Texts, consent and recording

What this is

VentLine AI runs an automated phone assistant for small home services businesses. Air conditioning shops first. A customer rings one of those shops, nobody picks up, and the assistant picks up instead.

How a call is handled

The phone rings for about twenty seconds with nobody answering, or the call lands after hours. Then the assistant answers. It gives the shop's name, its own name and the notice that the call is being recorded, all in its first breath. It takes the caller's name, address and what has gone wrong, books a service visit on the shop's own calendar, and sends the caller a text confirming it. Asked whether it is a person, it says it is the shop's virtual assistant and carries on.

How consent is given

On the call, out loud, and on a recording we keep. Partway through the booking the assistant reads the caller's number back, waits for a yes, and tells them the confirmation is coming to that number.

These are the lines it works from, copied out of the flow table in src/policy/flow.ts:

• What is the best number to reach you on?
• I have [the number they are calling from]. Is that the best number for you?
• I'll text that to you now.

The assistant is a speech model, so on any given call it puts those in its own words rather than reading them out. Three sentences above are the reference wording in the code, and what it says has to mean the same thing. Then the yes gets written down: the number, the moment the caller confirmed it, the call it came from, and the recording behind that. Our own record of it reads "the caller confirmed [their number] out loud on call [call id] and was told a confirmation text would follow".

That is the only way a customer is signed up for these messages. There is no keyword to text in, no list, and nobody is added by anyone else.

One exception, declared rather than left for you to find. A caller who hangs up before the assistant can ask gets a single text saying we missed the call and how to reach the shop. It is a one time reply to a call that customer placed, it carries STOP, and nothing follows it unless they consent. It is off by default and is switched on only for a shop that asks for it.

What we send

Messages are one to one and transactional: the booking confirmation, a reply about moving the time, a follow up about that same request. We send no marketing texts. Every message names the business the caller rang, names us as the sender, and carries a way to stop.

Message frequency varies by request. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out, HELP for help.

Privacy: ventlineai.com/privacy. Terms: ventlineai.com/terms.

The messages, word for word

Every body this system can send, with one of our shops filled in. Anything that changes from message to message is in square brackets.

The first four are the samples filed with the campaign, then the two replies to a STOP and a HELP. The last three the campaign does not name and the code sends anyway, so they are here too. Only the fourth goes to a shop owner.

• Coastal Air Conditioning: [first name], you're booked for [day] at [time] at [address]. Reply STOP to opt out. Sent via VentLine AI. Reply C to confirm, R to change the time, HELP for help. Msg frequency varies. Msg and data rates may apply.
• Coastal Air Conditioning here. We missed your call just now. Call [shop phone] and we will get you booked in. Reply STOP to opt out.
• Coastal Air Conditioning: here are the next times we have. 1) [first window] 2) [second window]. Reply 1 or 2 and we will move you. Reply STOP to opt out.
• VentLine AI, Coastal Air Conditioning: [what happened to the booking] Reply STOP to opt out.
• Coastal Air Conditioning appointment texts. Sent via VentLine AI. Call [shop phone] to speak to someone. Reply STOP to opt out. Message and data rates may apply.
• Coastal Air Conditioning: you are unsubscribed and will get no more texts from this number. Reply START to opt back in.
• Coastal Air Conditioning: you are opted back in and will get texts about your appointment. Reply STOP to opt out.
• Coastal Air Conditioning: thanks, you are confirmed for [day] at [time]. Reply STOP to opt out.
• Coastal Air Conditioning: I do not have another time to offer right now. Call [shop phone] and someone will sort it out. Reply STOP to opt out.

How to stop

STOP, STOPALL, END, CANCEL, UNSUBSCRIBE or QUIT stops the messages, in any case and with any punctuation. HELP or INFO asks for the help message. START, UNSTOP or YES turns them back on.

Two things happen to that word. Twilio puts the number on its own block list as it passes the message through to us, and at our end we write the opt out down against that number and that shop, with the time on it, before anything else goes out. A text due a second later is refused at both ends.

What comes back is the carrier registered opt-out handling on our messaging service, and today that is Twilio's standard wording. The opt-out and help bodies in the list above are the ones filed with the campaign, and they replace it once that handling is switched to our own copy. The number is unsubscribed either way.

The texts we send shop owners

Different thing, and it is here so a reviewer is not left guessing. A shop owner gets operational texts about their own bookings: an emergency that came in after hours, or a booking that did not reach their calendar. Those run on this same campaign and they carry STOP like everything else.

An owner opts in by ticking a box on the get started, contact or pricing form at ventlineai.com. It is unticked when the page loads. It reads:

• Yes, call or text me about this at the number above. That includes texts and calls placed by our automated assistant. Reply STOP to any text and they stop.

It has nothing to do with the customer messages above and it signs nobody up for them.

Recording and privacy

Calls answered by the assistant are recorded. The notice plays at the start of the call, before anything is asked. A caller's name, phone number, address and request go to the business they called. We do not sell them. The privacy page names the three suppliers who handle a call and says how long we keep it.

Contact

VentLine AI, a Line AI Network brand, operated by Astrand Inc, Miami, Florida. Questions about the service go to ryanjonasz.business@gmail.com, and a person answers them.