Real-Time Voice AI Agent: 70% Calls Without Escalation

Challenge

An enterprise client was struggling with their contact centre operations:

• Volume: 50,000+ calls per month overwhelming their team
• Wait Times: Customers frustrated by long hold times
• Staffing Costs: 24/7 coverage required expensive shift patterns
• Inconsistency: Quality varied significantly between agents
• Scale: Couldn’t hire fast enough to meet demand

They needed a voice AI solution that could handle real conversations—not just simple IVR menus, but actual problem-solving, booking, and sales interactions.

Solution

We built a full-service voice AI agent capable of handling complex, multi-turn conversations:

Capabilities

1. Customer Support: Answer questions, troubleshoot issues, provide information
2. Booking & Scheduling: Check availability, make appointments, send confirmations
3. Sales Assistance: Qualify leads, answer product questions, route to closers
4. Helpdesk: Technical support with knowledge base integration

Technical Architecture

The system achieves natural, responsive conversation through:

• Real-time bidirectional voice via WebRTC (LiveKit)
• Natural interruption handling—customers can cut in naturally
• Tool calling for CRM lookups, booking systems, inventory checks
• RAG integration for contextual, accurate answers
• Semantic turn detection using Silero VAD

Conversation Quality

Unlike robotic IVR systems, our agent:

• Understands context and nuance
• Handles interruptions gracefully
• Remembers earlier parts of the conversation
• Knows when to escalate to humans
• Sounds natural with high-quality voice synthesis

Results

The voice AI transformed their contact centre operations:

Key Metrics

• 70%+ of calls resolved without human escalation
• Sub-500ms response latency for natural conversation flow
• 40% reduction in average handle time
• 15+ concurrent agent instances running 24/7

Customer Experience

Callers consistently report:

• Faster resolution than waiting for humans
• Natural conversation flow
• Accurate information
• Seamless handoff when needed

Technical Details

Voice Pipeline

[Caller] ←→ [LiveKit WebRTC] ←→ [Deepgram STT] → [OpenAI] → [ElevenLabs TTS]
                                      ↓
                              [Tool Calling]
                                      ↓
                          [CRM, Booking, RAG]

Tech Stack

• Voice Infrastructure: LiveKit for real-time bidirectional audio
• Speech-to-Text: Deepgram for fast, accurate transcription
• LLM: OpenAI for reasoning and conversation
• Text-to-Speech: ElevenLabs for natural voice synthesis
• Turn Detection: Silero VAD for semantic end-of-turn detection
• Frontend: React/Next.js dashboard for monitoring and configuration

Key Design Decisions

1. WebRTC for Quality: Browser-standard protocol ensures reliable, low-latency audio
2. Streaming STT: Transcription starts before caller finishes speaking
3. Semantic VAD: Detects actual end of thought, not just silence
4. Graceful Escalation: Seamless handoff to human agents when needed
5. Full Context: Human agents see complete conversation history

Scale

• 15+ concurrent agent instances
• 50,000+ calls/month capacity
• 24/7 availability with automatic failover
• Multi-region deployment for resilience

Project Details

• Duration: 13 months of development and iteration
• Team: 2 engineers (1 voice/real-time specialist, 1 full-stack)
• Status: Live in production with ongoing enhancement
• Scale: 50,000+ calls/month, 15+ concurrent agents

Want to explore voice AI for your contact centre? Contact us to discuss your requirements.