AI voice agents
Voice agent testing with real callers
Real people call the AI voice or phone agent you already run, or are about to put live. They talk the way your callers talk, with accents, interruptions and background noise, and report exactly what the agent did on every call.
Where testers reach it
- Phone line
What you get
- Every transcript or recording
- Scores on the 8 criterion rubric
- A one-page verdict
- No fix to sell, ever
Voice agents fail in ways a chatbot never does. The caller talks over the greeting, pauses to find a card, says a street name the speech recognition has never heard, or calls from a car with the windows down. None of that shows up when the team tests the agent from a quiet office.
Voice agent testing with real callers covers the conditions your agent will actually meet. Our testers call from phones, not test harnesses. They have different accents, speaking speeds and levels of patience, and each one follows a customer scenario built around what you want to check before go-live or after a change.
Every call is recorded with all-party consent and scored on the same rubric we use for every AI type. Testers add a written reason for each score, so you can hear the moment the call went wrong and read why it mattered to the caller.
Voice AI testing here is diagnosis only. We never take calls for you and we never change your agent.
What the panel pushes on
Where testers push hardest
The panel spends most of its time where this kind of AI tends to fail.
Accents and speech
Testers with a range of accents, speeds and speech patterns check whether the agent understands names, addresses, numbers and spelled out words.
Interruptions and barge-in
Callers talk over the agent, change their mind mid sentence and answer before the question ends. Testers note whether the agent keeps up or restarts.
Silence and latency
Long pauses before a reply make callers repeat themselves or hang up. Testers mark every gap that felt too long from the caller's side.
Noise and line quality
Calls from a car, a street or a busy room show whether the agent copes with the conditions your callers are really in.
Transfer to a person
Testers ask for a person in plain words and check whether the transfer happens, how long it takes, and whether the call drops.
Numbers and details
Dates, times, phone numbers and confirmation codes are read back and checked, since a single wrong digit can undo the whole call.
Sample scenarios
What a tester might try
Real scenarios, played by real people in character.
Accent or non-native speaker
Calls to change an appointment, gives a street name that is easy to mishear and spells their last name letter by letter.
Angry customer
Interrupts the greeting with the complaint, talks over each question and asks why the call is not with a person.
Confused first-timer
Is not sure which service they need, answers questions with questions, and pauses for a long time to look something up.
Asks for a human
Says "representative" three times in different ways and waits to see whether the agent transfers or keeps asking.
Accessibility needs
Speaks slowly with a speech difference and asks the agent to repeat information more slowly.
Edge case
Calls from a noisy street to change two bookings at once, one of them for a family member.
You tell us your own concerns and we build the panel around them. These are starting points, not a fixed script.
The rubric
Scored on the same eight criteria as every test
Highlighted rows are where this kind of AI most often loses points. Every session is scored 1 to 5 on all eight, with a written reason.
| # | Criterion | The question the tester answers | Score 1 to 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Understood meFocus | Did it understand what I actually asked, including when I phrased it badly? | 1 to 5, with a reason |
| 02 | Got it right | Was every fact, price and policy it gave me correct, with nothing made up? | 1 to 5, with a reason |
| 03 | Got it done | Did I leave with my problem solved or my task completed? | 1 to 5, with a reason |
| 04 | EffortFocus | How many turns, repeats and rephrasings did it take? | 1 to 5, with a reason |
| 05 | HandoffFocus | When I needed a person, could I reach one without a fight? | 1 to 5, with a reason |
| 06 | Tone | Did it stay patient and respectful when I was angry, confused or slow? | 1 to 5, with a reason |
| 07 | Stayed in bounds | Did it avoid promises, discounts or advice it had no authority to give? | 1 to 5, with a reason |
| 08 | Would I stayFocus | Would I have hung up, given up, or gone to a competitor? | 1 to 5, with a reason |
Why people, not only software
What automated checks miss here
Simulated callers use synthetic voices and scripted timing. They are useful for checking that call flows connect, but a synthetic voice is not a person with a regional accent, a toddler in the background and no patience left. The caller's decision to hang up is the thing that matters, and only a person makes it.
Call analytics show duration, transfers and completion. They do not show that the caller repeated their date of birth four times and left thinking the booking had failed. Our recordings and written reasons do.
What you receive
Transcripts, scores and a plain verdict
This is the report format, shown blank, with no invented scores.
The one-page verdict
Sample format, no real scores- System
- Your support chatbot, website widget
- Panel
- 12 sessions, 8 personas
- Window
- About ten days
| Criterion | Mean of 5 |
|---|---|
| Understood me | blank in this sample |
| Got it right | blank in this sample |
| Got it done | blank in this sample |
| Effort | blank in this sample |
| Handoff | blank in this sample |
| Tone | blank in this sample |
| Stayed in bounds | blank in this sample |
| Would I stay | blank in this sample |
Verdict, one of three
- Keep it
- Fix these settings
- Reconsider it
Every transcript or recording
Each session in full, with the tester's notes pinned to the exact moment something went right or wrong.
A score per criterion, per session
Eight criteria scored 1 to 5 by the person who lived the conversation, each with a written reason.
What failed, named plainly
When the verdict is fix these settings, it lists the behaviors testers saw fail, so whoever maintains your AI knows where to look.
No fix to sell
We diagnose only. The report is yours to hand to your vendor, your developer or your own team.
Questions
Common questions about this test
Quick answers before you request a test.
Can you test voice agents with different accents?
Yes. You can ask for specific accents, regions or non-native speakers, and larger accent panels are available as a Custom Panel. Testing voice agent accents is one of the most common requests we get.
Are the calls recorded?
Yes, with all-party consent. You sign a written authorization for the line being tested, and every tester consents to recording by contract before any call.
Can you test before the number is public?
Yes. If the agent is reachable on a test number or a staging line, testers can call that. Testing a voice agent before go-live is a good time to find the problems callers would hit first.
Keep reading
Related guides and use cases
More on testing this kind of AI well.
Pre-Launch Testing
A human panel runs your AI through real customer behavior before it goes live.
Read more about Pre-Launch TestingUse caseMultilingual Testing
Native and non-native speakers test whether your AI truly works in every language.
Read more about Multilingual TestingUse caseAccessibility Testing
Testers with accessibility needs check whether your AI actually works for them.
Read more about Accessibility TestingGuideHow to Test a Voice Agent Before Go-Live
Real callers, accents, interruptions, noise and handoff.
Read more about How to Test a Voice Agent Before Go-LiveGuideHow to Test AI Agents Customers Talk To
Testing agents that take actions, across chat, voice and text.
Read more about How to Test AI Agents Customers Talk ToGuideWhat Is AI Drift? Why Good Agents Slip
Why a working agent changes after model updates, and how to catch it.
Read more about What Is AI Drift? Why Good Agents SlipBenchmarkVoice Agent Index
AI phone and voice agents that answer calls for businesses.
Read more about Voice Agent IndexSee your AI the way your customers do
Tell us what your AI does and what worries you. We build a panel of real people around it and hand you every transcript, a score per criterion and a plain verdict. We never sell the fix.