How your agent works
When a call arrives, Dialup first checks whether the subscription is active. If it isn't, the agent doesn't take the call at all: no voicemail, and no record of it afterwards.
If it is, the agent loads what it knows about you, then greets the caller as your business and talks normally. When it needs something it doesn't have in front of it, like your hours for a specific date or which slots are free, it says it's checking and looks it up there and then. Everything said is transcribed as it goes, and the audio is recorded. The agent ends the call when the caller says goodbye or everything they rang about is done.
The conversation, transcript and recording are there as soon as the call ends. The summary waits: the transcript is tidied up first, then the summary is written from it, which takes a minute or two.
What it's given
The agent only knows what you've told it. Nothing is inferred from your website or your industry.
| What it gets | Where you set it |
|---|---|
| Today's date and time | Automatic |
| Your business name, address, website, service area, public phone and email, and additional notes | Business tab |
| Your enabled services, with prices and durations | Business tab |
| Your opening hours, and closures for specific dates | Business tab |
| Your Context field | Settings tab |
| The caller's name, if their number is already a contact | Learned on an earlier call, or edited by you |
What it can't know
It doesn't read your website. If a fact matters it has to be in your business information or your Context field; the website field just means the agent can give the address to someone who wants to look for themselves.
It doesn't replay earlier conversations. Each call starts fresh, and what was said last time isn't carried into this one. Two things do carry over: the caller's saved name, and on Dialup Desk their appointments, which the agent can look up from the number they're calling. So a returning caller can be greeted by name and told what they're booked in for, or have it moved or cancelled, without anything from the earlier conversation being replayed.
It doesn't see your personal calendar, only the Dialup one. It can't quote a price you haven't entered, and it can't see a service you've switched off.
When your edits take effect
Two different behaviours here, and the difference matters when you're fixing something mid-shift.
Hours, closures and the calendar are read live. The agent looks them up during the call, so a closure you add at 11am applies to a call at 11:05.
Business information, services and Context are loaded when the call starts. Changing a price or an instruction applies from the next call; a call already in progress keeps what it began with.
Where to put a fact
| What you want to say | Where it goes |
|---|---|
| "We open at 9 on weekdays" | Business hours |
| "A haircut is €25 and takes 30 minutes" | Services |
| "Parking is in the yard" | Additional notes |
| "We're shut on 24 June" | A closure for that date |
| "Never quote a price for bodywork" | Context |
| "If someone's angry, apologise and raise a callback" | Context |
Facts belong in the structured fields because the agent uses those for more than conversation: durations decide booking lengths, hours decide which slots it may offer. Rules about how to behave belong in Context.
This matters beyond tidiness. Your business information reaches the agent marked as authoritative, and your Context field reaches it as guidance that explicitly cannot override those facts. So if the two disagree, a price in Context and a different one on the service, the service wins. Writing a fact as an instruction is the most common reason an agent keeps saying something you thought you'd corrected.
What your plan changes
On Dialup Desk the agent can act on your calendar during the call: check what's available, create a booking once the caller agrees to a time, move one, cancel one, or look up what someone had last time.
On After Hours and After Hours Plus there's no calendar for appointments to live in, so the agent can't book. It still knows your services and hours and will tell a caller what you offer, what it costs and when you're open, but when someone wants an appointment it takes a message with their preferred time and says that's what it's doing.