Spoken approvals

Zoe never changes anything in your systems just because a caller asked. It prepares the change first, describes it out loud, and waits. Only a clear spoken approval turns that prepared change into a real one — and only when your organization's policy allows approval by voice at all. This is the same governed approval used in the web and mobile apps; the phone simply gives it a spoken form.

When Zoe asks

Zoe asks whenever the next step would write to a connected system: creating a ticket, adding a comment or work note, updating a field. Before it asks, it tells you what it has prepared — which system, which record, and the change itself — so you are approving something specific rather than a vague "should I go ahead".

Reading something back to you is not a change and is never gated. On a read-only line, Zoe will not prepare changes at all.

Approving and declining

Say a plain approval and Zoe applies the change:

• "Yes."
• "Go ahead."
• "Do it."
• "Approve that."

Say a plain refusal — "no", "don't do that", "not yet" — and Zoe applies nothing. The prepared change is simply not carried out; it stays in your organization's queue as an unapplied item your team can review in the Customer Portal, and it expires on its own if nobody acts on it.

If Zoe does not hear a clear answer, nothing happens. It asks again, or restates the change and waits. Silence, a half-finished sentence, a crossed line, or a caller talking to someone else in the room all leave the change prepared and unapplied — Zoe only ever acts on an approval it clearly understood.

What Zoe reads back

Once an approved change goes through, Zoe confirms it in words: that the change has been completed, and — where the connected system returns one — the human-readable number of the record it just created, such as "Ticket #101". It reads that reference back to you deliberately, so you leave the call with the number you need to follow up. Not every system supplies one; when there is no number to read, Zoe still confirms the change is done.

Zoe is honest about the other outcomes too:

• If the change could not be completed, Zoe says so and suggests trying again or using the app. Nothing was applied.
• If a change was applied but its record could not be updated afterwards, Zoe tells you the change went through and that someone should check it in the app — it does not pretend the attempt failed.
• If your policy does not allow that change by voice, Zoe says it has been prepared and is waiting for approval in the app, and lets the caller know the team will review it.

Your organization's policy

Administrators choose how far spoken approval goes, in the Customer Portal under Settings → Voice:

• Always tap to approve — a spoken "yes" is refused on every surface. Prepared changes wait for someone to approve them in the app.
• Approve low-risk changes by voice — routine, reversible work can be approved on the call: creating a helpdesk ticket, adding a comment, updating ticket fields such as status or assignment. Anything else still needs a tap. Creating a ServiceNow incident is not treated as low-risk today.
• Approve any change by voice — any prepared change may be approved on the call.

The setting is checked at the moment of approval, so a change made stricter mid-call is honoured immediately. If the setting cannot be read for any reason, the platform falls back to the safest option: the spoken approval is refused and the change waits for a tap.

Everything is recorded

Every prepared change, every decision, and every result is written to the same audit trail as the rest of the platform, stamped with the fact that the decision came from a phone call. The call transcript is kept with the conversation, sensitive values masked by your guardrails exactly as they are in the stored record. Approved changes appear in your queue with their outcome, and where a line has recording enabled, administrators can review and download the audio from the Voice calls page in the Customer Portal.

Which changes are possible at all depends on your plan and on the systems connected in Connectors.