A phone call that won’t take silence for an answer
When a message can be missed but a ringing phone can’t, IRIS places an automated call, reads the alert aloud in the recipient’s language, and asks for a keypress. No acknowledgement means it escalates — and a call to voicemail doesn’t count.
“Critical alert. Freezer number three is two point one degrees over limit. Press 1 to acknowledge, press 2 to escalate.”
✓ Acknowledged — thank you, Anna. Logged at 02:02:10.
The call flow
From dial tone to audited resolution
A single stateful IVR flow — not a brittle chain of recordings. Every keypress feeds the same escalation engine that powers SMS.
- 01
Call placed
IRIS dials the recipient’s number for the alert.
- 02
Spoken message
The alert is read aloud via TTS in the recipient’s language.
- 03
Keypad prompt
“Press 1 to acknowledge, 2 to escalate.” IRIS waits for a DTMF keypress.
- 04
Acknowledged / escalated
1 acknowledges and resolves; 2 (or no answer) escalates to the next person.
- 05
Resolved + audit
On acknowledgement the alert resolves and writes an audit-grade record.
Built for critical voice
Multilingual text-to-speech
The alert is spoken in the recipient’s language using TTS — same 6-language messages as SMS, read aloud.
DTMF keypad acknowledgement
Press 1 to acknowledge, 2 to escalate. IRIS captures the keypress and updates the alert’s state.
Stateful escalation
No acknowledgement on the call? IRIS moves to the next person in the group — up to ~20 rounds.
Retry & no-answer handling
Busy, declined or no answer is treated as “not acknowledged”, so the call retries and escalation continues.
Voicemail-aware delivery
A call that drops to voicemail is not a real acknowledgement — IRIS keeps escalating until a human presses a key.
Delivery & cost tracking
Per-call status and actual provider cost are recorded against your credits and the audit trail.
Voice alerts run on Cloudflare’s EU edge with GDPR opt-out, configurable retention and audit logging built in.
Compliance detailsVoice & IVR — frequently asked
Which provider places the calls?
Twilio today, using TwiML call flows behind our provider abstraction. Telnyx and Vonage are on the roadmap for multi-provider routing and failover.
What languages can the call speak?
The same 6 languages as the rest of IRIS. The message is rendered as text-to-speech in the recipient’s configured language, with the keypad prompt spoken in that language too.
What does a voice alert cost in credits?
Credits are priced at 1 credit = €0.01. A voice call generally costs more credits than an SMS — voice minutes and per-call fees are higher — and the exact amount depends on destination country and call length. Actual provider cost is recorded against your credits per call.
Is this GDPR-compliant?
Yes. Data resides on Cloudflare’s EU edge; we support GDPR Art. 15 export and Art. 17 erasure, STOP/START opt-out, and configurable retention. A DPA is available.
Try voice alerting free
1,000 credits (≈100 alerts), no credit card. Verify your email and admin mobile to spin up a workspace.