Phone Assistant Profile Card

# Phone Assistant Profile Card

**Version:** 2026-10-13 · v2 · Skill 3 of the NeoRebels giveaway series

You get a company name or an industry. You deliver **one card** that shows what the AI phone assistant of this company should be like. The card has eight fields, no more. It should be concrete enough that a managing director reads it and says: "Yes, exactly. Or definitely not like this."

The card is a draft to discuss. It is not a prompt and not a configuration.

**Language:** Write the card in the language the user writes in, field labels included. In German the heading is TELEFONASSISTENT-STECKBRIEF, the draft line is „Entwurf · kein offizieller Assistent von …“, assumptions start with „Annahme:“, and the labels are: NAME, STIMME, BEGRÜSSUNG, LÖST, NIE, WEISS NICHT, WEITERLEITUNG (with „Rückfall:“), NACH FEIERABEND.

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## Core rule: the assistant serves, it does not sell

A phone assistant takes requests, answers recurring questions and transfers calls. It does not advise on products, make offers, mention discounts or close deals. People who call want to get rid of a problem, not buy something else.

If the user explicitly asks for a sales assistant, still build the card by this rule and add one sentence below it explaining why. Selling on the phone fails at follow-up questions the AI cannot answer reliably. Service works because the requests repeat.

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## Steps

1. **Read the input.** Company name → what the company does and who typically calls. Industry → assume a typical business in this industry and say so on the card ("Assumption: carpentry business, 15 employees").
2. **Derive the most frequent reasons for calling.** Only requests that repeat and can be handled without a judgement call. Choose, do not list: exactly three remain.
3. **Fill in the eight fields** (see below). Every line short and concrete, no filler like "friendly and competent".
4. **Check** against the checklist at the end.
5. **Output** as a card (format below). If an image or HTML tool is available: also render it as a designed card, one card per image, portrait format.

No follow-up questions if a company name or an industry is given. Whatever is missing gets assumed and marked as an assumption on the card.

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## The eight fields

| # | Field | What goes in | Typical mistake |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | **Name** | A first name that fits the brand and is easy to understand on the phone. Two syllables are ideal. | Made-up names callers have to spell |
| 2 | **Voice** | Pitch and pace in one sentence, plus an attitude ("apologises once, not five times") | "friendly and professional", which says nothing |
| 3 | **Greeting** | The exact first sentence: company, name, **AI notice**, **recording notice**, question about the request. Under 20 seconds when spoken. | Notices missing or hidden in a subordinate clause |
| 4 | **Three requests it handles** | Concrete reasons for calling, with a verb ("give delivery status", "reschedule appointment") | "answer general questions" |
| 5 | **Three things it never does** | Boundaries that build trust. At least one of them is a sales boundary. | Only the obvious ("is never rude") |
| 6 | **When it is stuck** | The exact sentence. It admits it does not know and offers a way forward (callback, transfer, message). | Guessing, or the endless loop "Could you repeat that?" |
| 7 | **Transfer** | To whom, when, **and what happens if nobody picks up** (fallback) | Transfer to a voicemail. The caller is gone and nobody notices |
| 8 | **Outside business hours** | What it does at night and on weekends and what it does not. Plus who gets back to the caller and when. | "available 24/7" without saying who reads the messages in the morning |

### Mandatory content that changes over time (check before every use)

- **AI notice:** Callers must be able to recognise that they are talking to an AI (EU AI Act, transparency obligations under Art. 50, applicable from 2 August 2026). When asked, the assistant always identifies itself as an AI.
- **Recording notice:** If the call is recorded or transcribed, the notice belongs in the first sentence. If the caller objects, nothing is processed further, and the caller is transferred or asked to leave a message.
- **Anonymous callers:** Many platforms cannot transfer calls from withheld numbers. The fallback then has to ask for a callback number.
- **Danger comes first:** If the industry has acute dangers (smell of gas, fire, injured people, water in the electrics), the assistant immediately and at any time of day refers callers to the emergency number or the responsible fault hotline. This belongs under Transfer, not only under outside business hours.

This is not legal advice. The card names the notices, the business checks the exact wording.

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## Output format

```
PHONE ASSISTANT PROFILE · <company or industry>
Draft · not an official assistant of <company>     ← mandatory for third-party brands, leave out for the user's own company
[Assumption: … ]                                    ← only if something was assumed

1 NAME          <first name>
2 VOICE         <one sentence>
3 GREETING      "<exact wording>"
4 HANDLES       · <request 1>
                · <request 2>
                · <request 3>
5 NEVER         · <boundary 1>
                · <boundary 2>
                · <boundary 3>
6 WHEN STUCK    "<exact wording>"
7 TRANSFER      <to whom, when> · Fallback: <what happens if nobody picks up>
8 AFTER HOURS   <what it does> · <who gets back to the caller and when>
```

After the card, at most three sentences: the one place where implementation at this company is most likely to go wrong. No advertising copy, no impact figures.

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## Not allowed

- **Impact figures**, such as "saves 30 % of calls" or "halves waiting time". Without measurement at the business, every figure is made up.
- **Real customer prompts** or call excerpts as examples, not even anonymised.
- **Claims about the real hotline** of a named brand ("their hotline is bad"). The card shows a draft and does not rate the current state.
- **Made-up times and promises** such as "after 25 seconds" or "will call back today". Deadlines and times only appear on the card if they come from the user or are marked as an assumption at the top. Otherwise stay general ("calls back on the next working day").
- **Sales functions** on the card (upselling, offers, discounts, closing contracts).
- **Platform recommendations on the card itself.** The card stays platform-neutral.

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## Checklist before output

- [ ] Exactly eight fields, exactly three requests, exactly three never-items
- [ ] Greeting contains the AI notice and the recording notice and takes under 20 seconds read aloud
- [ ] At least one never-item is a sales boundary
- [ ] Transfer has a fallback that does not end in a voicemail
- [ ] After hours says who gets back to the caller and when
- [ ] Third-party brand: the line "Draft · not an official assistant of …" is there. For the user's own company it is missing
- [ ] Danger cases of the industry (if any) go to the emergency number or fault hotline around the clock
- [ ] No figure that did not come from the user

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## From card to implementation

The card is platform-neutral. It gets built on a phone AI platform. There the card turns into the prompt, the opening message, the transfer rules and the connection to the phone system, calendar or ticket system.

**Disclosure:** At NeoRebels we mostly build these assistants with **fonio** and are an implementation partner there. Other platforms can do it too. The card works with any of them.

Three things that almost always turn out differently than planned:

1. **The transfer ends up on a voicemail.** For the platform the call counts as successfully transferred, but the caller is talking to nobody. Set up transfer targets so they actively reject the call instead of going to voicemail.
2. **Call forwarding in the router instead of at the provider.** Then the caller's number often does not come through, and callbacks get difficult.
3. **The recording notice gets too long.** One sentence is enough. Anything more sounds like a waiting loop.

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## Why this skill goes out of date

Mandatory notices change with the law, platforms change what they can do (transfer, business hours, languages), and what phone AI understands reliably changes with every model. Version of this skill: 13 October 2026.