What your assistant can do: abilities explained

Abilities decide what your assistant may do in a conversation, beyond talking. Each one is a switch on the assistant's Abilities tab. Abilities apply on phone calls and in chats: WhatsApp, text messages and the website chat.

Where to find them

1. Open Assistants and click the assistant.
2. Go to the Abilities tab.
3. Switch abilities on or off.
4. Click Save changes.

The Preview panel on the right lists the abilities that are on. A new assistant starts with Answer questions and Take a message switched on.

The abilities at a glance

Answer questions

The assistant answers from your company profile, FAQs and knowledge base. For specific questions about prices, policies or products, it searches your knowledge first. If nothing relevant comes back, it says someone will follow up instead of guessing. See Build your assistant's knowledge base.

Take a message

When the assistant cannot help, or the caller needs a person, it takes a message or arranges a callback. It asks for the caller's name first. The number they are calling from is saved automatically, so it only asks for a number if they want to be reached on a different one. The message lands in your Inbox and your team is notified. A message can be marked urgent.

We recommend leaving it on, so every caller who needs a person leaves their details. See Messages, callbacks and urgent calls.

Book appointments

The assistant asks what the visit is for, checks availability, offers two or three concrete times, confirms the caller's name and email address, and books. It can also find, reschedule and cancel the caller's own appointments. It never invents availability.

Availability comes from your opening hours, holidays, booking rules and services on the Company page. When the ability is on, the tab shows a Calendar connection note: connect Google Calendar or Calendly on the Integrations page, or receive appointment.booked webhooks and book in your own system.

Appointment booking by the assistant itself is not limited to a plan. See Availability rules.

Take orders

The assistant takes orders item by item from your menu, asks only for required choices such as size, gets a quote with the total, asks whether it is for pickup or delivery, reads the order back and places it only after the caller says yes. Orders land on the Orders page.

The tab tells you how many items the assistant can sell. If it shows Your menu is empty, add products under Menu & ordering settings. The assistant only takes orders when your menu has at least one available item. See Taking orders.

Take room reservations

The assistant asks for dates and guests, checks which room types are free, quotes the nightly price and total, reads everything back and books only after the caller confirms. Stays land on the Reservations page.

If the tab shows No room types yet, add room types with capacity and prices under Rooms & hotel settings. See Hotel reservations.

Send email

The assistant can email the caller information they ask for, such as your address, opening hours, a price list, a link or a recap. It asks for the email address and spells it back before sending.

With Send email or Book appointments on, the assistant can also send the caller a short message, such as an address or a link, after asking permission. It goes on WhatsApp if the caller has written to you there in the last 24 hours, otherwise by text message, if your workspace can send texts. Sending text messages is part of the Solo, Team and Scale plans and needs a number approved for texting. See Text messaging.

Collect information

With Collect information on, a Collect information card appears below the abilities. Use it to list details you want from every call.

1. Click Add variable.
2. In the first box, enter a name using lowercase letters, numbers and underscores, for example order_number. Up to 40 characters.
3. In the second box, describe it, for example "The caller's order number, e.g. NS-10422". Up to 160 characters.
4. Click Save changes.

The assistant collects these details naturally during the conversation and saves them, together with the caller's name and email, to their contact record. They also appear on the call as extracted details, and in the summary email sent after each call.

What abilities cannot do

• Transfer calls. The assistant does not put calls through to a person. It takes a message or a callback request instead. A team member can still pick up a live call with Take over on the call's page. See Messages, callbacks and urgent calls.
• Act later. The assistant cannot call, message or email anyone later, or set reminders. When someone wants something done later, it says the team will get back to them.
• Claim what did not happen. It never says it booked, sent or saved something unless that actually succeeded during the conversation.

Common questions

I switched an ability on but the assistant does not use it. Click Save changes; abilities apply from the next call. For orders and reservations, check that your menu or room types have at least one available item. If no note about your menu or rooms appears on the Abilities tab after you switch the ability on, orders or reservations are not switched on for your workspace. Contact support.

Do abilities cost extra? No. Abilities are not priced separately. Conversations use minutes as usual. See How minutes are counted.

Can I test an ability without a real booking? Yes. In the Playground tab, bookings and messages are simulated. On a test call, the assistant can place at most three orders or book at most three stays.