It’s clear that artificial intelligence is advancing at a rapid pace, and thanks to that, automation in customer service is at its peak.
Handling calls, responding to customers at any time, and automating processes without compromising quality are among the most sought-after features in businesses, and for good reason. Today, with all the new technology emerging, these possibilities are within easy reach.
With that in mind, in today’s article, we introduce virtual agents, specifically Retell AI and Vapi AI.
What is a virtual agent?
To give a brief introduction to virtual agents; they allow automation of phone support, manage queries, and offer assistance without human intervention while maintaining service quality.
Virtual agents can play a very important role in improving customer service, especially when powered by tools like virtual numbers. While there are many advantages to virtual agents, here are some of the most interesting ones:
- Automated support: Voice agents powered by AI can handle incoming calls, answer frequently asked questions, and direct customers to the right departments without human involvement.
- Personalized support: A virtual agent can adapt its responses based on customer information, enhancing the customer experience.
- Integrations with systems like CRMs: Virtual agent tools can integrate with other systems such as CRMs, giving them broader customer information to tailor their responses.
- Conversation analysis: It’s possible to analyze the conversation in real-time and provide a brief summary, from which relevant data can be extracted.
- Continuous improvement: Thanks to machine learning, a voice virtual agent can improve over time, learning from each interaction and adapting to new situations.
Which virtual agents can we integrate with Megacall?
Virtual agents are a great tool for managing calls, and when combined with cloud telephony, such as virtual numbers, their potential is greatly amplified. Megacall already offers integrations with Retell AI and Vapi AI, and here’s a little about them.
Retell AI
Through artificial intelligence, we can create voice agents capable of making and receiving phone calls. Their main areas of action are call management, routing, and call analysis. They specialize in understanding the context of conversations, answering frequently asked questions, and transferring calls to the appropriate agents when necessary.
- Easy to implement, ideal for beginners.
- Multilingual support for global reach.
- Fast integration with systems.
- Highly customizable.
- Context retention.
- Ensures that voice interactions are as natural and human-like as possible.
- Recommended focus for customer service and technical support.
Vapi AI
On the other hand, Vapi AI is a platform where you can create personalized virtual agents with an emphasis on ease of integration. Voice agents can independently make and receive calls or be part of an operator team. It also integrates with messaging platforms and external APIs. This tool provides advanced voice recognition and processing capabilities.
- Developer-oriented.
- Customizable through APIs.
- Voice customization, with a wide range of voices to choose from.
- Ability to select voice speed.
- Background sound options.
- Supported languages, but limited regarding APIs.
- Recommended focus for sales and process automation.
Virtual agents must sound as human as possible from the very beginning, and they should also understand customer needs and respond according to the flow of the conversation.
Comparing both tools, Vapi AI is highly customizable and offers a wide range of voices, although it may lack features like retaining context between transfers. It is an ideal solution, especially when it comes to compatibility with complex scenarios and scalability.
On the other hand, Retell AI offers advanced conversation capabilities and context retention, which ensures that voice agents remember previous interactions within a call. This is what makes a virtual agent from Retell AI feel more human and natural.
Integration of Retell AI and Vapi AI with Megacall virtual numbers.
Virtual agents are greatly enhanced when combined with virtual numbers, such as those from Megacall. So, how would the integration of Retell AI and Vapi AI with Megacall work? The answer is simple: once you select a virtual number from the more than 100 available numbers at Megacall and create a voice assistant in both tools, you just need to follow these steps for each:
Retell AI
Inside the Retell AI tool, go to the “phone numbers” section and click the “+” button, then select “connect your number via SIP trunk.”
After that, enter the required data, such as:
- Your virtual phone number from the personal Megacall area.
- The server address for the connection (termination URI), which would be sip.megacall.com, visible in the personal area.
- SIP trunk username, which would be the SIP number from your personal area.
- SIP trunk password.
- Finally, the alias, which will be your SIP number.
Finally, we save the data and select the previously created voice agent. If you haven’t created a voice agent yet, you can do so in the “Agents” section of the Retell AI tool.
With this, the main part of integrating Megacall virtual numbers with Retell AI is complete. Afterward, you can configure the reception of incoming calls and other additional settings in Retell AI.
Vapi AI
As we mentioned, Vapi is more developer-focused, so its connection with virtual numbers requires a curl request, which we will explain below.
Inside your previously created Vapi AI personal account, go to the Org Settings section and navigate to the API Keys section. Copy the generated Private Key.
Next, you need to send a curl request with the following details:
- Your private key generated in your Vapi AI personal account.
- The trunk name – Megacall Trunk.
- The server address for connection and outbound calls.
- Your SIP number from your Megacall personal area.
- Your SIP password from your Megacall personal area.
If the request is successful, an ID is generated (in this example, ID: b4f3f4db-c45f-496d-a796-bf14d3f864f7), and a second request is then sent to add the virtual number to Vapi. To do this, the following steps should be completed:
- Your Vapi private key.
- The name (number) from your Megacall personal area.
- The virtual number to connect.
- The trunk name.
- The ID from the response to the first request – b4f3f4db-c45f-496d-a796-bf14d3f864f7
With this, the connection to the number will be established, and it should appear in the virtual numbers section of your Vapi AI account.
