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Outbound AI Calling

Early Access

Outbound AI calling is part of the AI phone assistant, which is a paid add-on ($79/mo for 250 minutes) — it is not included in any plan, on any tier, and there is no free trial allowance of minutes. See Account and Billing. For dictation-to-estimate features, see Voice Assistant.

In addition to answering inbound calls, your AI phone assistant — Scout — can place outbound calls and follow-ups to your leads. This is useful for reaching out to a new lead who requested a callback, or for gentle follow-ups on an estimate that is still pending.

Scout handles real conversations with homeowners, so outbound calling is built around clear consent, honest disclosure, and sensible limits. This page explains what to expect.

How Outbound Calls Happen​

An outbound call is placed when there is a reason to reach out — most often because a homeowner asked to be contacted (for example, through your website's lead-capture form) or because a follow-up is due on a pending estimate.

On each call, Scout:

  1. Opens by identifying itself as an automated AI assistant — it never pretends to be a person.
  2. Has a real conversation to answer questions, share information, or schedule an estimate.
  3. Logs the outcome so you can see what happened from your call history.

If a call isn't answered, goes to voicemail, or is busy, it is recorded as a failed call (not a completed one), so your records stay accurate.

When the person wants to hear from your team, you are told. If someone on one of Scout's calls asks to speak with a person, or Scout tells them someone from your team may call, Scout logs the request and your team gets a "Call back needed" alert with their number and what they asked for, through the "Call missed" notification category (Settings → Notifications). This is the same alert Scout sends for calls to your business number. After that, Scout does not call a new lead again on its own, so the call to them is up to your team. A call back Scout already booked with them still goes ahead (the alert says so), and estimate follow-ups continue on their schedule. Turning the "Call missed" category off silences these alerts too.

Consent & AI Disclosure​

Outbound AI calling follows the same honesty and consent rules as the rest of the Voice Assistant:

  • AI disclosure on every call. The first thing Scout says discloses that it is an automated / AI assistant. An honesty rule keeps it from misrepresenting what it is.
  • Consent before contact. When a lead comes from your website form, the homeowner has already agreed to be contacted — including by an automated / AI call — through the TCPA-style consent shown on that form. See Lead Capture Embed Form.
  • Immediate opt-out. If the person says they would rather not speak with an automated assistant, or asks not to be contacted again, Scout stops and marks them do-not-contact.

Calling Hours​

Set when Scout may call new leads in Settings → Voice Assistant → Schedule → "When may Scout call new leads?" (shown while Schedule for is Default (all users), because it applies to the whole company):

  • Same hours as estimate appointments (the default) — Scout calls new leads only on the days and hours you set for estimate appointments.
  • Only during these hours — pick separate days and a start and end hour just for calling. The end must be later than the start on the same day; overnight calling hours are not allowed.

On top of your calling hours, Scout always respects the person's own legal calling hours:

Scout never calls before 8 AM or after 9 PM in the person's own time. When we can't tell their time zone from the number, Scout waits for a time that is within those hours in every mainland US time zone. Some states are stricter. Hours are in your company's time zone.

New leads wait instead of being dropped. A new lead that comes in outside your calling hours is held, and Scout calls at the next allowed time (a few minutes after your calling hours open). The wait does not use up one of the lead's call attempts. If no allowed time exists for that number (no time inside your calling hours is legal in the person's time zone), Scout does not call and you get a "Scout cannot call a new lead automatically" notice asking you to call them yourself. The same kind of notice arrives if a lead has been held back many times without Scout finding a time. These notices use the "Call missed" notification category.

Estimate follow-ups use the same calling hours — your calling hours for new leads when you have set them, otherwise your estimate-appointment hours — together with the person's legal hours above. A follow-up that falls outside them waits and is placed at the next allowed time, and the wait does not use up one of the estimate's follow-up calls. Scout also places at most one follow-up call a day for the same estimate: if two follow-ups would land on the same day (for example, two that waited over a weekend), the second one waits about a day (20 hours after the last call), again without using up a follow-up call.

If no allowed time exists for that number, or Scout has held a follow-up back many times without finding a time, the follow-up stops and you get a "Scout cannot place an estimate follow-up call" notice asking you to call the person yourself (in the "Call missed" notification category). You get one notice for each follow-up that stops, even when several stop on the same day. A follow-up stopped this way can be started again later, for example after you widen your calling hours, and it then begins a fresh set of follow-up calls.

Callbacks are only promised inside calling hours. When a caller asks Scout to call them back at a time outside your calling hours or their legal hours, or just a few minutes before those hours end, Scout does not promise that time. It tells them the earliest time it can call, in their own local time when their phone number shows where they are, and asks if that works. If no time inside your calling hours is legal for their number at all, or the earliest time Scout could call is further out than the two weeks ahead it can book a callback, Scout tells them it has passed their request to your team, and your team gets an "ACTION NEEDED — callback NOT scheduled" alert with their name, number and the time they asked for, so someone can call them.

Daily Calling Limit​

To keep your outreach reasonable, there is a daily cap on how many outbound and follow-up calls Scout will place for your company. The default limit is 100 calls per day. Once the limit is reached, no further outbound calls are placed until the next day.

You can adjust this limit, and setting it to 0 disables the cap entirely (no daily limit). The count is shared across your whole company, so it reflects all of your AI outreach for the day — not per user.

Scheduling & Double-Booking Protection​

When Scout books an estimate during a call, it checks your real calendar availability first and reserves the slot before confirming — so it never double-books you.

  • If the time the caller wants is already taken, Scout offers other open times instead.
  • If your calendar can't be reached, Scout politely declines to lock in a time rather than guessing at one.
  • When Scout can't book someone, your team is told. If Scout has to tell a caller that someone will call them back to confirm a time (your calendar or booking schedule couldn't be read, the appointment couldn't be saved to your calendar, or the customer record Scout found already has an estimate booked and Scout could not confirm that record is the caller's — Scout then leaves that appointment alone and does not say when it is; or the caller asked to move an appointment but Scout found no upcoming one for them on that call — Scout then books and changes nothing), your team gets a "Call back needed — Scout could not book a time" alert with their name, number and the reason (when Scout could not tell which customer record belongs to the caller, the alert gives the number they called from; if their caller ID was hidden, it gives the number they told Scout, or says there was no number on the call), through the "Call missed" notification category (Settings → Notifications). You usually get one alert per call, even if Scout tries more than once. When Scout can offer the caller other real times instead, nothing is promised and no alert is sent. If Scout moves an estimate to a new time but cannot remove the old visit from your calendar, your team gets a separate "Remove the old visit — Scout moved an estimate" alert naming the customer and the new time, and asks you to remove the old visit; until you do, your calendar may show both.
Scout will never invent an appointment time

Scout only offers times it has actually checked. If it cannot read one of your calendars, it will tell the caller it can't confirm a time right now and offer to take a callback number instead — it will not fall back to plausible-sounding hours.

That is the right behaviour (an invented time becomes a missed appointment and an angry customer), but it does mean two things are worth checking if callers tell you Scout wouldn't book them:

  1. Your working hours are set correctly in Settings → Company Profile. Scout only offers slots inside them.
  2. Your minimum notice isn't too long in Settings → Voice Assistant → Booking rules. If it's set to 24 hours, Scout will not offer anything today or tomorrow morning. The default is 2 hours.

You do not need to connect Google Calendar for booking to work. With no external calendar connected, Scout books against your in-app ContractorScope AI calendar and your working hours, and still refuses to double-book anything already on it.

For details on adding and combining calendars so Scout always sees when you're busy, see Calendar.

Booking rules you control​

Set these in Settings → Voice Assistant → Booking rules:

  • Minimum notice before an appointment — default 2 hours. Stops Scout booking an in-home estimate an hour from now. Raise it if you need more warning to get to a job site.
  • How long is an estimate visit — default 60 minutes. Sets both the length of the slots Scout offers and the end time of the event it books.
  • Which calendars to check for conflicts — by default, every connected calendar counts. Narrow it if only some of them represent real busy time.
  • Also check team members' personal connected calendars — on by default, so a rep's own calendar events block that rep's estimate slots.

See Voice Assistant → Tuning How Scout Talks on the Phone for the full table, including the conversation-behaviour settings.

What Gets Saved​

Any details Scout picks up on a call — such as an address or email it hears — are saved as AI-suggested values for you to review and confirm. Scout does not silently overwrite your saved customer records. You stay in control of what becomes part of the contact's official record.

Next Steps​