Stop Missing Sales Calls. Get an AI Agent That Closes.
Voice AI for inbound sales answers customer product questions instantly, 24/7. It also qualifies leads from these calls and routes high-intent buyers directly to human agents.
Syntora specializes in designing and deploying voice AI solutions for inbound sales calls in online retail businesses. Our approach leverages technologies like FastAPI, Claude API, and Supabase to provide instant customer support and qualify high-intent leads. We focus on building custom, scalable architectures tailored to specific ecommerce needs.
The complexity of a voice AI system for ecommerce depends on factors like the number of SKUs, the depth of product information required, and the existing systems it needs to query for inventory and order status. A store relying on a clean Shopify API typically presents a more straightforward integration path compared to a business with a custom, on-premise ERP, which would require more extensive integration work.
Syntora would typically engage with clients to understand their existing ecommerce platform, product data structure, and desired call handling flows. We'd assess the availability of APIs for product catalog, inventory, and order management, which are crucial for effective voice AI deployment. A typical engagement for a system of this complexity would involve a discovery phase of 1-2 weeks, followed by a build-out that can range from 8-16 weeks, depending on integration requirements and iterative testing.
What Problem Does This Solve?
Most online retailers handle inbound calls with a basic interactive voice response (IVR) system. These phone trees force customers into predefined buckets, which fails when they have specific product questions. A customer asking, "Does this dining table come in walnut?" will hang up after hearing "Press 1 for sales, Press 2 for support." That potential sale is lost.
To solve this, some businesses hire offshore call centers. But this introduces high costs and inconsistent quality. A $15/hour agent reading a script cannot answer detailed technical questions, leading to escalations and delays. For a store getting 100 calls per day, this can exceed $40,000 per month in salary and management overhead, and agents still require extensive training on the product catalog.
A D2C furniture store we worked with faced this exact problem. A customer called on a Saturday, when the small sales team was offline, to ask if a specific bookshelf could support 50 pounds per shelf. The IVR routed them to a voicemail box. The customer gave up and purchased a similar item from a larger competitor that day.
How Would Syntora Approach This?
Syntora's approach to implementing voice AI for ecommerce sales calls begins with a thorough data ingestion strategy. We would start by auditing the client's existing product catalog, typically accessible via their ecommerce platform's API (e.g., Shopify, Magento, or custom systems). All product descriptions, specifications, and relevant FAQs would be processed and indexed into a vector database, commonly leveraging Supabase with the `pg_vector` extension for efficient semantic search capabilities on product data.
The core of the system would be a Python-based service built with FastAPI, designed to manage the entire call logic. This service would integrate a low-latency speech-to-text model for near real-time transcription of caller audio. We have extensive experience building document processing pipelines using Claude API for sensitive financial documents, and the same robust pattern would be applied here: the transcribed text, enriched with context from the Supabase vector store, would be fed to the Claude 3 Sonnet API to generate accurate, contextually relevant responses.
For deployment, the FastAPI service would be containerized using Docker and deployed on AWS Lambda. This serverless architecture optimizes operational costs by only consuming compute resources when the agent is actively handling a call. Amazon Connect would be utilized to manage inbound phone numbers and route calls to the Lambda function for processing by the AI.
A critical component of this service is intelligent lead qualification. When the AI detects high purchase intent based on conversational cues, it would initiate a warm transfer to a human sales agent using the Twilio API. This process ensures seamless handoffs to your team. Concurrently, a complete transcript of the AI-caller interaction would be posted to a designated Slack channel via a webhook, providing sales agents with immediate context before engaging with the customer. The delivered system would be architected for scalability, designed to handle varying call volumes efficiently.
What Are the Key Benefits?
Answer 90% of Product Questions in 20 Seconds
The AI accesses your entire product catalog in real-time. Customers get instant, accurate answers about dimensions, materials, and stock levels without waiting for a human agent.
Pay Per Call, Not Per Agent
Stop paying for idle time. Our AWS Lambda architecture costs pennies per call, replacing a $4,000/month salary for a single full-time agent.
You Get the GitHub Repo and the Runbook
We deliver the complete Python source code and deployment scripts. You have full ownership and can modify the system without vendor lock-in.
Live Transcripts in Slack, Not Buried in a Call Log
Every conversation is transcribed and posted to a Slack channel in real-time. You get immediate visibility into what your customers are asking for.
Connects to Shopify, Magento, and Your ERP
We build direct API connections to your product and inventory systems. The agent can check stock for SKU #ABC-123 and tell the customer it will ship in 3 days.
What Does the Process Look Like?
System Access & Data Ingestion (Week 1)
You provide API keys for your ecommerce platform and any PIM or ERP. We ingest and index your complete product catalog. You receive a data validation report.
Agent Development (Week 2)
We build the core voice agent using Claude 3 Sonnet and test it against your 50 most common inbound questions. You receive sample audio responses for review.
Deployment & Routing Logic (Week 3)
We deploy the system on AWS Lambda and configure Amazon Connect. We set up the logic to transfer high-intent callers to your team. You receive a test phone number.
Monitoring & Handoff (Week 4+)
For 30 days post-launch, we monitor call logs and tune the AI's responses. At the end of the period, you receive the final runbook and full source code access.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How much does a custom voice agent cost to build?
- The build cost is a one-time engagement. Pricing depends on the number of SKUs and the complexity of API integrations needed to access product or inventory data. A simple system connected to a Shopify store is on the lower end, while integrating with a legacy, on-premise ERP system requires more custom work.
- What happens if the AI gives a wrong answer or misunderstands a customer?
- The system has a fallback mechanism. If the AI's confidence score on a query is below a set threshold, it will politely state it doesn't have the answer and offer to connect the caller to a human agent immediately. This prevents customer frustration and ensures complex queries are handled correctly.
- How is this different from a service like Talkdesk or Aircall?
- Talkdesk and Aircall are cloud phone systems; they provide the infrastructure for calls but not the intelligent agent that answers questions. We build that agent. Our system can work with phone infrastructure like Amazon Connect, but our core value is the custom AI logic, not the phone lines themselves.
- Can it handle different languages or accents?
- Yes. The speech-to-text models we use are trained on a massive global dataset and perform well with a wide variety of accents. We can configure the AI agent to respond in multiple languages, such as Spanish or French, though each additional language is scoped as a separate component in the project proposal.
- What kind of maintenance is required after launch?
- The primary maintenance is re-indexing your product data when you add new SKUs or significantly update existing ones. We provide a Python script that you can run on a schedule or trigger manually. The AWS infrastructure is serverless and requires no patching or management. We offer an optional support retainer for performance monitoring and prompt tuning.
- Can the agent take orders directly over the phone?
- We do not build PCI-compliant payment processing into the agent for security reasons. Instead, when a customer is ready to buy, the agent sends a secure, pre-filled shopping cart link via SMS to their phone. This lets them complete the purchase on your website, which is already secure and optimized for checkout.
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