The Assistant answers customers for the business. It reads the business's own knowledge (web pages, files, FAQs and notes) and answers only from that. When it isn't sure, it hands the conversation to a person.
Open it from the business app: Assistant in the main menu.
Make an Assistant
- Assistant → New Assistant. Give it a name your customers will see, for example Maya. A business can have more than one.
- Pick its knowledge (see Knowledge for the Assistant).
- Choose a mode for each channel: Website chat, Email and Texts.
- Choose where it answers: every email address and number, or only some.
On its first reply it introduces itself: "Hi, I'm Maya, [Business]'s virtual assistant". If someone asks, it never claims to be a person. It replies in the language the customer writes in, unless you turn on Reply in English only.
Off, Suggest or Auto-reply
- Off: it doesn't answer on that channel.
- Suggest: it writes a reply in the conversation and a person sends it (Send, Edit or Discard). A new Assistant starts here, so you can see its answers first.
- Auto-reply: it sends the reply itself, after a short wait (so a person who is already typing goes first).
Each reply shows an Assistant tag and Sources: the knowledge it used. If an answer is wrong, click Wrong answer to tell it and log the question.
How it stays accurate
- It only answers from the business's knowledge and its own details (name, phone, hours, website).
- Every price, number or date in a reply must be in that knowledge or in the customer's own message. If not, it doesn't send the answer.
- It only shares the business's own links, phone numbers and emails.
- It never promises things it can't do (a refund, a discount). It only says something is booked when it really booked it (see below).
- Messages or web pages that try to give it instructions are ignored.
Handing off to a person
It hands off when it doesn't know, when the customer asks for a person ("talk to a person", "call me"), for emergencies, and after too many replies in a short time. Then:
- it tells the customer a person will reply (you can edit the wording);
- it assigns the conversation and notifies your team;
- it stays quiet in that conversation until 24 hours after your team's last reply, or until the conversation is closed.
You can pause it in any conversation with the Assistant switch at the top of the thread. Questions it couldn't answer show as gaps in its knowledge, so you can add the answer.
The summary note
Tick Add a summary note to the contact when it hands off (Goals). The note says, in a few lines: why it handed off, what the customer wants, the details they gave (dates, numbers, names) and what was already answered. It's written only from the conversation itself and checked before it's saved: every number, email, phone number and link in it must be in the conversation. If anything doesn't check out, a plain note is saved instead (why it handed off, what they asked, the details they gave). The summary isn't charged separately: it's part of the reply that handed off.
Booking appointments
Tick Can book appointments (Goals). It's off for a new Assistant. You can keep it to one calendar, or let it book any appointment service.
It needs Chronos Booking: online booking set up and switched on for the business, and booking switched on for at least one of the business's published websites. Booking is free. Until then the box is grayed out with a note and a Switch booking on for a website link (Calendars → Calendar settings → Websites).
If that stops being true later (the website is unpublished, or booking is switched off for it), the Assistant stops offering times and never books. It shares your booking page link instead while the booking page still works, or hands the customer to your team. It checks this on every booking message and again the moment the customer says yes.
Then, on website chat, email and texts:
- A customer asks to book. The Assistant offers the real free times from your calendars (up to 5; 3 on texts), for example "1. Wed 21 Oct, 10:00 am".
- They pick one ("2", or "10am"). It asks for anything it still needs: their name and email (and a number to call for phone appointments). It already knows them if they're a contact.
- It checks: "Shall I book Haircut on Wed 21 Oct, 10:00 am for Jane Smith (jane@example.com)? Reply yes to confirm."
- When they say yes, the time is checked again at that moment and held, so two people can never get the same time. If someone else just took it, it says so and offers the next free times.
- It's booked exactly as if they'd used your booking page: the same confirmation email, reminders, your "I confirm bookings first" setting, and the same change and cancel rules (the link in their confirmation).
It shares your booking page link instead when:
- the service takes a card or a payment when booking (card on file, deposit or pay in full);
- the service has questions to answer, extras to choose, or needs the customer's address;
- there's no free time in the next two weeks;
- the customer wants to change or cancel a booking (it points them to their confirmation's link).
In Suggest mode it never books: the draft offers times, and a person books it from the calendar. A booking is charged like any other reply (one reply each step), nothing extra. Appointments it booked show under Activity.
On texts
Texts follow every texting rule: STOP (and a plain "stop texting me") always wins, texting hours apply (outside them, the reply is left for your team as a suggestion), and a reply is at most two text messages long.
Try it for free
Try it on the Assistant's page asks it a question and shows the answer and its sources. For a booking question it shows the step it would take; it never books or holds a time. Trying it, and building its knowledge, is never charged.
What it costs
Each reply the Assistant writes (sent or suggested) is charged once from your agency's usage balance, at the price set by ContentForge. A texted reply is also charged as a text. When the usage balance is paused, the Assistant stops replying until funds are added, then carries on.