Phone Agent
Cavendish answers the calls your business misses, takes the message, and emails you after each call.
Part of Cavendish. Still being built. The Phone Agent is the part of Cavendish that answers the phone. Your number rings as it always has; when nobody picks up, the call is forwarded to your copy's own line and Cavendish answers as your business's virtual assistant. It answers questions from your business profile, quotes only the prices written there, takes a message for a call back, and says goodbye. After each call you get an email saying who called and what they need, the caller is in the customer book, and the whole conversation is on your private site.
What it looks like
Real pages from a private copy of Cavendish, with sample data loaded. Nothing is mocked up.
What it does
- It says what it is. A caller hears that they have reached your business's virtual assistant and that the call is recorded so their details can be passed on. It never says it is a person.
- It answers from your profile: what you do, where, when you are open, and only the prices you have written down. It gives no repair advice and says nothing about other customers.
- It takes a message: the caller's name, a number to call back, what they need, when suits them, and whether it can wait.
- For a smell of gas, smoke, sparks, or a carbon-monoxide alarm, it tells the caller to get out and call 911 first.
- After each call, one email. The subject says what happened ("Call back: Maria Lopez, a leaking water heater"); the body says who called, what they need, what was done, and what they asked that it could not answer, with a link to the call.
- The caller goes into the customer book as a lead, or the call goes into an existing customer's history when the number is known.
- The Calls page on your private site lists every call with everything that was said and what the assistant did. Mark a call done once you have rung back. Calls are kept for 90 days.
- If anything goes wrong on Cavendish's side, a simpler script takes the caller's name, number, and reason. When the agent is switched off, three calls are already going, or the same number has called five times that day, the caller leaves a voicemail instead, which is emailed to you.
- What is kept: the written conversation, for 90 days. No call audio is kept. A voicemail is emailed to you and then deleted from the phone service.
Who it is for
Businesses where the owner is also the one who answers the phone, and is often on a roof, under a sink, or with a customer when it rings.
How it works
- First, we set up a local number for your business on your copy, and your carrier forwards the calls you do not answer to it. Your own number does not change.
- Then, your phone rings as it always has. If nobody picks up, Cavendish answers.
- Next, it answers what it can from your profile, takes a message, and says goodbye.
- After that, you get the email, ring the caller back, and mark the call done.
Pricing
Part of Cavendish, and priced with it. A phone line adds the cost of its number and of the minutes used, which the quote sets out.
The Phone Agent is still being built. It answers test lines today. We will not point a business's real number at it until the pieces that make it dependable are finished: a fallback while a copy restarts, retries for an email that fails, and limits on the minutes a line can use.