The first real conversation with a new lead often decides who wins the business. But leads don't wait for a convenient moment to raise their hand. They come in while you're at a showing, negotiating an offer, or sitting down to dinner.
That timing gap was the focus of our October 6 webinar with Flair Labs, where we introduced CINC Call AI, a voice agent built to work alongside your team. CINC Chief Product Officer Jeff Walker and Flair Labs Co-Founder and CEO Samir Sen were joined by two team leaders who tested Call AI in beta: Jeff Cayton of R3 Home Group in Phoenix and Mark Hunter of Mark Hunter Group in Knoxville.
When we asked attendees how quickly their team makes the first call, only 4% said under a minute. Nearly a third said "it varies." That's not a work ethic problem. It's a timing problem, and it's exactly where an AI voice agent can help: not by replacing your calls, but by covering the moments you can't.
Call AI makes sure every new lead gets a quick, natural first conversation, even when your team is tied up. Built in partnership with Flair Labs, it calls leads on your behalf, asks qualifying questions about timeline and motivation, and hands the ready ones to your agents. It works through three campaigns.
New leads. When a new lead registers, Call AI reaches out within moments, ideally while they're still browsing. If it doesn't connect, it keeps trying, with about a dozen attempts over the first month, and stops as soon as it reaches the lead. It only dials valid phone numbers, so no calls are wasted on bad data.
Incoming inquiries. A showing request, property question, or contact form means a lead is raising their hand. Call AI follows up right away to find out what they're really looking for, no matter how long they've been in your database.
Agent-Ready handoffs. Many teams already use Alex, CINC's AI texting assistant, to keep text conversations going. When one of those conversations reaches Agent-Ready, Call AI calls the agent instead of the lead, shares a quick summary by group text, and asks if they're available to connect. If not, it books a follow-up appointment.
You stay in control of when it works. Teams set calling hours for weekdays and weekends, and choose when agents are available to take a handoff.
The first question most agents ask is whether it sounds like a robot. So during the webinar, we played a real beta call with one of Jeff Cayton's leads.
In under two minutes, Call AI learned that the lead and her husband wanted a home without a pool to cut down on maintenance. It confirmed she was looking for three bedrooms and two baths, planned to move in the next three to six months, and owned her current home. Then it offered to connect her with an agent.
She wasn't especially chatty. But the agent who picked up that conversation already knew her motivation, timeline, and must-haves. That's a far better starting point than a cold callback.
Your agents never have to wonder what Call AI said. Every call is logged in the lead's profile in your CRM, whether it reached a person or a voicemail.
When a lead is ready, Call AI can attempt a live transfer to one agent or to the whole team, so whoever picks up first takes the call. It can also start a group text between the lead and the agent. Several beta teams preferred the group text, since it let them jump in and schedule a follow-up on their own time.
When we asked attendees about their biggest concern with AI calling, 42% chose customer reaction. That makes sense. No one wants an outbound call to hurt a lead they worked hard to generate. Here's what Jeff and Mark learned after months of real conversations.
The voice quality won them over. Both team leaders came in worried the calls would sound robotic or be hard to understand. Mark recalled a recent call that ran for several minutes with a fully engaged lead who turned out to be a great client.
Any response beats no response. Some leads like to play around once they realize they're talking to AI. Jeff and Mark both see that as a win, because many of those leads wouldn't have responded at all otherwise. When they call back, they joke right along and build rapport from there.
Treat it like your assistant. Mark's most successful agents don't act sheepish about the AI call. They reference it directly: "I saw you were talking to my assistant." Some even ask the lead what they thought of the experience, which makes for an easy icebreaker before getting into the home search.
"I've started to see the success come through whenever agents start to treat Flair like it's their assistant. Stop acting like Flair is a stranger."
Mark Hunter, Mark Hunter Group
Keep making your own calls. Call AI works best as a safety net, not a substitute. Both team leaders were clear that agents still need to call, text, and email their leads. Call AI fills the gaps: evenings, weekends, vacations, and the busy stretches when a new lead would otherwise wait. Anything it gets is on top of what your team was already doing.
Use tags to stay in sync. Early on, some of Mark's agents found Call AI following up right after they'd spoken with a lead. Call AI already skips leads marked as contacted, and Mark's team added tags to pause it on leads they're actively working. A few setting adjustments sorted it out.
About a dozen teams took part in the beta, and the early numbers point to more conversations with less manual effort. Across all attempts, 23% of leads picked up and had a conversation with Call AI. Of those conversations, 26% ended in a positive outcome, such as a live transfer attempt, a set appointment, or a lead who expressed interest.
Teams also reported saving 2 to 5 hours a week, since the first conversation and the notes from it were already done before an agent stepped in.
Setup is self-serve and takes just a few minutes. CINC site owners can find Call AI under the Integrations tab in their agent profile.
Plans are month to month, so it's easy to try with your new leads and see how it performs for your team.
There's more on the way, too. Jeff Walker shared that Alex will soon be able to read Call AI transcripts, so calling and texting work together and leads never get asked the same question twice.
See it for yourself. Watch the full webinar recording to hear more real calls and the complete conversation with Jeff and Mark. Then visit the Flair Labs + CINC landing page to explore plans and get started, or check out our Help Center article for setup details.