Getting started
What we do and what your team does
Who does what during implementation and once the agent is live, what stays with your team, and the controls your team holds.
On this page
Telonic builds, connects, tests, hosts and runs your agents. Your team decides how they behave, approves what changes, and keeps the conversations and decisions that need a person. The work of building sits with us, so what we ask of your people is their knowledge of your business, access to your systems, and their judgement at the points where it matters. This page sets out that division, stage by stage, so you can plan who needs to be involved and when.
During implementation
Implementation runs through five stages before go-live. The table shows what each side does in each. See How a deployment works for the stages themselves.
| Stage | What Telonic does | What your team does |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery | Maps your conversations, volumes, languages and systems. Proposes the first process | Gives a few hours with the people who own each process. Shares how conversations are handled today |
| Design | Adapts the industry model for your sector (what the agent knows about the things your business runs on, and the rules attached to each) to your products and terms. Designs workflows, limits, handover and tone. Writes WhatsApp message templates (pre-written messages Meta reviews before they can be sent) with you | Signs off how the agent behaves, its limits, its handover destinations and its tone. Agrees the success measures. Legal or compliance approves consent wording |
| Connect | Builds every connection to your systems and channels. Sets up your hosting option. Submits templates to Meta | Grants access to each system, with the permissions you choose. Configures call routing in your phone system |
| Test | Tests the agent against the industry test set for your sector (conversations drawn from your industry, each scored against what a correct outcome means). Fixes what the tests find | Holds test conversations on the real channels and signs off before any customer reaches the agent |
| Go live | Watches the first conversations closely with you | Switches routing for the first channel. Names who receives each handover on the day |
Telonic also completes your security questionnaire, and shares architecture detail under a non-disclosure agreement, as part of implementation. The people and dates for each stage are set out in the plan you receive before you commit.
Once the agent is live
| Area | What Telonic does | What your team does |
|---|---|---|
| Hosting and operation | Runs your deployment in the hosting option and region you chose, and monitors it continuously | Nothing day to day. For own-cloud and on-premises deployments, approves each access by Telonic engineers |
| Models and providers | Manages the providers of the AI models behind each conversation: speech recognition (speech to text), the language model (understanding and replying) and voice synthesis (the spoken reply). Tests any new model against your industry test set | Approves any change of model or provider before release |
| Message templates | Writes, submits and maintains WhatsApp templates, and tracks Meta's decisions on them | Approves new or changed wording before it is submitted |
| Changes | Makes changes to workflows, the industry model and connections, under documented change control, tested before release | Requests changes, and approves each one before release. Adjusts the controls it holds directly in the console |
| Quality | Scores every conversation against the standard you set, and surfaces trends | Sets the quality standard and reviews the results |
| Handovers | Delivers each handover with the full conversation and a written brief | Takes the conversations that need a person |
| Support | Handles support requests in Arabic and English, with critical incidents covered 24/7 and other requests during UAE business hours | Raises requests through your named contacts |
Telonic notifies you before any significant change to the platform or to how your deployment runs. Response targets for each severity of support request are set out in your agreement. See Support.
What stays with your team
The agent supports your team. It takes the routine conversations your people answer the same way many times a week, and prepares the complicated ones by gathering the facts and the history before handing them over. Your people spend their time on the conversations that need them, with the full history in front of them when they pick one up.
Some things stay with your team in every deployment:
- Decisions that need judgement or authority, such as a claims decision, a refund outside policy, a goodwill gesture or a change to a payment plan. The agent has no way to make them. See Decision boundaries.
- Conversations that need a person, such as a complaint, a customer in distress, or a customer who asks for someone.
- Actions you mark as sensitive, which the agent prepares and holds until a person on your team approves them.
- The standard. Your team decides what a good conversation looks like, and reviews whether the agent meets it.
The controls your team holds
Telonic builds and configures your agents with you. Your team then holds the controls that shape day-to-day behaviour, in the console (the Telonic web application your team uses):
- the limits on what the agent can offer, and the actions that need approval
- the topics the agent handles and those it does not discuss
- the escalation and handover rules, and who receives each handover
- how long conversation content is kept
Changes made through these controls are tested before they go live, and every change is logged with who made it. Larger changes, such as a new workflow, a new system or a new department, are made by Telonic, with your approval. See The controls your team holds.
Who we need from your organisation
| Role | What we need from them | When |
|---|---|---|
| Process owner, such as the head of customer care, claims or reservations | How the process works today, sign-off on behaviour and limits, the success measures | Discovery, design and review |
| IT and integration owner | Access to each system, the permissions to grant, a test environment where one exists | Connect and test |
| Telephony team | The SIP route (the connection your phone system uses to pass calls to the agent) and the routing rules | Connect and go live |
| Legal, compliance or data protection | Consent wording for call recording and messaging, retention periods, the data processing terms | Design |
| Marketing or brand | Tone, and the choice of voice | Design and test |
| Contact centre or team leads | Handover destinations, test conversations, quality review | Test, go live and review |
In practice
A Dubai developer, Sahel Crest Properties, adds post-sale payment questions for one completed tower.
- Telonic spends a few hours with the head of customer care and two of her team, and maps the questions buyers ask most: what they owe next, when, and how to pay.
- The developer's IT team grants read access to the payment system and the unit records. Telonic builds the connections and tests them with test data.
- The head of customer care signs off the limits: the agent explains the payment schedule from the system, and never agrees to change a payment plan. Requests to restructure go to the collections team with a brief.
- Legal approves the consent wording for recorded calls. Marketing chooses the voice.
- After go-live, the head of customer care adds a handover rule in the console: any mention of a delayed handover goes straight to her team. The rule is tested before it goes live.
- When Meta moves one reminder template into a different category, Telonic revises the wording and resubmits it, after the developer approves the change.
What your team controls
- How the agent behaves, and every limit it works within.
- Which actions wait for a person's approval.
- Where each handover goes, and the rules that trigger it.
- Consent wording, message template wording and retention periods.
- The quality standard, and approval of every change before release.
Related
- How a deployment worksGetting started
- The controls your team holdsGovernance and control
- What we need from your IT teamIntegrations
- SupportCommercial
- Human oversight in practiceGovernance and control
Product names and logos are trademarks of their owners. Their mention shows systems Telonic connects to and does not imply partnership or endorsement.