The Contacts section gives you full visibility into each person your telli agent is trying to reach or has already interacted with.
Add or Search Contacts
At the top, you can:- Add new contacts manually
- Search existing contacts using filters or contact IDs
Contact Status
Each contact is labeled with one of the following statuses:- New: The contact has been added but hasn’t been called yet
- Pending: The agent has attempted to reach the contact, but no successful interaction has occurred yet. The contact will be automatically called again
- Reached: The agent successfully reached the contact and had a conversation
- Closed: The contact is marked as done and will not be called again
Contact Details Panel
Clicking on any contact opens their detailed view, including:- Phone number & email
- Contact status and attempts
- Next scheduled call
- Quick actions like editing details, initiating a call, or deleting the contact
Call Attempt History
Scroll down in the contact detail view to see the Call Attempt History. For each attempt, you’ll find:- Timestamp of the call
- Call direction (e.g. outgoing)
- Result (e.g. completed, failed, not reached)
CSV Import
CSV import provides a convenient way to add contacts and schedule calls without using the API. You can import up to 50,000 contacts at a time. At the end of the import wizard, you can choose to schedule calls for all newly added contacts with any agent in your account. Your CSV file must include a header row with all column names. The following columns are expected:| Column Name | Description | Mandatory |
|---|---|---|
external_contact_id | Your unique internal identifier for the contact | Yes |
first_name | Contact’s first name | Yes |
last_name | Contact’s last name | Yes |
phone_number | Contact’s phone number in E.164 format (e.g. +4917642048466) | Yes |
external_url | External URL linking to the contact in your CRM or external system | No |
salutation | Formal title or greeting (e.g. ‘Mr.’, ‘Ms.’, ‘Herr’, ‘Frau’). If empty, will auto guess based on first name for German calls | No |
email | Contact’s email address | No |
timezone | IANA timezone identifier (e.g. Europe/Berlin). Defaults to account timezone if not set | No |
Any custom column (e.g. lead_type) | Custom contact details specific to your business | No |
Contact Details
You can add custom contact details by including additional columns in your CSV. Any column that is not a standard telli field will be treated as a contact detail, allowing you to provide information about the contact that the agent should know during calls. For example, adding alead_type column will import that data as a contact detail. All column names must consist only of letters, digits, and underscores.
External Contact ID
The external contact ID is a unique identifier from your system, such as a lead ID from your CRM or a database primary key. You can choose any identifier that makes sense for your workflow. telli uses the external contact ID to deduplicate contacts. Note that you can only have one contact per external contact ID. When you upload a CSV containing external contact IDs that already exist in the system, telli will update those existing contacts rather than creating new contacts.Scheduling Calls
At the end of the CSV import wizard, you have the option to automatically schedule calls for all newly imported contacts. This feature allows you to:- Select an agent: Choose which agent will handle the calls for these contacts
- Batch scheduling: Schedule calls for up to 50,000 contacts at once
- Automatic call placement: Once scheduled, telli will automatically place calls to the contacts based on your agent’s configuration and dialer settings