Author
Aneeq Iftikhar
Senior Software Engineer, DeskCaller, DeskCaller
Aneeq Iftikhar builds and tunes the AI phone agents behind DeskCaller, working hands-on with voice prompt design, call-flow logic and telephony integration. The posts below share what actually works in production.
Posts by Aneeq Iftikhar
Never Send £42.50 to a Voice Model
The voice is fine, the reading is wrong. Why TTS mangles prices, dates and place names, which pronunciation controls work, and the rule that fixes most of it.
Your CRM Has a Note That Says Nothing
What a voice platform emits after a call, why the summary arrives empty, why the contact match fails on UK numbers, and the duty to keep the record accurate.
The Agency Selling You an AI Receptionist Did Not Build It
White-label AI receptionists are sold by agencies that built nothing. What you own, whether you can port the number out, and the questions to put in writing.
It Heard Siobhan as Sharon
Names fail several times more often than the headline accuracy figure admits. Why entity error is the metric that matters, and the postcode rule that fixes it.
You Might Not Need an AI Receptionist
Missed-call text-back now costs about the same as AI phone answering in the UK. What decides it is what your text says, and PECR is stricter than vendors admit.
It Said Booked. The Calendar Says Nothing.
The agent said booked and nothing was created. Why the confirmation runs ahead of the write, why a second availability check will not stop double-booking, and what arrives blank.
Monday the 20th Was a Wednesday
Relative dates break appointment booking for three different reasons, and they all look identical on the call. The reference instant, the four default timezones in one stack, and why the model should never emit a date.
The Line an AI Receptionist Must Not Cross in a Clinic
Care navigation versus clinical triage, what NHS 111 and 999 each mean on a dental call, and the Article 9 duty every ranking page on this topic misses.
Your Voice Agent Passes Every Turn and Still Fails the Call
Per-turn grading misses the failures that lose customers. Cross-turn contradictions, false closures, commitment drift, and the checks that catch them.
Do You Have to Tell Callers They Are Talking to an AI?
The actual law on AI call disclosure in the UK, EU and US, with the statutes linked. The EU duty is now live, one US state covers voice, and the folklore fails.
The Latency Budget of a Voice AI Phone Call
A stage-by-stage budget for a real-time voice agent pipeline. Why endpointing dominates, what STT and TTS vendors actually publish, and the transport myth.
Barge-In, and Why Your Voice Agent Talks Over People
Interruption handling end to end. The four sounds a mic hears, every platform's barge-in settings with defaults, and the output buffers nobody flushes.
Why Declining a Forwarded Call Makes Your Phone Ring Again
Your PBX almost never sees you press decline. What the carrier does with it, what SIP 486 and 603 actually mean, and the settings that fix the loop.
The System Prompt for a Plumbing and Heating AI Phone Agent
The complete, copy-paste system prompt for a plumbing and heating AI phone agent. Emergency triage, the gas refusal, call-out fee rules and dispatch, annotated.
The 12 Test Calls and 24 Questions to Use Before You Buy an Answering Service
Twelve scripted calls to place at any AI receptionist or answering service, and the 24 questions to send in writing. Free, no form, no download.
The 11pm Burst Pipe, and What Your AI Receptionist Should Do With It
One emergency call followed from ring to booked job. Safety routing, the on-call rota, what happens when nobody answers, and what it writes into Tradify or Commusoft.
AI Receptionist vs Answering Service, Priced Properly
Published UK prices for both, the rounding trick that adds 70% to a bill, who owns your phone number, and a 12-call test battery to run before you sign.
When and How a Voice Agent Should Transfer to a Human
Warm versus cold transfer, copy-paste escalation rules, a priority list, spam screening, and what to do when nobody picks up the phone.
How to Stop Your Voice Agent Hallucinating
Why AI voice agents make things up, and the layered guardrails that stop them. Grounding, tool-call discipline, read-back, refusal rules and how to test it.
How to Write the System Prompt for a Restaurant AI Phone Agent (with a full, annotated example)
The complete, copy-paste system prompt for a restaurant AI phone agent, torn down block by block, with UK allergen, deposit and call-recording rules built in.