Terms of Service

Last updated: October 27, 2026

Who provides the service

TypeScience, trading as Bilingual Answer Desk, provides the website and AI receptionist service described in these terms. We use "we" and "our" for the operator and "you" for the customer business using the service. Governing law is California.

These terms cover your subscription, call handling, acceptable use, and our processing of caller information for your business. You can ask account questions at support@bilingualanswerdesk.com and send privacy requests to privacy@bilingualanswerdesk.com. We sell the service online, without phone sales.

Your account and business setup

You start with an email sign-in link and an onboarding conversation with the AI. You provide your services, exclusions, service area, opening hours, price policy, and urgent-call instructions. Your website and those answers form the business knowledge used by your receptionist.

You are responsible for the accuracy of what you tell the AI, including the greeting, business policies, and people to contact. Review the instructions before calls go live and update them when your business changes. You can change settings by telling the AI in plain words.

We provide a local number in your area code, forwarding guidance for your carrier or phone system, and a test call before launch. You choose whether to forward all calls or only busy, unanswered, or after-hours calls. Answering begins once your calls forward to the receptionist.

Subscription, included minutes, and overage

The subscription costs $249 per month and includes 500 AI minutes. Additional minutes cost $0.20 per minute, with overage billed monthly. Your dashboard shows usage so you can review it alongside call records and settings.

The subscription renews monthly until you cancel online. It is a month-to-month service. Billing is handled by our payment processor, and we do not store your full card number.

Free trial and conversion

The free trial lasts 14 days and is capped at 100 minutes. A card is required before call forwarding goes live. The trial converts to a paid subscription only with a card on file.

We send a reminder email two days before the trial converts. Review the subscription price, included minutes, and additional-minute rate before continuing into paid service. You can cancel online if you do not want the subscription to renew.

You can first try the browser demonstration without signing up. It represents a fictional business and lets you hear the conversation before supplying your own business instructions. Demo calls and chats are recorded and transcribed to show their results.

Cancellation and a lapsed plan

You may cancel online in one click, and cancellation takes effect at the end of the paid month. Monthly renewal continues until cancellation. Keep the timing in mind when deciding whether to use another month of service.

If your plan lapses, calls go to your backup number or voicemail. Keep that backup route appropriate for your business and review forwarding when you change how calls are handled. A working backup is also part of your responsibility to remain reachable.

What the receptionist does

The receptionist answers as your business in English and Spanish, and callers can switch languages during a conversation. It asks intake questions, takes messages, flags urgency, and politely ends spam and robocalls. It can book appointments into Google Calendar or collect details for your callback.

For urgent requests, you set an order for a warm transfer or a page to your on-call person. With a warm transfer, the person hears a short summary and presses 1 to accept. Your instructions determine who receives these requests and which situations count as urgent for your business.

Call alerts arrive through email and app push notification with a summary, urgency tag, transcript, and recording. A daily digest email is also provided. Review those records as part of handling requests, following up with callers, and checking whether your instructions need adjustment.

Required disclosures and recording

The receptionist states at the start of calls that it is a virtual assistant and that the call is recorded. You control the bilingual greeting setting, which we recommend turning on at setup so both disclosures open every call in English and Spanish. With it off, both open in English and repeat in Spanish in the first reply after a caller speaks Spanish. They are required features of the service and cannot be switched off.

You remain responsible for your business greeting and policies, alongside those required notices. Do not instruct the AI to hide its identity or omit the recording announcement. Key details such as names, addresses, and phone numbers are read back during intake.

Your review responsibilities and service limits

The AI can make mistakes, so you must review summaries and maintain a backup way to be reached. A transcript or urgency tag supports your review of a call; your business remains responsible for deciding how to respond. Check important caller details before acting on them.

The receptionist is not a certified interpreter and does not provide legal or medical interpretation. Healthcare use involving protected health information is not permitted. Use the service for supported business call handling rather than requests requiring those excluded services.

Emergencies and safety scripts

The receptionist is not an emergency service or a replacement for 911. For gas smells, CO alarms, sparks or burning smells, or flooding near electricity, its safety scripts tell the caller to get everyone out and call 911 or the utility from outside. For a fire, they say: "Get everyone out first, then call 911 from outside." For medical emergencies or anyone in danger, they tell the caller to hang up and call 911 right now. It then alerts your business.

Your urgent-call settings organize business follow-up after the caller receives that direction. They do not turn your receptionist into emergency dispatch. Keep your business escalation instructions current and maintain the backup contact route described in these terms.

Optional website chat and lead follow-up

Website chat is an add-on for your own site using the receptionist's business knowledge and rules. Keep those instructions current for website conversations as well as telephone calls. Information your business supplies shapes how both channels handle requests.

The lead follow-up add-on calls people who completed your web form and ticked a consent box naming your business. You are responsible for keeping the consent records for those follow-up calls. This feature is limited to consent-based follow-up and does not accept lists or purchased leads.

Follow-up begins within about a minute, during the window from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the person's local time. It makes one attempt plus one retry and honors opt-outs at once. Do not use the add-on for cold calls or direct it to contact people without the required consent.

Acceptable use and suspension

Illegal use, cold calling, robocalling, impersonation, and harassment are prohibited. These restrictions apply to the service and its add-ons. You may not use the receptionist to carry out those activities through your business instructions or follow-up requests.

We may suspend service for abuse. Your responsibility for accurate instructions includes keeping them consistent with these restrictions. If you are unsure how to configure a supported business request, contact support before directing the receptionist to handle it.

Data processing for your business

Your business decides what caller information is collected and why, and we process it on your behalf to provide the service. This section forms the data processing terms within these terms of service. Your onboarding answers, website content, and later settings supply the instructions for that processing.

Processing includes handling call audio, recordings, transcripts, summaries, and caller numbers. We use provider categories including hosting and storage, telephone carriers, AI models for voice and text, payment processing, email delivery, and analytics. Our AI model provider, OpenAI, does not use our API data for model training by default.

Calls, website and demo chats, recordings, transcripts and summaries of trial and customer accounts may be reviewed by authorized staff for quality, support and abuse prevention. Access is limited to those purposes.

Recordings are kept for the period you choose, 30 or 90 days, and then deleted. Transcripts and summaries are kept while your account is open and deleted within 30 days after closure or on request. We never sell personal information or use your callers' data for our own marketing.

Callers can send privacy requests to your business or to us. Access, correction, deletion, and opt-out requests can be sent to privacy@bilingualanswerdesk.com. The privacy policy for accounts and calls explains the information collected, provider categories, retention, and request contacts in more detail.

Service basis and liability limit

The service is provided as is. AI mistakes are possible, and your responsibilities include reviewing summaries, maintaining accurate instructions, and keeping a backup way to be reached. Evaluate the receptionist against the requests your business handles before forwarding live calls.

Our liability is capped at the fees you paid in the prior 12 months. This is the liability limit for the service under these terms. It should be read alongside the stated limits on emergencies, healthcare use, and interpretation.

Changes and account help

We notify you of changes to these terms by email. The date at the top identifies this version. Keep your account email current so you can receive terms notices, trial reminders, and service communications.

For help with setup, settings, billing, or cancellation, email support@bilingualanswerdesk.com. Before creating an account, you can test the bilingual conversation and review how the receptionist handles a request in either language.