# Phone Assistant

The Phone Assistant answers your phone when you can't, puts urgent calls through, and makes calls for you: say what you need, approve, and it rings.

Status: available; get started and we set it up with you. Checked 2026-11-10.

## Who it's for
- New Zealand trades and service businesses whose owner is on the tools when the phone rings
- Sole traders and small teams who miss calls after hours, on jobs or on another call
- Businesses that already use Live chat and want the phone to answer the same way

## The problem it solves
Calls go to voicemail while you're working, most callers don't leave a message, and they ring the next business on the list. Urgent jobs get missed and the rest pile up for the evening.

## Why businesses use it
- Every call answered in your business's name, keeping your own number
- Urgent calls put through to the right person, or flagged to you at once
- A short written summary of every call, so you call back once with what you need
- The same answers as your Live chat, from the AI control centre
- Spam and hang-ups never count towards your minutes
- Calls it makes for you, like checking stock or booking a tee time, from the same number and the same minutes

## What it does
- **Answers when you can't.** Your mobile rings first. If you don't pick up, you're on another call or your phone is off, the call moves to your Front desk. You can also have it answer after hours, or every call.
- **Takes down the job.** For each kind of work it asks the questions you set, like the problem, the address and the best time, and reads the details back to the caller.
- **Knows what's urgent.** You list what counts as urgent, like a burst pipe or no hot water. A caller who says one of them is put through to your list in order, or flagged to you at once if nobody picks up.
- **Answers from what you've checked.** It answers questions from the AI control centre, the same as Live chat. If the answer isn't there, it says someone will get back to them and never guesses a price.
- **Writes up every call.** Each call becomes a short summary with the details it collected, the recording and transcript, and what happened during the call.
- **Shows what needs you.** Calls to return, times to confirm, texts to approve and questions it couldn't answer are sorted at the top, most urgent first.
- **Learns your answers.** Answer a question once from a call, or fix an answer it gave, and calls and Live chat use your words from then on.
- **Makes calls for you.** Press Make a call on Today or in Phone, say what you need, and it plans the call. Once you approve, it rings from your Phone Assistant number and tells you what was agreed.
- **Rings back for you.** On any call that needs a call back, press Ring them back for me and it plans that call with what they rang about already filled in.
- **Knows who's ringing back.** When a shop or club it rang calls your number back, it answers knowing why, takes their answer and adds it to your call.
- **Looks things up on the call.** Ask about another business and it checks Google Maps while you wait: whether they're open, their hours, address and phone number.
- **Takes your requests by phone.** Ring it from your own mobile and say "ring Mitre 10 and check they've got 20 bags of cement". It plans the call and waits for your OK in the app.

## How it works
1. **A call comes in.** Your phone rings as normal. Calls you don't pick up move on to your Front desk number.
2. **It answers.** It greets the caller in your business's name, says it's an AI assistant and the call is recorded, and asks how it can help.
3. **It takes down the job.** It asks your questions for that kind of work and checks the details with the caller.
4. **Urgent goes through.** For something on your urgent list it tries your people in order, telling each who is calling and why first.
5. **You're told.** Within a minute you get an email and the call shows in Calls, with what they want and what to do next.
6. **You call back once.** Press Call, and the call is marked done when you've reached them.

## Setting it up
About 15 minutes.

1. **When it answers.** When you don't pick up, after hours only, or every call.
2. **What callers hear.** Your opening and question either side of the sentence that says it's an AI assistant, and the voice. Fill in any common question it has no answer for.
3. **Jobs and urgent calls.** The questions for each kind of work, what counts as urgent, who urgent calls go to, and how you hear about calls.
4. **Forward your phone.** Pick your phone company and dial three short codes. We ring your mobile to prove calls arrive.
5. **Try it.** Ring your Front desk number yourself to hear what callers hear.
6. **Go live.** Turn it on. Until then calls keep ringing only you.

## How it uses the AI control centre
Every Buildloop assistant works off your AI control centre, which holds your company details, knowledge and settings, trains each assistant and passes what one learns to the others. The more it knows about your business the more accurate every assistant is, and each one you add makes the others stronger.

Your AI control centre keeps what it knows about your business in Content Sections you can open, check and add to, with what's missing shown. Each says whether it's for customers, staff or both. You start with About the business, Products and services, Pricing, Payments, Opening hours, Contact details, Locations and service areas, Booking and ordering, Delivery and collection, Returns, refunds and warranty, Terms and policies, Common questions, Staff knowledge, Other, and can add, rename or remove them; the AI suggests sections from what it reads. How we talk, Rules and Suppliers are kept beside them.

It reads:
- Your business name, hours, services, areas and prices
- The answers you've checked, the same ones Live chat uses
- Your people and their mobiles, for urgent calls

It adds:
- Answers you write for questions callers asked that it couldn't answer, so Live chat knows them too
- How you like texts to callers written, from the changes you make before sending

## How it gets better
- Answers you write for questions callers asked that it couldn't answer, into Common questions in your AI control centre.
- How you like texts to callers written, from the changes you make before sending, into How we talk in your AI control centre.
- Kept as a test: every answer you fixed from a call: a practice call must say the fixed answer.
- Kept as a test: every urgent word: a practice caller who says it is marked urgent.
- Anything it works out for itself waits for you to check before your other assistants use it.

## Training
A screen-by-screen narrated training video and guide are being made.

## What it connects to
- **Your mobile** (needed): Forwarding the calls you don't pick up, with your phone company's own codes
- **A New Zealand Phone Assistant number** (needed): The number your calls forward to, and the number people see when it rings them
- **Google Maps** (optional): Looking up another business's hours and number during a call, and finding a number to ring
- **Web search** (optional (coming)): Answering wider questions during a call, like movie times
- **Texts to callers** (optional (coming)): A text confirming their message, sent in your business's name once you approve it
- **Your calendar** (optional (coming)): Holding a booking time for you to confirm

## What a person approves
- Every text to a caller waits for your OK until you let that kind of text go on its own
- Holding a booking time waits for you to confirm it with the caller
- Urgent calls are put through only to the people and hours you set
- Every call it makes for you waits for your approval of the plan, including ones you ask for by phone
- Looking things up runs on its own: it only reads, and changes nothing
- Only your own people, ringing from the mobile saved in their call settings, can ask it to ring someone

## Price
NZ$149 a month, including 300 minutes a month, then NZ$0.40 for each minute after that. Cancel any time. Plus a one-off set-up and configuration fee, agreed after a short call about your business. Every account also has the AI control centre, NZ$49 a month, once for all its assistants.

## What it doesn't do
- It never takes card numbers over the phone
- It doesn't quote a price you haven't given it
- Calls in te reo Māori and other languages are answered in English for now, and the caller is told why
- It can't search the wider web during a call yet: it checks businesses on Google Maps only
- It books times, sends quotes and answers invoice questions only when you have the Booking, Quoting or Get Paid assistant; until then it tells the caller you haven't turned that on, takes their details, and shows you what they asked for
- It doesn't move your number: you keep your own mobile and forward to it

## Your data
- Calls, recordings and summaries are stored in Sydney, Australia, and only people in your business can open them
- Recordings are deleted once the call is written up; the written transcript stays
- What a caller says goes to the AI model to understand and write up the call, and is never used to train it
- Callers are told at the start that it's an AI assistant and the call is recorded

## Questions
**Do I have to change my number?**
No. You keep your own number. Your mobile sends the calls you don't pick up on to your Front desk.

**Will callers know it's an AI?**
Yes. It always says so in its first sentence, and that the call is recorded. People hang up less when it's honest and quick.

**What counts towards my minutes?**
Every started minute of an answered call over 15 seconds, both the calls it answers and the calls it makes; Price shows the minutes included each month and the cost of each one after. Spam, silent calls, hang-ups, calls nobody answers and practice calls don't count.

**Can it make calls for me?**
Yes. Press Make a call, or ring it from your own mobile, and say what you need. It plans the call, you approve it, and it rings from your Phone Assistant number and tells you what was agreed.

**Can it put urgent calls through to me?**
Yes. It tries the people you choose, in order, in the hours you set, and tells each who is calling and why before connecting them.

**What if it doesn't know the answer?**
It says someone will get back to them and takes their details. You answer once in the app, and it uses your answer from then on.

**How do I start?**
Watch the demo, then choose it on Get started and tell us about your business. A short call agrees your set-up price (see Price), then we set it up with you.