Understanding Alivo Agents

An agent in Alivo is an AI teammate that talks to your leads and customers on your behalf. Each agent has its own phone number, a goal you pick, and a set of settings that control what it says, what it knows, when it follows up, and when it hands off to a real person. This guide walks through what the agents are, what each preset is built for, and what you can customize inside an agent. Separate articles cover how to set each piece up step by step.

What Is an Agent?

Think of an agent as a role on your team, not just a chatbot. You give it a job (the goal), tell it how to talk (scripts), feed it what it needs to know about your business (knowledge base and FAQs), and decide what happens when someone goes quiet (follow-ups) or needs a human (call forwarding).

Every agent shares the same settings. What changes from one agent to the next is the preset you start from and the defaults Alivo applies when you create it. You can also build a fully custom agent from scratch.

Meet the AI Agents

When you create a new agent, Alivo offers several presets. Each one comes with a name, a role, and starter content tuned for a common job in a roofing or home-services business.

Good to know: You can rename any agent and change its settings at any time. The preset is just a starting point.

What You Can Customize Inside an Agent

Every agent has the same sections in the editor. Here is what each one controls at a high level.

• Name and goal. The agent's display name, what it is trying to accomplish, and where success should send the lead.
• Voice. How the agent sounds on phone calls (only shown when the agent is set up to answer calls).
• Scripts. The conversation playbook: what the agent says first and how it handles different situations.
• Knowledge. Business facts the agent can reference, plus specific question-and-answer pairs for common situations.
• Follow-ups. Automated messages sent when a lead stops responding, plus rules for when those messages should stop.
• Call forwarding. When and how the agent transfers a live call to someone on your team.
• Advanced. Extra options like pausing texts during business hours, multilingual support, and voicemail drop messages.

Many of these sections link to templates. A template is a reusable set of scripts, knowledge, follow-ups, or forwarding rules that you can share across multiple agents or keep separate for each one.

Name, Goal, and Destination

The goal is the single outcome the agent is working toward. It shapes how the agent talks, what links it sends, and how Alivo knows the job is done.

Available Goals

When you edit an agent, you can pick from these goals:

• Schedule an Appointment. Book an inspection, estimate, or consultation.
• Initiate a Call. Get the lead on the phone with your team (requires call forwarding to be turned on).
• Leave a Review. Send the customer to leave a Google or other review.
• Visit a Webpage. Send the lead to a specific page on your site or a landing page.
• Fill out Questionnaire. Collect answers to custom questions you define.
• Customer Service. Handle service questions and issues without a standard booking link.
• Sign Document. Get an estimate or contract signed.

Goal Destination

For most goals, you also pick a destination. That is where the agent sends the lead when it is time to take action. Depending on the goal, the destination might be an Alivo booking page, a routing form, a review link, or a custom URL you provide.

Some goals work differently. Initiate a Call, Customer Service, Sign Document, and Fill out Questionnaire do not use the standard destination picker the same way booking or review goals do.

You can also choose whether clicking a trackable goal link should cancel any scheduled follow-up messages for that lead.

Scripts

Scripts are the agent's conversation playbook. They tell the agent what to say, in what order, and how to handle different situations.

Simple vs. Advanced Scripts

Alivo offers two script modes:

• Simple scripts. A lighter editor with up to five conversation branches. Good when you want a straightforward setup without a lot of branching.
• Advanced scripts. A richer editor with separate text and call script paths, more branching, and deeper customization. This is the default for most presets.

What Goes Into a Script

At a high level, scripts include:

• Opening message. The first text the agent sends when a conversation starts.
• Call greeting. What the agent says when it picks up or places a phone call (for voice-enabled agents).
• Branches. Named paths the agent can take, each with a "use when" description (for example, "use when the homeowner asks about pricing") and a list of talking points or questions.
• Channel. Whether a branch applies to texting, phone calls, or both.

Lilly is built primarily for phone calls, so the text scripts tab is hidden for that preset in most cases. Evan, Alex, Jenna, and Dylan are built around texting, though they can include call steps in follow-ups or advanced scripts.

Knowledge Base and FAQs

Scripts tell the agent how to run a conversation. Knowledge tells it what your business actually does. These live under the Knowledge section, which has two tabs.

General (Knowledge Base)

The knowledge base is background information about your company that the agent can draw on during any conversation. Think services you offer, areas you serve, warranties, financing options, and policies. It is written as general business facts, not a back-and-forth script.

FAQ

FAQs are specific question-and-answer pairs for situations that come up often. Each FAQ has a trigger (what the homeowner might ask or say) and a suggested reply. You can also set when each FAQ applies:

• Only while texting. Used during text conversations only.
• Only on a phone call. Used during voice calls only.
• Always. Used in both channels.

Common examples include "Are you a real person?", "Can I talk to someone?", and "Do you serve my area?" Alivo seeds a few default FAQs when your account is set up, and you can add your own.

Keep in mind: The knowledge base is for facts about your business. FAQs are for specific situations. Scripts are for the flow of the conversation. All three work together, but they serve different jobs.

Follow-Ups

Follow-ups are automated messages the agent sends when a lead goes quiet. Instead of hoping someone on your team remembers to check in again, the agent handles it on a schedule you define.

Follow-Up Sequence

The follow-up sequence is an ordered list of messages sent over time if the lead does not respond. Each step in the sequence can be a text, a phone call, or an email, and you set how long to wait between steps. Messages can include your goal link (for example, a booking page) so the lead has a clear next step.

Stop When

Stop When rules tell Alivo when to cancel the rest of the follow-up sequence. These are written as plain-language conditions, like "if the homeowner already booked" or "if they said they are not interested." When a stop rule matches, the agent stops sending follow-ups for that lead.

Follow-ups can be turned on or off for each agent. Presets like Evan, Alex, and Jenna typically start with follow-ups on. Lilly, the phone receptionist, typically starts with them off since her main job is answering live calls.

Call Forwarding

Call forwarding is how an agent hands a live conversation off to a real person on your team. This matters when a caller needs a human, when the goal is Initiate a Call, or when the agent reaches a point in the script where a handoff makes sense.

At a high level, you can customize:

• On or off. Whether this agent is allowed to forward calls at all.
• Where calls go. A single forwarding number for the agent, or a set of rules that route to different people or call flows based on the situation.
• When forwarding is allowed. Always, or only during your business hours.
• Warm vs. cold transfer. A warm transfer gives your team member a short summary of the conversation before they are connected. A cold transfer connects the caller directly with no briefing.

If you do not set a custom number on the agent, Alivo can use your company-wide default forwarding number when forwarding is turned on.

Voice and Advanced Settings

These sections matter most for agents that handle phone calls, especially Lilly.

Voice

When an agent is set to answer calls, the Voice section lets you customize how it sounds: which voice it uses, how fast it speaks, and optional background ambience (like a busy office) so calls feel more natural.

Advanced

The Advanced section includes options like pausing new lead texting during business hours, turning on Spanish or French support, using lead history to personalize conversations, and setting a custom voicemail drop message for outbound calls.

How the Pieces Work Together

Here is a quick side-by-side look at the main building blocks and what each one does.

Every agent uses the same settings. The preset you pick at creation time just gives you a head start with the right goal, scripts, and defaults for the job. From there, you tune each section to match how your business actually runs.

Still have a question this didn't answer? Reach out to our support team support@alivo.ai and we'll be glad to help.