The AI phone assistant

1:33

Your AI Front Desk (1:33 video). Open on its own page

The guided answering setup

After your line exists (see Phone setup), the guided answering setup is one configure screen, reached from the "Set up call answering" step of the "Finish setting up" banner at the top of the Phone inbox (or at <code>/dashboard/comms/phone/setup/answering</code>). It asks who answers:

• The assistant's name and the "Announce it's an AI" toggle, with a live preview of the greeting.
• On the business-line path only, a "Texts it answers for you" panel with two switches: "Text back new numbers" and "Text back existing customers" — both ON by default. Turning one OFF means the assistant never texts that audience back; their texts still land in the Phone inbox, a lead (for a new number asking for pool service) or service request is still created, and your team is notified on every such message so a human replies. Calls are completely unaffected by these switches.

The screen does not ask how new leads are handled, how far things go for existing customers, or how often to notify — those work the same for every company, and the "What it does on a call" panel states them: New leads — the assistant takes their name, address, and what they need and hands it to you to schedule; it never books or quotes. Existing customers — greeted by name, with their visits (today's, their last one and their next one) and balance answered from their account; anything else becomes a message. Notifications — you're pinged once per new conversation, plus for every new lead and anything needing a human. While Text callers your sign-up link is on and working, the panel also lists Pricing and sign-ups — it never says a price; when someone who isn't a customer yet asks about pricing or signing up, it offers to text them your sign-up page link, and only sends it if they say yes.

• Finishing the setup turns call answering on automatically ("[name] now answers your calls"). Forwarding-mode companies then get the dial-code step.
• Re-running the setup is safe: as of 2026-09-02 it no longer resets anything you have since changed on Phone → Settings. The Existing customers choice and Text notifications are only seeded the first time, when you have never chosen them; after that the Settings page owns them and the wizard leaves them alone. It also hydrates your saved values for the two texting switches. Even so, the everyday place to change who your assistant texts back is Phone → Settings → Texts → "Who it texts back", not the wizard.

What it does on every call

• Answers 24/7 and behaves identically at 2am and 2pm — it never says "we're closed" or "it's after hours" on a call.
• Keeps the greeting to one breath so callers can start talking quickly. With "Announce it's an AI" on it says: "Thanks for calling [your company], this is [assistant name], the AI assistant. How can I help?" With it off, the same line without "the AI assistant". A recognized customer or returning lead hears "Hi [first name], thanks for calling…". The wording is fixed: there is no setting to write your own greeting, only the name and the AI switch.
• Speaks your business name naturally: trailing legal suffixes like "LLC", "Inc", or "Corp" are dropped automatically from everything spoken aloud ("thanks for calling Peachy Pools", never "Peachy Pools LLC"). Written surfaces — invoices, texts, emails — keep your full legal name.
• Recognizes existing customers by caller ID: greets them by name and doesn't ask for their name or a callback number — it already has both.
• Recognizes returning leads by caller ID: if the number matches a lead from the last 30 days that is still open (New, Contacted, or Walkthrough scheduled — not Converted or Archived), the assistant greets them by first name and does not ask for their name or address again. A follow-up ("I called last week and haven't heard back") becomes a message; when they say nobody has called them back, it apologizes for the wait, the message starts with "Still waiting on a call back:", and your team's alert leads with STILL WAITING on a call back. The call is added to that lead rather than creating a duplicate: it shows under the lead's calls, anything new from the conversation is added to the lead's notes under "Called again (date)", and your team gets one "needs help" alert saying they called again instead of a second "new lead" alert. Someone else in the household calling from their own phone (a spouse, about the same house) is matched by the address they give: their call is added to that open lead under the name already on it, with "[name] ([number]) called about the same address." in its notes, instead of a second lead.
• Answers from the account, live: their next scheduled visit, their balance, and their recent completed visits (it looks the visit history up mid-call, which is why there may be a short pause) — "what did your guy do last time?" is answered from their actual service history, not guessed.
• Answers visit questions on its own, for every company (calls and texts): "did you clean today?", "is someone coming today?", "when was my last visit?", "when is my next visit?", "was my pool serviced this week?". It knows today's date in your company's time zone and whether today's visit is finished, underway (the tech has started the stop in the app), still to come, or missed (skipped, or left unfinished), plus their last completed visit and their next scheduled one. It answers directly ("Yes, your pool was serviced earlier today", "Not yet, you're on the schedule for today", "Your last visit was Thursday, October 15, and the next one is tomorrow"), with no message and no standing instruction needed. It does not know arrival times and never guesses one. If the caller says a visit was missed or the work was not finished, it doesn't argue: it takes a message for your team, and it does the same when today's visit was missed. Asked why something was or was not done ("why isn't my pool being vacuumed?"), it never explains or guesses what the technician is doing: it takes a message. If you turned off Service History in the portal settings, it can't see visits either, and visit questions become a message.
• Never names your technicians: it says "your technician" or "our team", even when the customer uses the tech's name, and its account lookups never include technician names. This is the same for every company and there is no setting to turn names on.
• Explains billing detail: what a specific charge is for, when an invoice is due, and whether a payment is still clearing — summarized in a sentence rather than read as an itemized list, with an offer to text the full breakdown. It never explains or negotiates a processing fee, and a billing dispute always becomes a message. It only sees invoices kept in Pool Founder: when a caller has none on file (for example charges from your old system), it never says they are paid up and never guesses what a charge was, it takes a billing message with the amount and date. It never tells a caller that an email, text, or charge did or did not come from you, or that one is a scam.
• Files an existing customer's quote request in Leads: when a recognized customer asks for a quote, an estimate, or new work (call or text), it goes to Leads marked Existing customer instead of the Phone inbox messages, with one notification. This works with every Existing customers setting. The assistant still never drafts a quote or gives a price; a blocked customer's request stays a message. Details: Leads.
• Never cancels service, and flags every cancel request: when a recognized customer (call or text) says they want to cancel or stop service, the assistant does not cancel anything, argue, or offer a deal. It tells them kindly that someone from your team will reach out today (the next business day after hours), and if they mention closing the pool for the season, that you can pause service instead. It files an open cancellation request with their words (and the reason, when they gave one) and sends owners and admins a high-priority Cancellation request: [customer] alert (it follows Quiet Hours, like the other message alerts from the assistant) that opens the Customer wants to cancel flow on their job. The message is also kept on the call, with its Call back to-do. If the assistant misses it during the call, it is caught from the transcript afterwards (once per call). Asking to skip or cancel one visit is not a cancel request, and someone who is not a customer saying "cancel" is taken as an ordinary message.
• Runs new lead intake for unknown callers: it takes their name, address, and what they need, and the lead lands in your Leads inbox for you to schedule. When it reads the address back, it uses the town the caller said, even when the map lists their ZIP under a neighbouring town (Estero, not Bonita Springs). An email address is saved on the lead if the caller volunteers one; the assistant does not ask for email by default — contact support@poolfounder.com to have it ask on every call.
• Takes a message on anything it can't handle and tells the caller who will get back to them. By default that is the owner, by first name ("[your first name] will get back to you as soon as possible"). If you would rather it never give a name, choose "A [your company] team member (no names)" on the Who calls back card (Phone → Settings → Assistant): it then says "Someone from the [your company] team will get back to you" and never names you or any employee or technician as the person calling back, even when the caller asks for someone by name (that name still goes in the message). It never says whether a particular person is available, out, or busy, because it cannot know that.
• Skips lead questions for callers who are not leads. A parts or product question ("do you carry Jandy CS200 filters?") becomes a message naming the exact part; the assistant does not know your inventory or parts prices and never guesses either way. Job seekers, suppliers, and live reps from other businesses (for example a lead service like Angi) leave a short message with their name, company, and what it is about. None of them is asked for a service address. Recordings and cold sales pitches are still ended (see Robocalls below).
• Recognizes customers calling or texting from another phone: when a caller it doesn't know gives the service address of a customer you already have (a spouse's phone, a new cell), it files a message for that customer instead of a new lead, and saves the number on them as an other phone so they're recognized next time. If the address matches more than one customer it can't tell which, so it files a lead as usual. A number you saved as a contact in the Phone inbox (or imported from Quo) is never filed as a new lead either. On texts, the first text from a new number only becomes a lead when it's someone asking for pool service; a supplier's notice, a pitch, a personal text, or a customer texting from another phone stays a message.
• Treats pool-store calls as store questions: if you also run a store, a caller asking whether it is open or anyone is there, wanting to pick up chlorine or fill their jugs, asking whether you carry a product, or giving a part number is never run through new-customer questions or asked for a service address. It states store hours only as a standing instruction (or your website knowledge) gives them, so add your store hours at Phone → Settings → Assistant → Standing instructions. It never says who is in, what is in stock, or gives permission for anything (paying later, an after-hours pickup), and takes a message with exactly what they want. There is no separate store setting.
• Respects a caller who would rather be texted. When texting is live on your business number, it tells them the team will text them; when it is not, it says it will pass the preference along and never promises a text. Either way the message starts with "Prefers a text, not a call", and the alert your team gets says "prefers a TEXT, not a call" next to their number. The assistant does not send that text itself; someone on your team does.
• For balance questions it offers to text the balance to the number on file (when texting is live) rather than reading account details aloud, and it never recites the service address — it only confirms it.
• If it hits a problem mid-conversation, it apologizes, takes a message, and notifies your team — callers never get silence.
• Hand its messages to George: the assistant itself only answers from the customer's account and takes messages; it never changes anything. To have George act on those messages (add a task to their next visit, resend an invoice, move a visit, text them back), set up a George automation that starts when your phone assistant takes a message for the team. George prepares the change on an approval card for you to approve; nothing is changed until you do.
• Every message it takes also goes on your To do list as an urgent Call back item until someone clicks Mark handled on the call in the Phone inbox, with one "Still waiting on a call back" reminder to owners and administrators if nobody has 2 business hours later.
• Marks promised call backs "Needs call back": whenever a call ends with a call back owed (the assistant took a message, told the caller someone would call them, or the caller asked for a person or a call back), the assistant sets that caller's Phone inbox conversation to Needs call back itself, on every account, with nothing to turn on. The conversation shows "[assistant name] marked this Needs call back" (or "Phone assistant" when the assistant has no name), and the filter button in the Phone inbox lists every one. It adds a Call back item to the To do list, except when the message already put one there (one item per caller, not two). It goes back to Open when a call back from your business line connects or someone clicks Mark handled on the message. It never overrides a status your team set after the call came in, and test calls, robocalls, and unknown callers with a hidden number are never marked. Texts work the same way: when a text reply the assistant sends says someone will call or contact them, or the texter asks for a person or a call back and the assistant takes a message, their conversation is marked Needs call back too. Draft replies waiting for your approval are never marked, even after you send them: set the status yourself. You do not need a standing instruction for it, and an instruction cannot change it.
• Every answered call appears in the Phone inbox with its outcome, summary, any message taken, and the full transcript. A call where the caller hung up without saying anything (during the greeting, or after sitting silent) is labelled Missed with a one-line summary saying which, and does not notify you. With Text callers when I miss a call on (below), the caller gets a text, and the call says "We texted them back".

What it cannot see: it only sees what the customer portal would show that customer — never internal notes, costs or margins, technician personal contact info, routes, or other customers' data. It can't see water chemistry readings or equipment details either; those questions become a message. It never names a technician.

Ring my phone first — answer your own calls when you can

Business-line companies can have inbound calls ring the owner's own cell before the assistant answers. Turn it on with the "Ring my phone first" card under Phone → Settings → Calls (business-line path only — on the forwarding path your published phone already rings first by nature). You save the cell number to ring; changing it later is a "Change number" link on the same card. The switch is disabled while "Answer phone calls" is off — nothing rings anywhere while call answering is off.

• When a call comes in, your cell rings for about 20 seconds. Answering plays a short prompt — "Call for [your company]. Press 1 to answer." — and pressing 1 connects you to the caller.
• Your phone shows your business number as the caller, not the caller's own number — that's how you know it's a business call before you pick up, and it is what lets the call reach your phone reliably in every mode. There is no setting to show the caller's number on your cell instead. The caller's real number is still recorded on the call in the Phone inbox.
• Don't press 1, decline the call, or let it ring out, and the assistant answers exactly as it would have — the caller just hears a few more rings first. Your voicemail can never steal the call: voicemail can't press 1, so the call falls through to the assistant instead.
• Calls you answer live appear in the Phone inbox marked "Answered live by the team" — logged with duration and caller, but with no transcript (the assistant was never on the call).
• Changing the setting requires the "Manage phone & AI front desk" permission.

While "Ring my phone first" is on, an "If you can't answer" choice appears under it with three options:

• "Assistant picks up — press 1" (the default, described above). The most reliable: the assistant catches every call you miss — including ones you decline and times your phone is off or out of signal — because your voicemail can never fake the press-1.
• "Assistant if it rings out" — no "Press 1" prompt: answer like a normal call, and if it rings out (about 20 seconds) the assistant answers. The trade-off: a call you decline, or one arriving while your phone is off or out of signal, diverts straight to your cell's voicemail before the assistant can take it — the system can't tell that apart from you answering.
• "No assistant" — the business number behaves like a normal forwarded line. Calls ring your cell directly with no prompt, and a call you miss usually goes to your cell's own voicemail. If your cell does not pick it up (it rings out without a voicemail, it is busy, or it can't be reached), or you are in Do Not Disturb, the caller gets Pool Founder voicemail instead (see below). The assistant never answers in this mode.

In the two no-prompt modes, connected calls show in the Phone inbox as "Rang through to your phone", with no transcript. With "No assistant", misses show too, as "Missed call" with the reason (nobody answered, busy, the caller gave up, or it went to your voicemail).

Pool Founder voicemail (with "No assistant"). When a call on a "No assistant" line would otherwise go unanswered, the caller hears "Thanks for calling [your company]. We can't take your call right now. Please leave a message after the tone, and we'll call you back.", then a beep, and can leave a message of up to 2 minutes (pressing # or 5 seconds of silence ends it). That happens when the cell is in Do Not Disturb (its number is the phone number on that person's profile; teammates whose dashboards ring and who are not in Do Not Disturb ring first), or when the ring ends without anyone picking up (no answer, busy, or the cell can't be reached). When your cell's own voicemail answers, the message stays in your cell's voicemail as before. The voicemail appears in the Phone inbox on the caller's conversation as Voicemail, with a Voicemail bar to play it and a written transcript (when the transcript can't be made it says "No transcript"). It counts as unread and is a Call back item on the To do list until someone clicks Mark handled, and owners and administrators get a New Voicemail notification ("[caller] left a voicemail: [what they said]", or just "[caller] left a voicemail" without a transcript), pushed, emailed and texted like a message the assistant takes; it never says "Your Assistant Needs Help". Clicking or tapping it opens that call. If nobody marks it handled 2 business hours later, they get one Voicemail Still Waiting reminder. In the Pool Founder phone app the call shows as Voicemail too, with a play button and the transcript under "What they said" (or "No transcript"). The greeting can't be changed or recorded in your own voice yet; pick its voice on the Voice for your recording notice and voicemail card under Calls (no recording needed), and there is no voicemail with either assistant option (the assistant answers instead).

Missed-call texts ("Text callers when I miss a call"). The "Text callers when I miss a call" card sits right under Ring my phone first in Phone → Settings → Calls (off by default; needs "Answer phone calls" on and the "Manage phone & AI front desk" permission). Who gets the text depends on how calls are answered. With the assistant answering (Ring my phone first off, or on with either assistant option), it is a caller who heard the greeting and hung up without saying anything. With Ring my phone first on "No assistant", it is anyone you miss (it rings out, busy, the caller gives up, or your cell's voicemail picks up). Either way the text comes from your business line. The wording is editable in the box under the switch; the default is "Hi, this is {companyName}. Sorry we missed your call! Reply here and we'll get right back to you." <code>{companyName}</code> is filled in for you, and "Use the default message" restores the original wording. Replies land in that person's conversation in the inbox like any other text, the miss shows "We texted them back", and Automated texts → Activity lists it as "Missed call text".

• With the assistant answering, only callers who said nothing are texted: anyone who spoke to it got a message taken or an answer instead. Callers who hang up before the greeting plays, test calls, and toll-free caller IDs are not texted.
• Needs texting registration. Until it is approved, no texts go out (the card warns you).
• At most one text per person every 12 hours. Never sent to anyone who texted STOP, to hidden or non-US caller IDs, to your own cell, or to robocallers that were blocked or flagged as spam. It goes out right away, at any hour, since they rang you moments ago.
• Your voicemail picking up is detected automatically (answering machine detection) and counts as a miss. Detection is not perfect: occasionally a voicemail greeting is not recognized (no text goes out), and rarely a live answer with a long greeting is mistaken for voicemail (they get the text even though you spoke).
• There is no business-hours-only option and no per-customer wording: one message goes to everyone you miss.

Answer calls in the browser

Calls to your business number can show up in Pool Founder itself, in the phone panel (the phone icon at the top of every page; see the phone panel). Under Phone → Settings → Calls, the "Calls in your dashboard" card (needs the manage-phone permission, and "Answer phone calls" on) has three choices: Assistant answers first, you watch live (your assistant picks up right away; the phone panel shows the call as it happens, with a live transcript, and Take over moves the caller to your computer; see "Watch the assistant live and take over" below), Ring the dashboard first (described here), or Off. With Ring the dashboard first, a call rings the dashboard of the people picked for that number, whenever they are signed in to Pool Founder on the web. Only people with the "Call customers as the business" permission can be rung or see live calls (Owners, Administrators and Office Managers by default; not Technicians).

With one number, the card lists everyone who can take calls, each with a switch and an Online now mark when their dashboard is connected: turn off anyone who shouldn't answer. With more than one number, the card lists each number with who it rings and a Change link to that number's own settings page (also under Your numbers on the left of Settings), where its Ring in the browser card has the switches. An additional number has Same people as [main line], on by default; turn it off to pick different people for that number. A team member's own line rings only that person. Below the list, a line says how many teammates can't take calls because their role lacks the permission, with a link to Roles & Permissions.

• The phone panel opens in the bottom-right corner of whatever page you are on with an Incoming call, a ring sound, the caller's name when they are a customer (otherwise their number), and which line they called; the phone icon in the top bar turns green. Click Answer to talk through your computer's microphone and speakers (or a headset), or Decline to let it keep ringing everyone else. While you are on the call the panel shows a timer, Mute, Keypad, Hold and Hang up, plus Open their conversation for a customer.
• The browser asks for the microphone the first time; allow it, or Answer can't connect you. If you allow notifications, a call that comes in while Pool Founder is in a background tab also shows a desktop notification.
• If nobody answers in about 20 seconds (or everyone declines), your assistant picks up as usual. If nobody is signed in to the dashboard, the assistant answers right away with no extra ringing.
• With Ring my phone first also on, your cell and the dashboards ring at the same time and whichever answers first gets the call. Answering in the browser needs no "press 1".
• The call stays on screen while you move between pages, so you can look up the customer or build a quote while you talk. Hang up always ends the call; reloading or closing the tab also hangs up. While you are on a call you placed from the browser, that browser does not ring for new incoming calls.
• Each computer can opt out: the "Ring me in this browser" switch on the same card turns ringing off for that browser only (for example a shared office PC).
• If nobody answers and the assistant picks up, the call also shows live in the phone panel (as with Assistant answers first), so you can still take it over.
• A call to a team member's own line (a number that rings one person) rings only that person's dashboard, alongside their cell, never the rest of the team's.
• Calls answered in the browser show in the Phone inbox as answered, with "Answered by [name] in the dashboard." With Record calls on, the audio is recorded and plays on the call, and it is transcribed from the recording, with a Call summary, a minute or two after it ends. With Record calls off they are not transcribed.
• It only works while Pool Founder is open in a web browser. The technician mobile app does not ring for incoming calls; use Ring my phone first to have your cell ring.

Watch the assistant live and take over

With Assistant answers first, you watch live chosen in Calls in your dashboard, your assistant answers every call right away and Pool Founder tells everyone who can call as the business: a chime, a small box under the phone icon in the top bar with the caller and Watch, a desktop notification when Pool Founder is in a background tab (if you allowed them), and a dot on the phone icon in the top bar. The phone panel's Live now list shows each call with a live transcript of what the caller and the assistant say, refreshed every few seconds. Take over moves the caller to your computer (they hear "One moment, connecting you now.", in the voice picked under Voice for your recording notice and voicemail, and the assistant drops off); Let assistant handle folds it away for you. Only one person can take a call. No alerts come during Do Not Disturb, and Alert me in this browser on the same card turns them off for one computer. There is no listen-in (you follow the transcript, not the audio), and calls answered by the ElevenLabs assistant can't be taken over yet. With Ring my phone first on, your cell still rings before the assistant answers. Full details: the phone panel.

Transferring a caller to a person (opt-in), and why emergencies are urgent messages

By default the assistant never connects a caller to anyone: when a caller asks for a person it takes a message and tells them who will call back. You can change that with "Transfer callers who ask for a person" under Phone → Settings → Calls (off until you turn it on; needs the "Manage phone & AI front desk" permission).

• Choose who takes calls. The card lists your team. For each person, click Set up (or Edit) and set "Takes transferred calls", the Number to ring (filled in from their profile), optional Other names callers use (nicknames), and the Hours they take calls, a time window for each day of the week in your company's time zone. A day left unticked means no transferred calls that day. Each row shows the week at a glance as seven day squares.
• A caller asking for a specific person ("is Brad there?", "can I talk to Adolfo?") is transferred only if that person takes calls and it is inside their hours. If two people match, the assistant asks which one. Outside their hours, or for someone who does not take transferred calls, the assistant says they are not available right now and takes a message for that person. The alert names them, and a team member who is not an owner or admin also gets a "Phone Message for You" notification.
• A caller asking for "anyone" (a human, a representative, someone) goes to the first person on the list who is in their hours. Use the arrows on the card to set that order. If nobody is in their hours, it rings the default under "When nobody on the list is in their hours", which rings at any hour; leave that empty and the caller leaves a message instead.
• The person hears who is calling first. The call shows your business line as caller ID. When they answer, they hear the caller and who was asked for, then "Press 1 to take it." Pressing 1 connects the call.
• Nobody picks up? If it rings out, is busy, is declined, or goes to voicemail (voicemail can't press 1, so it never "answers" the call), the caller comes back to the assistant, which says the person couldn't pick up and takes a message for them. Nobody is ever left on hold or dropped into a personal voicemail.
• The Phone inbox shows what happened. A call that was transferred and picked up is labelled Transferred ("transferred to [name]"), and your team gets a notification saying who took it. A transfer nobody answered shows the message that was taken, and its alert says the call was tried with no answer.
• Callers never hear anyone's contact details, schedule, or hours. The assistant only says whether the person is available right now.
• The assistant only transfers when a caller asks. It never offers a transfer, and a caller who asks for a call back or to leave a message gets a message, not a ringing phone. It tries once per call.
• There is no ring-everyone-at-once option, no hold music, and no transfer to voicemail. Transfers can't be tried from Test a call in the browser: on a test call the assistant says who it would have transferred the caller to.

Urgent messages are how an emergency reaches you. Every message the assistant takes records when someone has to go out — right now, or the next business day — and if it can't tell from what the caller said, it simply asks. The question is about the pool, not the caller's mood:

• "Right now" means water leaking or flooding (a burst or broken pipe, a line spraying, a pool or equipment pad draining out), equipment running dry, sparking, or smoking, a chemical spill or fumes, or a safety problem like an open gate or a child at risk.
• A green pool, a missed visit, a billing question, or a quote request waits for the next business day — no matter how annoyed the caller is.

This holds for brand-new callers too: a new caller with an emergency (an active leak, say) gets an urgent message rather than going through new-lead questions, because a lead on its own never sends an urgent alert. An urgent message alerts your team immediately at critical priority — the one priority that pushes through a user's quiet hours, so a 2am emergency still wakes the owner. The alert carries the caller's callback number so you can ring them straight back, and the call shows a red "Urgent message" block in the Phone inbox and in the mobile app.

Robocalls and sales calls: hidden, then blocked

When the caller is a recording or robocall ("press zero to speak with an agent", "an important message about your Google listing") or someone selling something to your company, the assistant says one short line and ends the call. It does not explain who it is or take a message.

• After the call, a call judged to be a robocall or sales pitch is hidden from the Phone inbox and never notifies you. A call where the assistant took a message, captured a lead, or logged a work order is never treated as spam, and neither is a caller whose number matches a customer.
• A number judged spam on two calls within 60 days is blocked: when it calls again it hears "Sorry, we can't take this call. Goodbye." and the call ends. Hidden caller IDs and customers on file are never blocked, and a block lapses on its own 60 days after the number stops calling.
• Blocking is per number. Most robocall campaigns show a different, local-looking caller ID on every call (one recording rang a company 79 times from 77 different numbers), so those are rarely blocked. Instead they are stopped by the press 1 check below, and any that get past it are recognised by the assistant, hear the one-line refusal, and are hidden afterwards.
• "Press 1" for unverified callers. Before anyone rings or the assistant answers, a caller whose phone carrier vouches for them but not for the number they are calling from (the kind of caller ID robocall campaigns use) hears "Thanks for calling [your company]. To reach us, please press 1." Pressing any key carries on exactly as normal; a recording never presses anything, so it hangs up after a few seconds without ringing anyone or reaching the assistant. Customers on file, numbers you linked or named in the inbox, and anyone who has left a message or been captured as a lead before are never asked. Most callers never hear it (about 1 in 100 real callers). It is always on and there is no setting for it. A caller who hangs up at the prompt leaves no entry in the inbox. A number that was auto-blocked also hears the prompt first.
• Every hidden caller is listed under Phone → Settings → Calls → Spam & blocked callers, with how many calls were hidden, when it last called, and a Blocked badge if it is blocked. Click Not spam to restore its calls to the inbox and lift the block; that number is never auto-blocked again. Needs the "Manage phone & AI front desk" permission.

• Mark a number as spam yourself: ⋮ → Mark as spam on its Phone inbox conversation, or Add number under Spam & blocked callers. It is blocked at once and its calls and texts are hidden; Not spam undoes it (see texting and the Phone inbox).

Block spam calls. Phone → Settings → Calls → Block spam calls (on by default) has your carrier refuse likely spam before it rings: known robocall sources and fake or invalid caller IDs. Refused calls never reach your assistant, anyone's cell, or the inbox, and nothing notifies you. It covers every line you have, including lines added later. Rarely, a real caller with a badly formed caller ID is refused; turn it off if that happens. It refuses few calls on its own and does not stop robocalls that rotate local numbers (the press 1 check above does). There is no list of refused calls. Needs the "Manage phone & AI front desk" permission.

It never states or promises visit times

The assistant never offers, agrees to, or hints at any day or time for a visit — not even tentatively, and not even when the customer suggests the day themselves. It can't see the schedule, and a guessed time reads to the customer as a promise. The one exception: it will state a visit already on an existing customer's account, coming up or already done ("you're down for tomorrow, Wednesday the 22nd", "your pool was serviced earlier today"), which is a recorded fact rather than a new commitment. It never gives an arrival time.

When the assistant proposes an appointment time for a new lead, the suggested slot goes only to your team on an approval card — the customer hears a time for the first time in the confirmation that goes out after a human approves it (see Pending Approvals below).

The promised-message safety net

If the assistant tells a caller it's passing a message along but fails to actually record one, the system catches that after the call from the transcript and still alerts your team. The notification reads "Phone message promised but NOT recorded" and points at the call transcript, so the callback is never lost. It's deliberately sent at normal (not critical) priority, since no urgency was captured. Seeing one of these isn't something you need to fix — it means the net worked. The same net catches a caller who asks for a person or a call back when no message, lead, or work order was filed on the call: that alert reads "Caller asked for a person or a call back, and NO message was recorded on the call", with their number so you can ring them back. Calls judged to be robocalls never trigger either alert.

Privacy and guardrails

• The assistant only sees what the customer portal would show that customer — never internal notes, costs or margins, technician personal contact info, routes, or other customers' data.
• It can take messages and capture leads, but it never books, reschedules, quotes prices, or changes billing without a human approving.
• Assistant-answered calls are always transcribed. Other recorded calls (ones a person answered or placed) are transcribed and summarized from their recording. Audio is recorded only if you turn on Record calls (Messages → Phone → Settings → Calls), off by default. Turned on (it needs the Manage phone permission), every incoming call on all your numbers is recorded, whoever answers: the assistant, a cell phone it rings first, or the dashboard. Callers are not told unless you also turn on Tell callers the call may be recorded on the same card; then they first hear the notice, "This call may be recorded." (or your own wording, see below). The recording plays on the call in the Phone inbox (a Recording bar under the call, for anyone who can read the inbox). Calls your team places are recorded too: a Call button in the dashboard, and every call from the technician app by someone with the "Call customers as the business" permission. With the notice on, both you and the customer hear it once the customer picks up (never before, so it doesn't talk over iPhone call screening). Under it, type your own What callers hear (up to 200 characters); Play sample plays it. A tech who dials the customer from their own phone (or whose role lacks "Call customers as the business", so the app opens their own dialer) places an ordinary call that never goes through Pool Founder, so it can't be recorded. Recordings start from when you turn it on; earlier calls have none. Some states require everyone on a call to agree to being recorded; whether to announce it is your decision, as it is for the assistant's transcripts.
• The assistant never places outbound calls — it only answers. Your staff can, though: from the web app with a "Call" button on the customer's page, and from the technician mobile app, where tapping a call button calls as your business number (roles with the "Call customers from their own phone" permission also get "Call from my phone"; the built-in Technician role does not). It rings YOUR phone first — answer, press 1, and it dials the customer showing the business number as caller ID, so your personal cell stays hidden and callbacks land on the assistant. Both need the "Call customers as the business" permission and a business number. Owners, Administrators and Office Managers have that permission by default; the built-in Technician role does not, so to let techs call as the business, add it to the Technician role (or another role) on Roles & Permissions; these staff calls are logged as outgoing in the Phone inbox, and with Record calls on they are recorded and transcribed from the moment the customer picks up (a call nobody answers shows No answer and has no recording). Without the permission or a business number, the app opens the tech's own dialer instead (not recorded, and not in the Phone inbox).

The Settings tab

Everything you can change about the assistant lives on Messages → Phone → Settings (<code>/dashboard/comms/phone/settings</code>). A section list on the left (Calls, Assistant, Texts, Saved replies, Phone line, Notifications) picks which section shows on the right, one at a time; the page opens on Calls. The chosen section is recorded in the URL as <code>?section=</code>. The Calls section starts with "When someone calls", the numbered steps a call goes through right now (for example "Your cell rings for about 20 seconds. Press 1 to take the call." then "Nobody answers: your assistant picks up."), which update as you change the cards below it. Old <code>?tab=</code> bookmarks still work and land on the matching section.

Assistant

"Who answers for you, what it sounds like, and what it knows about your business." At the top is an identity card — your assistant's name, your number, whether it is answering, and a green or grey dot — then the three tiles that can stop something reaching a customer:

• Answer phone calls — the master switch for call answering. On: "Your assistant picks up day and night — books leads, takes messages". Off: "Calls ring through without the assistant".
• Answer texts — the master switch for text answering. It is locked until texting is live on a business number: "Carrier review in progress — this switch unlocks on its own when it clears", or "Register your business number for texting to turn this on".
• Automated texts — not a switch but a link through to the Automated texts tab, with a summary of how many automations are on and how many customers are reachable.

• Identity and greeting — "The name it gives, and whether it says up front that it's an AI." An Assistant name box, an "Announce it's an AI" switch, a live Opening line preview, and a Save greeting button.
• Voice — "How your assistant sounds on the phone. Saves instantly and applies from the next call." Shows the voice you have now with a play button; Change voice opens the full list of curated voices, each with a play-button preview, and picking one closes it again. You cannot upload or clone your own voice.
• Existing customers — "How far your assistant goes when someone already in your customer list calls or texts." Three choices: "Just take a message", "Answer from their account" (marked Popular, and the default), and "Answer + log work orders" — the last also logs service issues as a work order for you to review, price, and schedule. Each work order it logs gets one of your work order tags when one clearly fits, picked from what you wrote under the tag's Use when, and shows a sparkle so you can see it was the assistant's pick; otherwise it stays untagged. Saves on click.
• Who calls back — "Who your assistant tells callers will get back to them when it takes a message." Two choices: "The owner, by first name" (the default — "[your first name] will get back to you as soon as they can.") and "A [your company] team member (no names)" — "Someone from the [your company] team will get back to you as soon as they can." With the second, the assistant never names the owner or any employee or technician as the person who will call back. Saves on click and applies from the next call. Phone calls only: assistant texts already say "the team" and never name anyone.
• Pricing questions — "Your assistant never quotes prices on a call or in a text. It takes the details for you to follow up." Holds one switch, Text callers your sign-up link (off by default): "Your assistant never says prices. When a caller or texter asks about pricing or signing up for service, it offers to text them your sign-up page link." Under it, The text they get shows the exact text with your company name and real link; see "Texting your sign-up link" below.
• Website knowledge — point the assistant at your website; see below.
• Standing instructions — "Rules your assistant always follows, in every conversation, on both calls and texts"; see below.

Calls

"What happens when someone dials your line. Calls are answered the same way around the clock — your assistant never keeps office hours." Six cards: Ring my phone first (with its "If you can't answer" choice, business-line path only), Calls in your dashboard (Assistant answers first, you watch live; Ring the dashboard first; or Off: see "Answer calls in the browser" and "Watch the assistant live and take over" above), Transfer callers who ask for a person (see "Transferring a caller to a person" above), Test a call — talk to your assistant out loud from the browser ("Nothing is booked, saved, or sent for real, and the call never shows up in your inbox") Block spam calls (the carrier refuses likely spam before it rings, see "Robocalls and sales calls" above), and Spam & blocked callers, the robocalls and sales pitches your assistant ended, each with a Not spam button (see "Robocalls and sales calls" above).

Texts, Phone line, and Notifications

• Texts — "Your assistant replies to inbound texts — the ones your customers and leads start." Holds the texting registration card (until texting is live), "Who it texts back" (New leads / Existing customers), "Reply style" (Send right away / Draft and wait for me), Business hours, After-hours message, and a link to Automated texts. Full detail in texting and the Phone inbox.
• Phone line — "The number your assistant answers on, and how calls get to it." Your number (titled "Your assistant's line" on the forwarding path), Call forwarding with the per-carrier dial codes (forwarding path only), the "Make this your business number" upgrade card, and an Advanced group with Turn off call forwarding for companies that upgraded. See Phone setup.
• Notifications — "When your team hears about something your assistant handled." One card, Text notifications: a company-wide "Notify the team about incoming texts" picker with four options — Every message, New conversations only (the default), Only when the assistant needs help, and Don't notify. It saves instantly and applies to everyone. Underneath, the events your team is always notified about: assistant captured a new lead, assistant needs your approval, assistant needs help, and new text message. How each notification reaches a person (push, email, quiet hours) stays personal, under the AI Front Desk category in their own Notification Settings.

Changing anything here requires the "Manage phone & AI front desk" permission. The tab is visible to everyone regardless — without the permission it reads "Phone settings are managed by owners and administrators. You can still read every call and text in the inbox."

Standing instructions

Standing instructions are rules your assistant always follows (e.g. "never quote prices over text"). Manage the list at Phone → Settings → Assistant → Standing instructions ("Rules your assistant always follows, in every conversation, on both calls and texts"), where instructions can be added, edited (pencil icon) or deleted (needs "Manage phone & AI front desk"). There is no "Coach assistant" composer mode (on web or the technician mobile app) — to change what the assistant says, add a standing instruction, or take over the conversation and reply yourself.

Texting your sign-up link

The assistant never says or texts a price, on a call or in a text, and that does not change with any setting. What it can do, if you turn it on, is send people to your sign-up page: at Phone → Settings → Assistant → Pricing questions, turn on Text callers your sign-up link. It is off for every company until you turn it on, and needs the "Manage phone & AI front desk" permission.

• On a call: when a caller who is not a customer yet asks about pricing, what a service costs, or how to sign up, the assistant still gives no number. It offers once to text them the link to sign up, and sends it only if they say yes, to the number they are calling from. It never reads the link aloud, and it still takes their name and address, so they land in Leads as before.
• In a text conversation: it can put the link straight into its reply when someone who is not a customer yet asks about pricing or signing up.
• The text: "Here's the link to sign up for service with [your company]: [your sign-up page link]". The first text a number gets from you (and one a month after that) ends with "Reply STOP to opt out." The card shows the exact wording with your real name and link. The sent link shows in that person's text thread in the Phone inbox, and on the call's transcript as "Sign-up link texted to the caller".
• Existing customers asking about prices for extra work are not sent the link: their request still goes to Leads as a quote request.
• It never texts anyone who replied STOP, and nothing is sent while you have paused customer notifications.

The switch is greyed out until your sign-up page is on (Settings → Sign-up Page; the card links there with "Turn on your sign-up page first →") and texting is live on your business line. If you later turn the sign-up page off, the assistant stops offering the link, and the card says "Your sign-up page is off, so the assistant isn't sending the link." The same goes if texting stops being live.

Website knowledge

You can teach the assistant your own website: at Phone → Settings → Assistant → Website knowledge, enter your website address and click "Read my website". It reads your homepage plus a few key pages (services, about, areas, contact), distills what matters — the services you offer, the areas you cover, your hours — and uses that when callers or texters ask general questions like "do you do green pool cleanups?" or "do you cover Marietta?". The exact text it learned is shown on the card; "Re-read" refreshes it after you update your site, and "Remove" makes the assistant stop using it immediately. Needs the "Manage phone & AI front desk" permission. If you gave your website on the first setup screen (What's your website?), it was read then, so the summary is already there.

Guardrails still apply: the assistant never quotes prices, even ones published on your website — pricing questions are captured as messages for you. If something on your site conflicts with a customer's account or one of your standing instructions, the account and your instructions win.

If you see "Your website host is challenging automated readers", that's a security setting on your website host (for example a bot check, CAPTCHA, or firewall), not a problem with your site or its content. Many hosts turn this on by default, so there may be no switch you flipped. The reader tries more than one way in, but some hosts block automated readers entirely — in that case website knowledge just stays off, and everything else (lead capture and account-based answers) keeps working normally. Adding more pages or content to your site will not change this. If the message instead says we couldn't reach the site or couldn't pull enough text, double-check the address and try again — sites that build their pages with JavaScript can leave too little readable text for the reader to use.

If we can't read your site for any reason, you can add the details yourself. When a read fails you'll see an "Add details manually" button (there's also an "Add your details manually instead" link if you'd rather skip the read entirely). Type in your services, the areas you cover, and your hours, then save — the assistant uses what you typed exactly the same way it would use a read of your site, and the same guardrails apply, so don't include prices. You can edit or remove it any time.

Pending Approvals

When the assistant proposes an appointment for a new lead, it appears under Pending Approvals — as a dismissible "N visits need approval" banner ("Proposed by your assistant") at the top of the Phone inbox, on the lead's page, and as a "bookings need your approval" banner and Approvals screen in the technician mobile app — for anyone with the "Approve scheduling" permission. The home to-do list's "AI Front Desk bookings to approve" opens the Phone inbox with the banner already expanded (<code>/dashboard/comms/phone/inbox?approvals=open</code>); a link to one booking also outlines it. Opening the inbox needs the "View customer inbox" permission as well.

• Approving auto-texts the customer their confirmation when texting is live; otherwise the approver is told to call them to confirm.
• Declining notifies the team to follow up with the customer.

What still has no settings UI

Most of what used to be support-only is now on the Settings tab: the existing-customer depth choice is the Existing customers card, notification frequency is Text notifications, and business hours and the after-hours message are cards in the Texts section. What is left:

• Playbook customization — how the assistant runs lead intake is fixed. Contact support@poolfounder.com to change it.
• Business hours never change how a phone call is handled, and there is no setting that makes them. On calls the assistant only states them when a caller asks; after-hours wording is texts only.
• Companies whose texting was enabled before the current settings layout have no switch to turn assistant texting off — contact support@poolfounder.com to change it.
• Some numbers provisioned before voice answering launched are texting-only — the "Answer phone calls" switch will say the number can't take calls and to contact support.
• There is no way to release or delete a phone number yourself. Nothing in the product hands a number back; contact support if you need to give one up.

Notifications and deep links

Assistant events — lead captured, approval needed, needs help, new text, answered a call — and Pool Founder voicemail alerts (New Voicemail, Voicemail Still Waiting) are the "AI Front Desk" category in each user's personal Notification Settings. Mobile push notifications open the exact conversation, call, or approvals screen. A "new lead" push opens the call that captured the lead, and that call screen has a "Lead from this call" link through to the lead itself; on the web, the same notification links straight to the lead's page.

Frequently asked questions

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