Book field jobs by phone with ElevenLabs

Go to crisphive.com/login, type your email and continue. On Enter your code, type the 6-digit code from the email and click Verify (or click Email me a magic link instead). You land on the Command Center.

In the left sidebar of the Crisphive dashboard, click Rehearsal in the Rehearsal | Live switch, then click Switch. Rehearsal is Crisphive’s sandbox: isolated test data, and no real customer or technician is ever texted or emailed. The box reads Switch environment?; after Switch the page reloads.

Go to Settings → Developer → API Keys (crisphive.com/app/settings/developer/api-keys): in the left menu click Settings, then the Developer tab. The page title is API Keys, with a Rehearsal badge while you are in practice mode.

Click Create new API key (top right). Leave Key type on Secret — never Publishable. Name: ElevenLabs phone agent (only you see it).

Click Expires in (days) (it shows 30 days) and choose 365 days. The date the key stops working is shown next to each choice. With the 30-day default, your phone agent would stop working after a month. The Owner and Administrators are emailed 7 days before a key expires.

Under Scopes click the Restricted card (“Pick exactly what this key can do — recommended for AI agents.”). In the list that opens, tick exactly five: under BOOKINGS View jobs, Create jobs, Manage jobs; under CUSTOMERS View customers, Manage customers.

Click Create API key. The box API key created says you won’t be able to view the key again. Click Copy, keep the key somewhere safe for the next few minutes (a password manager, or a note you delete afterwards), then click Done.

Go to elevenlabs.io/app/sign-in and sign up (email or Google). Confirm your email if ElevenLabs asks. Four short set-up screens follow; four dots at the bottom show where you are.

Click ElevenAgents (“Deploy and monitor conversational agents”), not ElevenCreative — that one is for voice-overs. Click Continue.

The name and How did you hear about us? are optional. Leave the language on English, tick the box confirming you are 18 or older, and click Next.

Click Skip. Your answer changes nothing in this guide.

To start on the free plan, click Skip at the bottom. You can upgrade later.

On Browse templates, the first card in the list is Create Blank Agent. Click it. Do not pick a template (Customer Support, Front Desk Receptionist, …): a template comes with its own instructions that would fight the booking rules below. The agent is created straight away — there is no box asking for a name — and its page opens on Agent.

At the top left the agent is called My Agent. Click the name, type Crisphive Booking and press Enter. Callers never see this name.

Copy the system prompt from the box below. Replace every [Business name] (in the prompt and the first message), [city] (for example “Ottawa, Canada”) and [timezone] — your business’s IANA timezone, for example America/Toronto. [timezone] appears three times: in the first line and twice in step 5. Use the same area for [city] as your Crisphive service areas — if they disagree, the agent tells callers it is not sure you cover their address. Then click inside the System prompt box (it contains “You are a helpful assistant.”), select everything and paste.

Directly under the System prompt box, on the right, a small button with a globe shows a timezone. ElevenLabs fills it with your computer’s timezone, which may not be your business’s. Click it, type your city in Search timezones (for example Toronto) and click the result, for example America/Toronto. If this is wrong, “tomorrow at 10” becomes the wrong day or hour.

Under First message, delete “Hello! How can I help you today?” and paste the greeting from the box below the prompt card, with your business name in place of [Business name]. Leave the Interruptible switch on, so a caller who starts talking is not talked over.

On the right, under LLM, click the box showing the current model (a new agent shows Qwen3.5-397B-A17B). A panel titled LLM slides in; click the box inside it, and in the list (each model with its speed and price per minute) click Claude Sonnet 5.5. Close the panel with the ×. See Which AI model to choose for the alternatives.

In the agent’s left-hand menu click Tools. The page has two tabs, Tools and MCP. On the right, the System tools list is all switched off on a new agent (“0 active tools”). Switch on End conversation — the header now says 1 active tool. Without it the agent cannot end the call itself.

Click the MCP tab (“No MCP servers found”), then Add server (top right) → New Custom MCP Server.

A box Model Context Protocol Server Terms opens. Tick the box confirming you have read the terms and click Accept. You are taken back to the MCP page: click Add server → New Custom MCP Server again. The panel New Custom MCP Server slides in from the right.

Under Basic Information: Name Crisphive, Description Book service visits in Crisphive. Under Server Configuration click Streamable HTTP (the default is SSE — change it). Under Server URL leave the type on Value and enter https://api.crisphive.com/mcp/voice. Leave Authentication as it is (“Workspace has no auth connections”).

Scroll to HTTP Headers and click Add header. Set Type to Secret (the Value box becomes a button Add new secret) and Name to Authorization, with a capital A. Click Add new secret: in the Add secret panel, Name crisphive_api_key, Value the word Bearer, one space, then your key — Bearer chsk_test_…. Click Add secret. “Secret created successfully” appears and the header row shows Secret: crisphive_api_key. Once saved, ElevenLabs never shows the value again.

Scroll to Tool Approval Mode and click No Approval. On a phone call there is nobody to press “approve”, so any other choice stops the booking halfway. Your Crisphive key already limits what the agent can do. Leave Request Metadata and everything under Tool Settings as it is.

At the bottom, tick I trust this server and click Test Connection. A green bar should read Connected (10 tools available). Click Add Server.

Your changes are a draft until you publish. Click Publish (top right).

The box Review Changes lists what changed (name, prompt and greeting, Tools, LLM). Type a note under Commit message or keep the suggested one, and click Publish at the bottom right of the box.

Go to Bookings (crisphive.com/app/bookings), still in Rehearsal. The new booking is at the top of All Bookings: the reference (REQ-CA-…), the day and time, Sam Tremblay with +16135550188, the problem, the technician and the status Confirmed.

In the left-hand menu click Conversations and open your conversation. The transcript is in the middle; the summary, cost and status are on the right. Each Crisphive step appears as a tool — Crisphive_listCustomers, Crisphive_listJobRequestBookingWindows, Crisphive_bookAndConfirmJobRequest — with its duration. This is the place to look when something goes wrong.

In Crisphive click Live at the top of the left-hand menu and confirm Switch. Check every job type the agent may book has a default duration, and that technicians have working hours, skills and service areas.

Go to Settings → Developer → API Keys and make a new key exactly as in Step 1 (same name, 365 days, the same five permissions). This one starts with chsk_live_. Put a reminder in your calendar a week before it expires.

In ElevenLabs open the agent → Tools → MCP tab and click Crisphive. The panel shows Server URL, Request Headers and other settings. Next to Request Headers click Edit, and for the Authorization header choose Add new secret: name it crisphive_api_key_live, value Bearer + one space + your live key. Save.

Click Test Connection, then Publish the agent again.

Book a visit for yourself with your own number and address, check it appears in the live dashboard, then cancel it.

ElevenLabs does not sell phone numbers: import a number you have with Twilio. Assign the number to the agent as the agent that answers incoming calls.

With your phone provider, forward calls from your existing business number to the agent’s number: always, when nobody answers, when the line is busy, or after hours. A good start is after-hours and missed calls only, so your team still answers during the day.

If your business has its own phone system, connect it over SIP. ElevenLabs can import a SIP trunk.

In ElevenLabs, add the system tool Transfer to number to the agent.

Set the destination to your office or coordinator phone number.

The prompt already tells the agent when to transfer: a complaint, a caller who asks for a person, and questions about an existing booking. Save and publish the agent again.

In the agent’s Analysis settings (data collection), add four fields to fill in after each call: the caller’s name, their phone number, the reason for the call and the message.

In Zapier, Make or n8n, start a new workflow with a webhook trigger that catches incoming data, and copy its web address.

In ElevenLabs, paste that address as the post-call webhook, so ElevenLabs sends the call summary there when a call ends.

Add a step that sends the name, phone number, reason and message as an email or a Slack message to whoever calls customers back.

Make a practice call where you only leave a message, and check that it reaches your team.