a Greeting that plays to every caller before the call is routed — whatever routing you choose below. It's off by default.

Two kinds of greeting:

• Spoken message (text-to-speech) — type the message (e.g. "Welcome to Chatlane support") and optionally pick a voice.
• Audio file — upload an MP3/WAV straight from the settings page, or paste a URL to a file you host. Uploading a new file replaces the previous one.

The greeting plays once, up front. It's separate from the voicemail message, which plays only when a caller is about to leave a recording.

Step 2 — Choose how incoming calls are handled

On the Voice Config tab, set Inbound call routing to one of four options.

1. Ring agents (answer in browser)

The call rings every agent who's available, right inside Chatlane — no separate phone or softphone app. The first agent to answer is connected; if nobody answers within the ring timeout, the caller is sent to voicemail.

Settings:

• Ring timeout (seconds) — how long to ring before falling back to voicemail.
• Voicemail message — played to the caller if no one answers.

This option needs agents to opt in — see Step 3.

2. Hold in queue (agents pick up)

Instead of ringing everyone at once, callers wait on hold and your agents choose which call to answer. The caller hears your greeting (if enabled), then hold music, while every opted-in agent sees them appear in a live "Calls waiting in queue" panel in the top bar — with the caller's name or number and how long they've been waiting. Any agent clicks Answer and is connected to that exact caller in the browser.

Settings:

• Maximum hold time (seconds) — a caller still waiting after this long is sent to voicemail (default 120).
• Hold music (optional) — upload your own audio or paste a URL; leave empty for standard hold music.
• Voicemail message — played when the maximum hold time is reached.

Good to know:

• If no agent is online when a call arrives, the caller goes straight to voicemail rather than holding for nobody.
• Agents hear a soft chime and get a browser push when a new call joins the queue.
• An agent already on a call can't answer a second one — the Answer button is disabled until they finish.
• Each queued call also has a Send to voicemail button — use it when nobody can take the call, so the caller can leave a message instead of waiting out the clock.
• If two agents click Answer at the same moment, the first wins and the other sees that the call is taken.

Like Ring agents, this option needs agents to opt in — see Step 3.

3. Voicemail

Every call goes straight to voicemail. The caller hears your voicemail message, then leaves a recording that lands in a conversation.

Settings:

• Voicemail message — a text-to-speech prompt, or
• Voicemail audio URL — a link to your own recorded prompt (overrides the text).

4. Forward to a number

The call is forwarded to an external number you specify (for example, your existing support line or a mobile).

Settings:

• Forward to number — the destination number.
• Ring timeout (seconds) — how long to ring it.
• Fallback (optional) — what to do if the forwarded call isn't answered or fails:
  • Take voicemail, or
  • Forward to another number (a second number), with its own option to take voicemail if that number also fails.

Forwarding sends the call to a normal phone line (PSTN). Recording and AI summaries still work, but the conversation happens off-platform on the forwarded device.

Step 3 — (Ring agents & queue) set your team up

Browser answering — whether simul-ring or picking from the queue — only involves agents who have opted in, so a call never rings everyone by surprise.

Each agent turns on Receive calls in browser:

• in Settings → Notifications, or
• with the quick toggle in the top bar (next to their account).

The toggle only appears once the team has a channel set to Ring agents or Hold in queue, so if someone can't see it, check Step 2.

With it on:

• The agent stays reachable on any page in Chatlane while signed in.
• Ring agents: when a call arrives they get an incoming-call popup to Accept or Decline.
• Hold in queue: a "N waiting" badge appears in the top bar; opening it lists every waiting caller with a live wait timer and an Answer button. Answering connects immediately — no second accept step.
• With browser push notifications enabled, a push alert reaches a backgrounded tab too.
• The top bar shows an "N online" count of how many teammates can currently take calls.
• If nobody answers and the call goes to voicemail, the team gets a missed-call notification (following each agent's notification settings).

Recording, transcripts & summaries

These apply to any routing type and are toggled on the Voice Config tab:

• Record calls — keeps an audio recording, attached to the call's conversation.
• Transcribe calls — turns the recording into text using OpenAI Whisper. (Requires recording.)
• Summarise calls — generates a short AI summary so your team can scan the call without listening to the whole thing. (Requires transcription.)

Calling out (outbound)

From any conversation with a phone number, use the Call button to dial out from your browser using Twilio's Voice SDK. You get live call controls — mute / unmute, hang up, and a duration timer — and if the channel has several numbers you can choose which one to call from. No external app required.

Tips & troubleshooting

• No browser rings on "Ring agents". Either no agent has Receive calls in browser turned on, or the routing isn't set to Ring agents. Check the "N online" count in the top bar.
• Callers go straight to voicemail on "Hold in queue". That's the intended behaviour when no agent is online — check the "N online" count. At least one agent needs Receive calls in browser on for callers to be queued.
• A queued call says the caller already hung up. The caller disconnected while waiting; the entry clears itself. Queue entries also clear automatically when a call ends.
• No chime for queued calls. Browsers only allow sound after you've interacted with the page at least once since it loaded — click anywhere and the next call will chime. A browser push still arrives either way.
• Forwarded calls drop when unanswered. Turn on a fallback (voicemail or a second number) so the caller always has somewhere to land.
• Uploaded greeting or hold music doesn't play. The audio URL must be publicly reachable by Twilio — if you host the file yourself, check it opens in a private browser window.
• Calls aren't reaching Chatlane at all. The number's Twilio voice webhook should point at Chatlane — re-saving the channel re-applies it. Also confirm the number is Voice-capable in Twilio.
• One channel per type per inbox. To answer more than one number, add more inboxes (or use the team Twilio connection across them).

Related

• WhatsApp calling — voice calls over WhatsApp, with the same in-browser answering, greeting, and queue.
• Connect your channels — overview of every channel type.