Your store answers the phone.
An AI voice agent that takes phone orders in Arabic and English
Shoppers call and order by voice in Arabic or English. The assistant searches your catalog, fills the basket and reads it back before anything is ordered.
Hephon Market
Voice assistant · 0:42
“Abu Kass rice and a kilo of chicken are in your basket. Anything else?”
In short
Hephon Commerce's voice agent takes grocery orders by voice: on calls to the retailer's WhatsApp Business number and with live voice in its app. It speaks Saudi, Gulf and Lebanese Arabic, English and more than 30 other languages.
It listens while the caller speaks, searches the retailer's live catalog with the branch's prices, and replies in under a second. It reads the basket back, and the order is placed only when the caller presses 1. A caller can always be handed to a person.
Updated
Hear it take an order.
Two sample calls, recorded with the voices the assistant uses.
Press play to hear the call
Hi, I want five kilos of basmati rice.
Assalamu alaykum, abgha rizz basmati khamsa kilo.
Recorded with the voices the assistant uses on calls. English captions.
A Saudi phone order, line by line.
What the caller said, what the assistant answered, and what it did in between.
- Shopper:
السلام عليكم، أبي أطلب
Hello, I'd like to order.
- Assistant:
وعليكم السلام، حياك. وش تحتاج اليوم؟
Hello, welcome. What do you need today?
Answers in Saudi Arabic with a Saudi voice.
- Shopper:
أبي دجاج كيلوين و… رز بسمتي خمسة كيلو
I want two kilos of chicken and… five kilos of basmati rice.
The caller paused mid-sentence. The assistant waited for the rest, and the search started while they were still speaking.
- Assistant:
أضفت الدجاج كيلوين والرز البسمتي خمسة كيلو. تبي شي ثاني؟
I added two kilos of chicken and five kilos of basmati rice. Anything else?
A clean basket change is confirmed with a fixed line in the caller's language.
- Shopper:
لا، بس كذا
No, that's all.
- Assistant:
طلبك: دجاج كيلوين، ورز بسمتي خمسة كيلو. إذا تبي تأكد الطلب اضغط واحد.
Your order: two kilos of chicken and five kilos of basmati rice. To confirm, press 1.
The basket is read back before anything is ordered.
- Shopper:
(presses 1)
- Assistant:
تم تأكيد طلبك. يعطيك العافية.
Your order is confirmed. Thank you.
Only the keypad places the order. A spoken yes would not.
How does AI phone ordering work, step by step?
A phone order is harder than a chat. The caller does not wait for a prompt, pauses in the middle of a sentence, and calls from a kitchen or a car. Here is what Hephon Commerce does on each call.
- It listens before it transcribes. A noise gate checks each clip of sound for speech first. A cough, a door or traffic is dropped, so it never answers a noise.
- It hears the caller as they speak. Speech is transcribed while it comes in, not after the caller stops, in the caller's language and dialect.
- It knows when a sentence is finished. A sentence that stopped half way ("I want chicken and…") is held and joined to what follows, so it does not talk over a caller who is thinking.
- It searches while the caller finishes. At a short pause the product search starts, over the same live catalog and the same checks as your chat, with the prices of the caller's branch. If the caller keeps talking, that work is thrown away and started again.
- It confirms each change. When an item is added or removed cleanly, a fixed line in the caller's language confirms it. Anything unclear, such as an out-of-stock item, goes back to the assistant to ask.
- It reads the basket back. Every item and the total, in the caller's language, before anything is ordered.
- The keypad confirms. Pressing 1 places the order. A spoken yes alone never does.
A caller can ask for a person at any point and be handed to your team. Every call is in your inbox with its transcript.
What happens in under a second.
It listens while the caller speaks, so most of the work is done before they stop.
0 s
The caller stops
Their words were transcribed while they spoke.
0.3 s
A pause is heard
The product search starts before they have finished.
0.65 s
The turn is over
A sentence cut off half way would be held for the rest.
Under 1 s
It answers
The assistant's first spoken word.
It sounds local, and checks before it orders.
- Your shoppers' language
- Saudi, Gulf and Lebanese Arabic, heard and spoken the way people talk, plus English and more than 30 other languages.
- Hears while they speak
- Speech is transcribed as it comes in, and a pause starts the product search before the caller has finished.
- Under a second to answer
- From the caller's last word to the assistant's first.
- Knows when they are done
- A sentence that stops half way is held for the rest, and background noise is ignored, so it does not talk over people.
- WhatsApp calls
- Shoppers call your WhatsApp Business number and talk to the same assistant that answers your chats.
- Live voice in your app
- A hands-free mode inside your app and on your hosted chat page, with voice notes too.
Does it speak Saudi Arabic on calls?
Yes. Gulf Arabic is heard and spoken with ElevenLabs voices, and a Saudi voice is available, so a caller in Riyadh or Jeddah hears their own dialect rather than formal Arabic. Lebanese Arabic is heard and spoken through a Lebanese speech engine. The fixed lines on a call, such as confirmations and the read-back, follow the store's dialect, and what the assistant says follows the language the caller uses. If a caller switches to English, so does the assistant.
Where can shoppers call it?
On your WhatsApp Business number, where shoppers already message you, and with live voice inside your app or on your hosted chat page. It is the same assistant that answers your chats, with the same basket: a shopper can start on a call and finish in the app. WhatsApp voice notes are transcribed and answered like typed messages. Whether WhatsApp calls are available depends on the country and on Meta's rules for business calling; if you want an existing phone line to reach the assistant, we scope that with your team.
What is voice ordering, and who is it for?
Voice ordering lets a shopper buy by speaking instead of tapping through an app. It suits families who already phone their store, older shoppers, people cooking or driving, and anyone who finds a long app list slow. For a supermarket it turns calls that a person had to take down by hand into baskets that arrive in your platform like any other order.
What it does not do
- It never places an order without keypad 1 after the read-back.
- It does not invent products, prices or delivery times. It offers what the caller's branch has.
- It does not show what your store never sells. Alcohol, pork or tobacco are removed on the server, and on WhatsApp alcohol and tobacco are always excluded.
When Hephon Commerce is not the right fit
- You need a general call centre agent for bookings, complaints or outbound sales. This is built for shopping from a catalog.
- You need it on a regular phone number on day one without any integration work. WhatsApp calls and in-app voice are the fastest start.
- You have no online catalog with prices and stock per branch.
What the numbers say.
Only figures we can stand behind, each with its source.
- Under 1 s
- From the caller's last word to the assistant's first
- As stated by Hephon for calls, November 2026.
- 30+
- Languages it speaks by voice
- Hephon Commerce voice engines, November 2026.
- 3 channels
- Phone, WhatsApp and your app share one basket
- Hephon Commerce product, November 2026.
Live in three steps.
- 1
Connect your catalog
The same catalog as your chat, with each branch's prices and stock. Nothing extra to load for voice.
- 2
Pick the voice and test it
Choose the dialect and voice, such as a Saudi voice, and when to hand over. We run test calls on your own products.
- 3
Turn on calls
On your WhatsApp Business number and in your app first; we scope any other phone line with you.
Voice ordering, answered.
See it on your own catalog.
We set up a demo with your products, your branches and your shoppers' languages.
