Scenario Builder

From your Dashboard, locate the assistant that you wish to edit (most people only have one, but we support multiple assistants) and click the Scenario Builder button.

You tell your assistant what to do when a particular kind of caller rings.

Every scenario is one sentence and one plan. The sentence says what the caller wants. The plan says what your assistant should do about it: answer them, take a message, put them through to you, send them a text, or any combination of those.

Your assistant handles every other call the way it always has. Adding a scenario here does not change anything else it does — it adds one more situation it knows how to handle.

Three scenarios come as standard, because almost every business needs them: Emergencies, Complaints and Pricing.

These behave like any other scenario. You can change what they say, change what your assistant does about them, or delete them entirely if they don't apply to you.

The Pricing one deliberately arrives empty. There is no safe default price for your business, so it takes a message until you type your real prices in. If you do fill it in, be specific: "Call-out charge is 90 euro. Boiler service from 120 euro. Bathroom fits are quoted after a site visit." Anything you haven't covered still falls back to taking a message.

Everything you add yourself lands here. There's no limit on this page — add as many as are genuinely useful.

Click Add a custom scenario at the bottom of the list. You'll be asked two questions.

The page shows you the words "When the caller" above the box, and you finish the sentence. So you type "wants to book a job", not "when a caller wants to book a job".

Start with a verb and it will read correctly everywhere: "asks about our opening hours", "needs an emergency callout", "wants to chase an existing order".

One situation per scenario works best. You can write "or" if you need to, but two separate scenarios almost always behave better than one that tries to cover both.

Now you pick what your assistant does. Tap to add one, or as many as you like, from the four options below.

Type what you want it to say. This is the most common one and it's worth spending time on.

Do you want it to give the caller a specific piece of information? Set an expectation about what happens next? Ask a question back before it answers? This is the place to write all of that.

If the answer already lives on your website or in a document, click Use a web page or file instead. You can point it at a page on your site, or upload a PDF, Word, text, HTML or ePub file up to 20 MB. We read it and add it to your assistant's knowledge.

Choose what your assistant should write down. Their name, their phone number and what it's about are offered straight away. Click Add another detail for the rest: their email, their address, their Eircode, their town, an order number or a registration number.

Only ask for what you'll actually use. Every extra detail is another question your caller has to sit through.

Add the number you want rung. It can be a mobile or a landline.

Use this one with care. If nobody answers that phone during your opening hours, your caller has a worse experience than if the assistant had simply taken a message.

Two things worth knowing:

If your assistant can already put callers through on a rule that isn't shown on this page, you'll see a warning at the top. Saving will replace that rule with what's on this page, so read the warning before you save.

Write the message you want sent. Standard SMS rates apply, so keep it short and personal, and only send when the caller has actually asked for it.

A counter appears once your message runs past one text. Fadas like á or ó take up more space, so you'll get fewer characters per text if you use them. Three texts is the limit.

Putting a caller through is the one option that reaches into the real world and rings an actual phone, so it's worth setting up deliberately.

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Add a scenario and describe the moment you want to be rung. "asks to speak to someone" works for a general request. "needs an emergency callout" works if you only want the urgent ones put through.

You don't have to catch everything with one scenario. You can have several, each with the same or different numbers, so sales rings one mobile and service rings another.

Pick the country code, then type the number. A mobile or a landline is fine, and it's formatted as you type so you can see you've got it right.

Underneath the number you'll see your opening hours. Your assistant only tries to put callers through during these hours. Outside them it takes a message instead.

This is the part some people miss. If your hours say you close at 17:00 and someone rings at 17:30, nobody's phone rings, by design.

These are your business's opening hours, used everywhere, not just for this scenario. Changing them here changes them for your whole assistant, so make sure they're right rather than convenient. Your assistant will also use them when someone asks it whether you're currently open.

Optional, but we'd recommend it on nearly every transfer scenario. It gives your assistant something sensible to do when it can't put the caller through, and you'll see the row summarise itself as "Puts them through, or takes a message".

Click Save changes, give it a minute to update, then ring your number during your opening hours and ask to be put through. It's the only way to know your phone actually rings.

If your assistant can already put callers through on a rule that isn't shown on this page, a warning appears above your scenarios. Saving will replace that rule with what's on this page. If you're not sure what the existing rule does, message us before you save rather than after.

A text is the one thing your assistant can leave the caller holding after they hang up. Used well it saves you a follow-up call: a booking link, your address, a payment link, a price you've just quoted out loud. We like to think of it as removing friction to taking the next action.

As with everything else on this page, describe the moment first. "asks where you're based", "wants to book an appointment", "asks for a link to pay".

One text per scenario. If you want to send different messages in different situations, set them up as different scenarios.

Write it the way you'd write it yourself. Short, plain and personal beats formal every time, because it lands on a phone next to messages from their family.

You get 160 characters in a single text. A counter appears as soon as you go past that, showing how many texts your message will actually cost, and three is the limit.

Going over isn't forbidden, but two texts costs twice as much and reads as twice as long on a phone. Most messages get better when you cut them back under the line.

A single fada anywhere in the message drops your allowance from 160 characters to 70. That's how text messaging works everywhere unfortunately.

If you use one, the page tells you and the counter updates. Sometimes it's worth it. Sometimes "Sean" instead of "Seán" is the difference between one text and two.

Click Save changes, give it a minute to update, then ring your number and ask for the thing that should trigger the text. Read it on your own phone before a customer does.

Links in particular are worth checking, because a link that doesn't work is worse than no text at all. Services like Bitly can be used to shorten links, but customers can be suspicious of them.

It won't text anyone off its own bat. It only sends the messages you've written here, in the situations you've described, and only when it's a natural part of the call. It's not a marketing tool and it shouldn't be used as one.

The text goes to the number the caller is ringing from. If they're on a withheld number, or it's not an Irish or UK mobile it won't be sent.

Adding your first text on this page switches texting on for your assistant. Removing them all doesn't switch it back off again, because that setting is shared with other parts of your account. Disabling text messages completely can be done on the Notifications page.

Underneath your scenarios you'll see a line beginning "Anything else". That's what your assistant does with every call that doesn't match a scenario: it takes a message.

Click Change to choose which details it takes down. This is your safety net, so it's worth setting even if you never add a single scenario of your own.

Every row has two buttons. The pencil opens it for editing, and the bin deletes it.

Deleting is instant, but an Undo link appears in its place for a few seconds. If you delete the wrong one, click Undo and it comes straight back where it was.

Nothing is actually removed from your assistant until you press Save.

Nothing on this page reaches your assistant until you click Save changes at the bottom. You can open the page, have a look around, and leave again without changing a thing.

The one exception is files. If you upload a document, we start reading it the moment you choose it, so it's ready by the time you save.

Once you save, it usually takes 2-3 minutes for the change to take effect on your live assistant. It's worth ringing your number afterwards to hear it for yourself.

The most common mistake is writing one scenario that tries to do too much. "Caller wants a quote or wants to book or has a complaint" gives your assistant three jobs and no way to choose between them. Three separate scenarios, each with its own plan, will behave far more predictably.

The second most common is being vague in the answer. "Tell them about our prices" gives your assistant nothing to work with. "Our call-out charge is 90 euro and includes the first hour" gives it something to say.