Phone and texting · Just a Good Guy docs

Get a number

In the dashboard's phone settings, search by a 3-digit area code and pick a number from the list. It's ready for calls and texts straight away. Only the business owner can buy or release a number, and your plan has to include one.

To change numbers, release the one you have first, then pick another. A released number goes back to the phone company and may not be available again.

Keep your existing number

You don't have to give out a new number. Ask your phone company to set up forward when busy or unanswered (sometimes called conditional call forwarding) to your Just a Good Guy number. Your phone rings as usual, and calls you miss go to the receptionist.

Each carrier sets this up a little differently. Their support pages or app usually call it "call forwarding".

Watch out

If you forward your cell phone to your Just a Good Guy number, don't also use that same cell for live transfer. A missed transfer would forward straight back. Use a different phone for live transfer, or leave live calls off.

Call hours vs booking hours

There are two sets of hours, because when you can do the work and when you can talk on the phone aren't always the same.

	Booking hours	Call hours
What they mean	When appointments can happen	When someone can pick up the phone or call people back
What uses them	Open times in chat, on the phone and on your booking page	Live transfers, the Call now button, and call-back windows
Example	Tue to Sat, 9am to 6pm	Mon to Fri, 8am to 10am and 4pm to 6pm

Outside call hours your cell is never rung. The receptionist still answers, books, and offers a call-back during your next call hours.

Time off can block booking hours, call hours or both, so a holiday can stop bookings and calls in one go. See time off and holidays.

How a call is answered

During call hours, with live calls on, your verified cell rings first, for 20 seconds by default (you can set 5 to 60). The call shows your business number, so you know it's a work call.
If you don't pick up, or it's outside call hours, the AI receptionist answers.
If the AI is off (paused, over your plan's monthly limit, or switched off by us), the caller hears a short message saying you can't take the call. If missed-call text-back is on, they also get a text with your booking link.

Live transfer to your cell

Live calls need a cell number that you've verified:

Enter your cell in the phone settings.
We text it a 6-digit code. Type it in within 10 minutes.
Turn on live calls.

If you change the number later, it has to be verified again.

During a call with the receptionist, a caller can ask for a person, or press 0. If it's inside your call hours and live calls are on, the receptionist says it's connecting them and rings your cell for up to 25 seconds. If nobody answers, the caller hears "Sorry, nobody could pick up. We'll call you back soon." Outside call hours, the receptionist offers to set up a call-back instead.

The AI receptionist on the phone

The receptionist uses the same rules as the website chat. It answers questions from your business details and FAQ, books into real open times, moves or cancels bookings, takes messages, and sets up call-backs. See What the AI will and won't do.

On the phone it talks in short sentences, asks one thing at a time, and reads phone numbers back to check them. Callers can interrupt it. It speaks US English.

Caller ID counts as proof of who's calling. If the number matches a customer on file, the receptionist can see their upcoming bookings and move or cancel them without sending a code.

The AI disclosure line

Unless you write your own, every call starts with:

"Hi, thanks for calling your business. I can book appointments or take a message. How can I help? Just so you know, I'm a virtual assistant, and this call is transcribed."

The disclosure at the end is always added, even when you write your own greeting, so callers always know they're talking with an AI. Some places require this.

If you turn on call recording, the call is also recorded (stored in your Twilio account) and the disclosure says "this call is recorded and transcribed".

If a caller asks for a person and your phone isn't answered, we book a call-back during your call hours, tell the caller when, and alert you.

Call recaps

When your receptionist answers a call for you, you get one text (and an email) when the call ends:

Your business: Call answered for you Caller: Jordan Lee (555) 201-7790 Wanted: a fade this Saturday, and the price Booked: Fade, Sat, Oct 24, 10:00 AM Call: 3 min link to the call in your inbox

"Wanted" is a short summary of what the caller said. What got done (booked, a call-back, a message for you) comes from what was actually saved.
Things done on the call don't text you separately; the recap covers them.
The same summary shows on the call in your inbox.
Texts go to your own mobile number if you've added one under Settings, Alerts, otherwise to the phone your calls ring. Change what reaches you, and how, in the same place.

Missed-call text-back

When a call ends without anyone being helped (for example the caller hung up quickly), we text them:

"Your business: sorry we missed your call! Book online any time: your booking link or reply here and we'll help."

It's on by default. Turn it off in the phone settings.
Each call sends at most one text.
You get a "Missed call" alert too.

Two-way texting

Customers can text your number. The receptionist replies, using the same rules as chat:

Replies are short and plain. Links in them can only point to your booking pages or your own website.
Texts from the same number within 24 hours are one conversation.
Everything shows up in your Inbox, so you can read along.

To reply yourself, open the conversation in your Inbox and type. That takes the conversation over: the receptionist stops replying in it, and you get an alert for each new text. Turn take-over off to hand it back.

If one number sends more than 30 texts in an hour, the receptionist stops replying to it until the hour is up.

Customers can also message the same number on WhatsApp, or email your receptionist.

STOP and START

Customers can opt out of texts at any time by texting one of these words on its own:

STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END or QUIT

After that, we don't send them confirmations, reminders or waitlist offers by text or WhatsApp. Email still works if we have their address. To opt back in, they text START, UNSTOP or YES. The same words work on WhatsApp.

You can see and change the opt-out on the customer's profile.

Note

CANCEL on its own is a phone-industry opt-out word, so it turns texts off rather than cancelling a booking. Customers who want to cancel should say so in a sentence, like "cancel my appointment", or use the link in their confirmation.

Texting in the US needs registration

US phone carriers require every business that texts customers to be registered first:

A2P 10DLC registration for normal local numbers
toll-free verification for toll-free numbers

We do the registration for you once texting is part of your plan. It needs a few details about your business (your legal name and type, your EIN, and a contact person), which you add in Business details: tap Texting registration. Anything still missing is marked in orange. Approval can take a few days, sometimes a few weeks. Until it's done, texts may be blocked or filtered by the carriers. Calls don't need registration, so the phone side works in the meantime.

Your Phone screen shows where it's up to. See texting registration for what's involved.

Monthly limits

Your plan includes a number of call minutes and texts each month. They reset at the start of each month.

When call minutes run out, calls get the short message and the booking-link text instead of the receptionist.
When texts run out, text confirmations and reminders are skipped (email still goes out), and the receptionist stops replying to texts. WhatsApp messages count as texts.

See your usage in Your plan in the dashboard. Your plan explains allowances and what happens when you reach them.