Build and maintain the Knowledge Base

Open Settings → Business Info → Knowledge Base. This is the shared source of truth for the facts and operating guidance Avoca assistants use in calls and messages.

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How the Knowledge Base works

The page is organized into five sections. Some fields insert customer-facing facts into the assistant configuration. Other fields turn behavior on or off, choose a behavior variant, or create routing logic. That distinction matters. Changing the company website changes an answer. Changing a service from Allow to Transfer changes the entire customer path.

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1. Basics

Review these fields first:

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2. Hours & Availability

Business Hours define when the business is open. Emergency After Hours records whether the company offers emergency or after-hours service and the hours technicians are on shift. Live Representative Schedules define when human CSRs are available. These schedules are not interchangeable. Turning on Emergency After Hours reveals its schedule editor. This schedule gives the assistant an answer when a caller asks about after-hours coverage; it does not determine whether an appointment can be booked. Booking eligibility remains in Booking Windows. If the after-hours schedule is empty and the team has emergency-painted booking windows, Suggest from booking windows can build a proposed schedule from those emergency hours. Review the preview, select Apply, then review the populated days and save the Knowledge Base. Applying the suggestion does not edit Booking Windows. The live-representative schedule also helps determine:

• Whether a transfer destination is open
• Whether Avoca uses the during-hours or after-hours callback message
• Which fallback behavior applies when a caller asks for a person

Write the two callback messages as complete customer-facing statements:

• During Live Rep Hours: what happens when the office is open but a transfer does not complete
• After Live Rep Hours: what happens when the office is closed

Keep appointment availability in Booking Windows, not in an after-hours schedule or callback message.

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3. Services & FAQs

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Configure Services Provided

Each service row helps Avoca identify and qualify the request. Use the service name, appointment type, description, keywords, examples, and questions to distinguish similar work. The Booking setting is an action:

• Allow: continue through the normal qualification and booking path
• Transfer: route the service through a configured transfer path
• Take a Message: collect the caller’s information without booking

If a service is set to Transfer but no open destination can accept it, Avoca falls back to the configured message-taking behavior. Use Services Description Preview to review the generated service guidance. It is a preview, not a separate source to maintain.

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Configure Services Not Provided

List work the company declines or redirects. Be specific enough to avoid false matches, but do not add long scripts. If the business handles only one version of a service, explain the supported and unsupported boundary. When service-area scoping is enabled for the team, select the map-pin action on an exclusion to open Service areas. Choose the areas where that exclusion should apply, then select Apply. Leaving the selection empty applies the exclusion to all service areas. Saved areas remain visible and removable if scoping is later turned off or an area is deleted. While scoping is off, the exclusion applies everywhere; remove the saved area pills if the old restriction should not return when scoping is re-enabled.

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Maintain FAQs

Use FAQs for stable business answers that do not belong in a structured field. Good examples include warranty processes, financing availability, maintenance-plan basics, and what a customer should prepare before a visit. Do not use FAQs to duplicate:

• Business or live-representative hours
• Transfer phone numbers
• Booking-window availability
• CRM job types or business units
• A behavior already controlled in Agent Configuration

Turning the FAQ section off removes that content from the assistant configuration.

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4. Programs & Guidance

• Affiliated Brands helps the assistant recognize related business names.
• Membership/Maintenance Programs enables membership behavior and supplies the program details.
• Emergency Guidance explains what qualifies as an emergency and what safety guidance to provide.
• High Demand Mode enables the configured surge-handling path when available.

Emergency guidance can influence both the live conversation and the post-call emergency classification. Write observable qualifications rather than vague phrases such as “when it seems urgent.”

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5. Agent Configuration

Most settings here are behavior controls, not ordinary text fields. If a setting is configured to transfer, Avoca creates the corresponding transfer reason automatically. Configure its destination under Products → Responder → Transfer Destinations.

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Configure price-objection retention safely

When Use custom logic is enabled, write the approved response and make the fee authority unambiguous. State separately:

• What the representative should say when the fee prevents the customer from booking
• Whether the representative may waive the fee immediately
• Whether a manager, technician, or other approver must authorize the waiver
• Whether the fee is only credited or waived after the customer proceeds with the repair

“Waived with repair” means the fee is credited when the customer proceeds with the repair. It is not the same as permission to waive the fee upfront. If the business also allows an upfront save attempt, say so explicitly in the Price Objection Retention instructions. In the Human app, Check Fee Waiver appears on the fee card after a booking reaches the Scheduling step. After the customer pushes back on the fee, select it. Avoca evaluates the transcript against both the fee instructions and Price Objection Retention policy, then returns Fee waived, Needs approval, or No other fee waivers found. An explicit retention waiver can apply regardless of membership status; membership alone does not override a written approval requirement. If the Scheduling step does not show a fee card, there is no fee to evaluate in that booking.

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Configure transfer reasons

Transfer reasons come from three places:

• Custom reasons your team writes
• Derived reasons created by settings such as commercial work, renters, cancellation, or a service-level Transfer action
• Standard reasons supplied for common situations such as safety concerns, tool failures, pricing, service area, availability, or a live-representative request

A reason becomes a usable transfer path only when it is linked to a destination whose schedule is open. Otherwise the assistant follows the message-taking fallback. If a transfer reason includes a rebuttal, Avoca speaks it at transfer time when that behavior is enabled. Keep it short, accurate, and appropriate for every call that uses the reason.

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Make a safe update

1. Identify the one section that owns the information.
2. Replace the outdated instruction instead of adding a conflicting copy.
3. Use plain language a customer would understand.
4. Include a limit or exception only when it changes the answer or action.
5. Save and apply the configuration update when prompted.
6. Test a normal case and an exception.
7. Review the resulting call or conversation, not only the assistant’s final sentence.

Use version history when behavior changes unexpectedly. Compare the last known-good version before adding more instructions.

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Test by type of change