The AI phone assistant

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" checklist step on the Phone dashboard. 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 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 next visit 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.

• 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 re-applies the standard behaviors. It does hydrate your saved values for the two texting switches — so re-running it to flip a texting switch and finishing is safe, and is in fact how you change those switches later.

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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Takes a message on anything it can't handle and tells the caller the owner — by first name ("Corey will get back to you as soon as possible") — is getting it. It never says whether a particular person is available, out, or busy, because it cannot know that.
• 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.
• Every answered call appears in the Phone inbox with its outcome, summary, any message taken, and the full transcript.

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. Technicians are referred to by first name only.

It never transfers calls — urgent messages are how emergencies reach you

Instead, urgent messages are how an emergency reaches you when your phone can't ring. 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.

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.

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 scheduled on an existing customer's account ("you're down for Wednesday the 22nd"), which is a recorded fact rather than a new commitment.

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.

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.
• Calls are transcribed, never audio-recorded.
• The assistant never places outbound calls — it only answers. (Your staff can call customers from the web app with a "Call" button on the customer's page, which requires the "Call customers from the web app" permission and a business number — those staff calls are logged as outgoing in the Phone inbox with no transcript.)

The Assistant settings tab

Settings live inline on the Phone dashboard under two tabs — Assistant and Automated texts. The Assistant tab is one page holding everything about call answering:

• The Live Assistant card with the master "Answer phone calls" switch (there is no separate "Answer texts" switch).
• "Who your assistant is" — name, greeting, and the "Announce it's an AI" toggle, with a live preview.
• The "Standing instructions" card — permanent rules the assistant always follows (add or delete here, or save one from a conversation).
• A Voice picker — 15 curated voices with play-button previews; your selection saves instantly and applies from the next call. You cannot upload or clone your own voice.
• "Forward your calls" — the assistant's number with tap-to-copy per-carrier dial codes (forwarding path).
• The assistant's line / business number card.
• "Test a call" — talk to the assistant out loud from your browser (mic required) with a live transcript. Test calls never create real leads or appointments and don't appear in the inbox.

Changing assistant settings requires the "Manage phone & AI front desk" permission.

Coach the assistant and save standing instructions

In any text conversation in the Phone inbox, the "Coach assistant" composer mode tells the assistant what to say (e.g. "tell them we can come Thursday") — it writes the customer-facing text as a draft for your review and never texts the customer directly. Checking "Save as standing instruction" makes that rule permanent; the full list lives on the Assistant settings tab under "Standing instructions", where instructions can be added or deleted (needs "Manage phone & AI front desk").

Pending Approvals

When the assistant proposes an appointment for a new lead, it appears under Pending Approvals — on the Phone dashboard, 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.

• 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 has no settings UI

A few behaviors are fixed and have no settings screen: playbook customization, the existing-customer depth choice, notification frequency, and business hours. Business hours no longer affect phone calls at all — they only shape after-hours wording on texts for companies that already had them saved. To change any of these, contact support at support@poolfounder.com.

• The exception is the two texting switches ("Text back new numbers" / "Text back existing customers") — change those by re-running the answering setup, which hydrates your saved values.
• Companies whose texting was enabled before the current settings layout have no switch to turn assistant texting off — contact support at 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.

Notifications and deep links

Assistant events — lead captured, approval needed, needs help, new text, answered a call — 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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