Here's how that works, and where people usually trip up.
What does it actually read?
It starts at the address you paste. From there it looks at the links on that page and ranks them, favouring the ones that tend to hold what callers ask about: services, pricing, contact, hours, locations, FAQ. It stays on your own site, skips legal pages and downloadable files, and reads up to 5 pages inside a short time limit.
So where your information lives matters. Hours are often on the contact page, not the home page. Services usually have their own page. If those pages are linked from your home page with obvious names, they get found.
One catch that bites a lot of small businesses: it reads the words on a page, not pictures. If your price list is a photo of the board on the wall, it can't read it.
What an AI phone trained on your website knows, and what it won't make up
Think of the profile in two halves.
The facts it reports. These are on your site or they aren't:
- your business name and what you do
- your services, and prices where you list them
- your opening hours
- your address or the area you cover
- the questions and answers in your FAQ
If a fact isn't on the page, it's left blank. That's on purpose. An AI that invented your Saturday hours would put a wrong answer straight into a caller's ear, and they'd turn up to a locked door. A gap you can see is far better than a guess you can't.
The bits it writes for you. Some things no website contains, so they're drafted:
- A greeting. A short opening that names your business. Every call already starts by saying it's an AI, so the greeting is written to sit naturally after that.
- Urgent words. The words your callers use when something can't wait. A dental practice gets words like severe pain and knocked out. A plumber gets burst and flood. They start from the industry you pick during setup.
Both are starting points. Rewrite them so they sound like your business.
Reading the profile properly
Read it the way you'd brief someone on their first day. You're looking for four things:
- Anything wrong. The service you dropped, last year's prices, the branch you closed.
- Anything missing. Hours, the suburbs you cover, the things you don't do.
- Anything you don't want said. Some businesses never quote prices on the phone. Tell it.
- A greeting that doesn't sound like you. Read it out loud. You'll know.
Then talk to it in your browser. Ask what your customers ask. Where an answer is wrong or thin, fix the profile and ask again. All of this fits inside the 7-day trial, before you choose a plan or a number. The full walk-through is in how to set up an AI phone.
Small changes to your site that help a lot
You don't need a new website. A few tweaks do most of the work.
| On your site | Why it helps |
|---|---|
| A services page in plain words | It can describe what you do the way you would |
| Opening hours written out, on a page linked from the home page | Callers ask about hours constantly, and a picture of them can't be read |
| Your address or the suburbs you cover | It can tell a caller whether you'll come out to them |
| An FAQ with real answers | Your answers become its answers |
| What you don't do | "We don't do commercial work" saves everyone a wasted call |
No website, or a very thin one? You can write all of this straight into the profile instead.
When your business changes
The profile isn't a one-off. Change it and the change reaches your AI phone, so the next caller hears the new hours or the new service. Update it when prices move, when you add something, and before you shut for the Christmas break.
When it doesn't know
No profile covers everything. Someone will ask whether you can fit a part for a forty-year-old boiler, or whether there's parking out the back.
When the AI can't answer from what it knows, it says so plainly instead of making something up, offers to take a message, and logs the question for you. You add the answer once and it knows it from then on. In the first few weeks, that list of questions is the quickest way to fill the gaps your website left. It's a bit like a new staff member keeping notes of what they got asked.
If you want to hear what all this sounds like from the caller's side, there's a full walk-through of what callers hear on an AI phone.
What it doesn't learn from
It doesn't listen to your other phone calls, read your email or look through your files. It learns from your website, from what you write into the profile, and from the answers you add to the questions it logged. If you connect Google Calendar, it reads free and busy times so it can offer real appointments and book them in. That's the whole job the calendar does.
Clinics tend to care about this most. The dental page shows how a practice usually sets it up.
FAQ
How long does it take to read my website?
A short while. It reads a handful of pages within a time limit, so your profile is ready soon after you paste the address.
Will it read my whole website out to callers?
No. It uses what it learned to answer the caller's question briefly, the way a person at the front desk would.
My site is out of date. Do I fix that first?
No need. Fix the profile directly. Updating the website is still worth doing when you get a chance.
Can it read a PDF price list?
It reads the words on your web pages. Put the prices you want shared on a page, or add them to the profile yourself.
Does it learn from my calls?
It doesn't change its own instructions from calls. It logs the questions it couldn't answer so you can add the answers yourself. Trying it costs nothing for 7 days, and plans start at US$29; see the pricing page.
