Help

FAQ

Answers to the questions operators ask about calls, setup, the CRM, billing and trust.

About the calls#

Will callers know they are talking to an AI?

Yes. It says so in its first sentence, on every call, and that wording cannot be switched off. Families can ask for a person at any point.

See AI disclosure.

Does this replace our sales counselors?

No. It covers the calls they cannot get to: after hours, weekends, and while they are with a family. Counselors walk into each tour already knowing the story.

What does it say about pricing?

Only the starting prices a community has published, always as "starting at", in wording you approve. It never gives a top price, a range, a total or a discount it worked out, and never another community's price. If you would rather it not discuss cost at all, that is one setting.

Each community's prices are on its Pricing tab, or all together under Pricing in the menu. The wording is under How prices are said on the playbook's Guardrails tab, next to the switch The agent may discuss price. See Prices and care types.

What happens if it does not know the answer?

It says so and offers to have your team confirm it on the tour. It does not guess. Every one of those moments is collected under Top unanswered questions in call metrics on the Insights Scorecard, which is your list of things to add to Knowledge.

Can a caller always reach a person?

Yes, from any point in any call. Inside the community's staffed hours the call is passed to your backup number. Outside them the assistant takes a callback, tells the caller honestly when to expect it, and emails your team with a link to the call. See Human backup.

Does it call people?

No. Inbound only. The assistant never dials a prospect, and there is no outbound calling in the product.

What does it do in an emergency?

It tells the caller to hang up and call 911 straight away. It does not try to help and it does not try to book them.

Are calls recorded?

Callers are told in the greeting, and calls are transcribed. If a caller objects, recording and transcript storage stop for that call at once and the assistant confirms it. See Call recording.

What languages does it speak?
English only in this release.
How long can a call last?

Calls are capped at 20 minutes. Eight seconds of silence prompts a check-in and twenty seconds ends the call politely.

Setting it up#

Do we have to change our phone number?

Each community gets a new local number. Publish it on your website and ads, or forward your existing inquiry line to it, all the time or only when nobody picks up.

Can we try it before connecting our WelcomeHome account?

Yes. Every account starts with a private sample CRM filled with example data. Call your test number and watch the prospect, the call log and the tour appear, then connect your real account when you are ready.

See Sandbox CRM.

How long does setup take?

The Quickstart gets you to a test call in about half an hour. Going live properly — a brief you are happy with, each community's profile and human backup, knowledge, and twenty test calls reviewed — is usually a week of part-time work.

Do we write a different playbook for each community?

No, and you should not. Write one account playbook with placeholders like {'{{group.hours}}'}, and let each community fill in its own profile. Use Customizations only for the things one community genuinely does differently. See Create your communities.

Can a community change the playbook on its own?

Only what you let it. Every inherited item can be kept, changed or turned off by a community — unless you lock it. The AI disclosure, the recording notice and the guardrails are locked out of the box.

Can we use a CRM other than WelcomeHome?

Partly. The Generic webhook connector sends new contacts, call logs and follow-up tasks to any URL you own, which you can wire into your own system. It cannot look callers up or book tours, so the assistant captures callbacks instead. See Generic webhook.

Can we upload PDFs and Word documents to Knowledge?

Not yet. Today Knowledge takes plain text, Markdown, HTML and CSV files, web page addresses, and pasted text. If your brochure is a PDF, paste its text into the Paste text tab.

Can we use our own recorded voice?

No. Only stock voices from the voice company are offered. Custom and cloned voices are not part of this release.

Can we schedule a change for next Monday?

No. Publishing is immediate. To roll a change out gradually, pin the other communities' numbers to the current version before you publish, then move them over when you are happy. See Phone numbers.

Running it#

How do we stop it in a hurry?

The kill switch on a playbook's History page routes every call for that playbook to a person or to voicemail immediately. No deploy and no waiting. See Test and publish.

A change made things worse. Can we go back?

Yes. Open History, find the version that was working and press restore. It is published again as a new version, and calls use it straight away. History is never rewritten.

Why did it not book a caller who was clearly interested?

Open the call and read Rule that fired. It names the booking rule that decided the call and the details it matched on. Nine times out of ten the caller was missing a required answer, or a broad rule was sitting above a narrower one. See Booking rules.

Who can see what?

Five roles: owner, admin, editor, group manager and viewer. A group manager sees only the communities you name. See Team and roles.

Can we get the data out?

Yes. The API is the same one the admin app uses: calls, transcripts, analytics, usage and invoices. See API authentication and the API reference.

Billing#

What are we charged for?

Five meters: minutes on the line, calls answered, calls that booked a tour, texts sent to callers, and messages visitors send in a chat. Your plan can price any mix of them. See Usage and invoices.

Are test calls billed?

No. Test calls from the app and from your test number are never billed, never counted in analytics and never written to your CRM.

What about hang-ups and robocalls?

Hang-ups before the greeting finishes and calls flagged as spam are not counted as answered calls. A call has to reach ten seconds, or the caller has to speak, before it counts.

If a tour is cancelled, do we still pay for the booking?

By default yes, because the assistant did the work. Some plans include a grace window in which a cancellation earns a credit. Check your agreement.

Trust#

Is it HIPAA compliant?

Not today. AnswerStack is not yet offered as a HIPAA-covered service, and it is built not to collect clinical detail. If your organization needs a business associate agreement, tell us and we will share our timeline.

See HIPAA status.

Can it give medical advice?

No. It declines and offers a person. It never assesses what care somebody needs.

Where do its facts come from?

Your brief, the community's profile, the knowledge you uploaded, and the answers of tools you approved, on that call. Nowhere else — not from the language model's own memory. See What it will not do.

Could another AnswerStack customer see our calls?

No. Account separation is enforced in the database itself, not only in the application.

How long do you keep transcripts and recordings?

90 days each by default, and you can shorten it per playbook. Expired content is deleted automatically. See Data and privacy.

Still stuck?#

Open the call you are asking about, note the date and the community, and send it to your AnswerStack contact. If it is an API problem, include the requestId from the error.