AI Receptionist Go-Live Checklist for Jamaican Businesses: Test Before Your Customers Do

Whether you build your AI receptionist on ElevenLabs, Retell, Vapi, OpenAI or another platform, the moment of truth is the same: a real customer calls your Jamaican number and the AI answers. This checklist covers what to test before that happens and what to watch in the first week. It assumes WOCOM has already routed your number to the platform; if not, start with our connection guide.

1. The Phone Route

• Call from every network. Ring the number from mobiles on the major local networks, from a landline and from overseas. Every call should reach the AI.
• Check the caller ID. Confirm the platform receives the caller's number, so the agent can say “I see you're calling from a number ending in 1234” and so your call logs are useful.
• Test outbound if the AI places calls. The person called should see your Jamaican number, not a foreign one.
• Test the fallback. Ask WOCOM to briefly point the route at an address that will not answer, and make sure the call rings your team or goes to voicemail instead of dropping.

2. Audio Quality

• Listen both ways. Can the caller hear the AI clearly, and does the transcript show the AI heard the caller? One-way audio usually means encryption or firewall settings disagree between WOCOM and the platform.
• Use wideband audio where the platform supports it. G.722 (supported by ElevenLabs, Retell, LiveKit, Ultravox and Bland) gives the speech recogniser twice the audio detail of standard G.711.
• Try a noisy call: from a taxi, a shop floor or a room with a TV on. Callers do not phone from quiet rooms.

3. Jamaican Names, Places and Speech

• Names. Have staff call and give their names. Does the agent repeat them correctly, or ask again politely when unsure? Guessing a name wrong is worse than asking.
• Places. Test parishes and communities your customers live in: Portmore, Half Way Tree, Mandeville, May Pen, Ocho Rios, Savanna-la-Mar. Add them to the agent's instructions or vocabulary if it struggles.
• Phone numbers. Callers say numbers in different ways (“eight seven six”, “eight-seven-six”, leaving out the area code). Check the agent reads a number back for confirmation.
• Accents and Patois. Ask colleagues from different parts of the island to call in, speaking as they naturally would. Note where the agent fails and adjust its instructions.

4. The Conversation

• Your top ten questions. Ask the questions customers ask most: hours, location, prices, how to pay. Every answer should come from information you gave the agent, never a guess.
• Questions it should not answer. Ask about something you do not offer. A good agent says it will take a message, not that it doesn't know.
• Interruptions. Talk over the agent mid-sentence. It should stop and listen.
• Silence. Say nothing for ten seconds. It should prompt you once or twice, then end politely.

5. Transfers and Messages

• Ask for a person by name and by department. The transfer should ring the right extension or ring group.
• Ask for someone who is out. The agent should take a message, and the message should reach you by email or SMS with the caller's name, number and reason.
• Test transfers after hours, when nobody can answer, and make sure the caller is not left ringing.

6. Being Honest with Callers

• The greeting, or the answer to “Am I speaking to a real person?”, should make clear the caller is speaking with an automated assistant.
• If calls are recorded, say so. Check the platform's storage and retention settings against your obligations under Jamaica's Data Protection Act.

7. The First Week

• Review every call. Read transcripts or listen to recordings daily. Look for misheard names, wrong answers and callers who gave up.
• Watch the hang-ups. A caller who hangs up within ten seconds of the greeting is a signal: maybe the greeting is too long, or callers expected a person.
• Fix the instructions, then test again. Most problems are solved by clearer instructions or a better knowledge base, not a different model.
• Keep WOCOM in the loop. If audio, caller ID or transfers misbehave, our support team can see the call on our side and tell you where it went wrong.

Prefer It Done for You?

WOCOM AI, included with Cloud PBX, comes tested against thousands of real Jamaican calls, with name confirmation, message taking, transfers and call summaries built in. To compare your options, see the platform comparison, or contact WOCOM.