Phone bookings and texts with Quo

Many customers phone instead of booking online. If you answer calls with an AI receptionist in Quo, Backflow Base turns each booked call into a requested job, priced from your price list. Anything it can't book is emailed to you with the transcript.

You need a Quo account, a number and a receptionist first. You set those up in Quo.

How to set it up

Go to Settings → Company → Phone bookings and follow the steps. A tick appears next to each step the app can check.

1. Turn phone bookings on. This gives you your webhook URL.
2. Paste the webhook URL into Quo. Click Copy. In Quo, go to Settings → Webhooks → Create webhook, paste the URL, and tick call.completed, call.transcript.completed and message.received. The last one lets a customer who replies STOP stop getting texts.
3. Save Quo's signing secret. In Quo, open the webhook you made and copy its signing secret. Paste it into Quo signing secret and click Save. Calls are refused until it is saved.
4. Give your receptionist the script. Click Copy script and paste it into your receptionist's instructions in Quo. The script is written from your prices and hours. Copy it again whenever you change them.
5. Make a test call. Call your Quo number and book a test for yourself. It shows up on the schedule as a requested job, and you get an email.
6. Text callers their pay link (optional). In Quo, go to Settings → API, make a key, and paste it into Quo API key. Set your Texting number under Identity. With the key saved, customers also get texts about their visit (see below).

Stuck? Click Help me set this up, say where you are stuck, and click Ask Backflow Base for help.

What the receptionist does

It asks the caller for their name, a mobile number to text, the address, the water district and any notice due date, how many devices and where they are, the yearly plan or a one-time test, and a day that suits. It quotes only your own prices.

It never takes a card number, promises an exact time, or books a business customer. A business caller is told the office will send a quote, and is pointed to your request form.

After a call

• A booked call lands on the schedule as Requested, with the note to confirm the details before you schedule it.
• You get an email: Phone booking, Phone booking — needs details or Phone callback, with the summary, the quote and the transcript. Urgent calls, such as a shutoff letter, are marked URGENT.
• If you take cards and saved a Quo API key, the caller gets a text from your number with their pay link, sent to the mobile they gave.

If the text can't go, the office email says NOT SENT and gives the pay link. Text it to the caller yourself.

Texts about the visit

With phone bookings on and a Quo API key saved, every customer with a mobile number also gets a text from your number when their test is booked, the day before, when the tester is on the way, and with the result. See Emails, texts and reminders.

Texting rules

• Quo sends texts only once your number's 10DLC registration is approved. Register in Quo as a business.
• In test mode, texts are held, not sent.
• A number that replied STOP is not texted until it replies START. A HELP reply gets your company's name and how to reach you.