Step by step 5 steps

1. 1

   Step 1 of 5

   Create your AI agent in ElevenLabs

   Sign in to ElevenLabs and go to the Agents section. Create a new agent.

   Choose a voice from the voice library that fits the tone you want for your outbound calls.

   Pro tip: You can paste your business’s URL into the agent’s knowledge base so it can pull context from your site. This helps the agent answer questions about your company instead of making things up.

   Write the system prompt. Tell the agent who it is, what company it represents, and the goal of the call.

   Copy

   You are a friendly sales rep for [your company]. You're calling to introduce [your product/service] and see if the prospect would like to schedule a 15-minute meeting this week. Be conversational, not pushy. If they're not interested, thank them and end the call politely. If they want to schedule, confirm their preferred day and time.

   Set the conversation starter. This is the first thing the agent says when someone picks up, so make it natural.

   Copy

   Hey, this is [Agent Name] calling from [Company]. I wanted to quickly share something we've been working on — do you have two minutes?

   Hit Publish when you are done.

   

   Pro tip: Keep the system prompt short. A few sentences covering who, what, and the goal is all the agent needs. It handles the back-and-forth naturally, so you do not need to script every possible response.

2. 2

   Step 2 of 5

   Set up Twilio and get a phone number

   Go to twilio.com and create a new account. Twilio gives you $15 in free credits to start, which is more than enough for testing.

   Buy a phone number. It costs about $1.20 to purchase and $1.20 per month to keep. Browse the available numbers and pick one.

   

   Once you have your number, go to your Twilio dashboard and grab three things:

   • Your phone number, the one you just bought
   • Account SID, which is on the main dashboard
   • Auth Token, which is right below the SID; click to reveal it

   

   That is everything you need from Twilio.

   Pro tip: Twilio is pay-as-you-go, at fractions of a cent per minute of call time. The $15 in free credits covers a lot of test calls. You will not need to add a payment method until you are ready to scale. During the free trial, when someone answers a call from your Twilio number, they will hear a short message from Twilio saying “press any key to connect.” That message goes away once you upgrade, but it does not affect testing.

3. 3

   Step 3 of 5

   Connect Twilio to ElevenLabs

   Go back to ElevenLabs. In the left sidebar, find Phone Numbers and click Create New.

   Paste in three things:

   • Your Twilio phone number
   • Your Account SID
   • Your Auth Token

   

   That is the entire connection. Your ElevenLabs agent now has a real phone number it can make calls from.

4. 4

   Step 4 of 5

   Upload contacts and start calling

   In ElevenLabs, look in the bottom-left corner for Outbound. Click it and create a new batch. Select Telephony as the channel.

   Download the CSV template that ElevenLabs provides. It has several columns; you can remove everything except the phone number column. Add your list of numbers and save the file.

   Upload the CSV back into the outbound batch. From here, you have three options:

   • Send immediately: starts calling your list right now
   • Test: calls your own number so you can hear how it sounds first
   • Schedule: sets the batch to call at a specific time, like 9am tomorrow morning

   Select your phone number and agent, then launch.

   

   Pro tip: If you want to override the system prompt or conversation starter for a specific batch without changing your main agent settings, enable that in your agent’s Security tab by toggling on the override options. This lets you customize messaging per batch while keeping your default agent intact.

5. 5

   Step 5 of 5

   Extend the workflow

   Once the basic outbound flow is working, you can build on top of it.

   

   Enable call transfers. In your agent settings, go to Tools and toggle on the Transfer to Number system tool. Enter your phone number and add a condition to the instructions, such as “if the prospect says yes to a demo, transfer the call.” The agent will call you and patch the lead through live.

   Connect scheduling and CRM tools. ElevenLabs integrates with Cal.com, HubSpot, Salesforce, and more. You can also build custom integrations using webhooks and n8n to route call outcomes into whatever system you use.

   Qualify leads automatically. Add qualifying questions to your prompt, such as budget, timeline, and decision-maker status, so the transcript becomes a lead scorecard you can sort through without listening to every call.

   Use the same setup beyond sales. It also works for appointment reminders, customer feedback calls, event RSVP collection, renewal check-ins, or any scenario where you would normally make repetitive phone calls. Swap the prompt, upload a new list, and let the agent handle it.

Background and context