Telonline AI Reception - Terms and Conditions

These Terms are an agreement between TelephonesOnline Pty Ltd (ABN 73 088 972 303) of 78 Scanlon Drive, Epping VIC 3076 ("we", "us") and the business named in the portal as our client ("you"). They apply to the Telonline AI Reception service and its portal. By accepting them in the portal, or by signing a copy, you agree to them on behalf of your business.

1. The service

1.1 Telonline AI Reception is an AI receptionist. It answers the calls your phone system sends to it, gives callers the information you have set up, puts calls through to your people and takes messages.

1.2 It works from settings you control in the portal. These include your hours, your people and groups, what happens when someone can't take a call, the questions it answers, and how long records are kept.

1.3 It is an automated service. It can mishear or misunderstand a caller, and a message it takes can be incomplete or wrong. Check messages as you would any message taken for you, and call back on anything important.

1.4 It is not an emergency service. Do not set it up to assess or handle emergencies. A caller with an emergency should ring 000.

1.5 Your phone service, and the routing that sends calls to the AI, are provided under your phone service arrangements. When the AI can't take a call, the call goes to the fallback number you give us wherever possible.

1.6 The service runs month to month. During the current testing phase, any fees are as agreed with you in writing. Commercial terms will be added in a later version of these Terms before the service goes live, and you will be asked to accept that version.

2. What we do

2.1 Every call the AI answers starts by telling the caller that they are speaking with an AI assistant and that the call may be recorded. This can't be turned off.

2.2 Speech recognition, the AI and the records it keeps run on equipment we control, on our premises or in a data centre in Australia. Call content and caller details are not sent to any other company to be processed. Messages are sent to you by email, so they pass through the email services that carry email for us and for you.

2.3 Backups of your records are encrypted and kept only on equipment we control in Australia. They are not sent to any other company.

2.4 We protect the information we hold with reasonable security measures, in accordance with Australian law. Only the logins you or we create can reach it, and administrators confirm their login with a code sent to them by email.

2.5 We delete records when the periods in section 4 end, and keep a log of each deletion.

2.6 We use call content only to provide and support the service for you, including looking into a problem with a particular call. We will not use your calls to test or improve the AI generally without your separate written consent.

2.7 If information we hold for you is lost, or is accessed or disclosed without authority, we will tell you promptly and work with you on what needs to be done.

2.8 Every change to your settings is recorded: who made it, when, and what changed. You can see this in the portal under History.

3. What you do

3.1 Keep your settings accurate. That includes the answers the AI gives word for word, the people callers are put through to, and your hours.

3.2 Tell your staff that calls handled by the AI, and calls transferred to them, may be recorded (the staff notice you accept in the portal). Give your own customers any privacy notices you are required to give.

3.3 Tell us correctly whether you are a health practice, such as a doctor, dentist, allied health or any other health service, and keep that setting up to date.

3.4 Look after your logins. Your administrator decides who in your business has a login and what each login can do, and should turn a login off when that person leaves. Each login is for one person and must not be shared.

3.5 Use the service lawfully. Do not set it up to ask callers for information you don't need, or to tell them anything misleading.

3.6 The person accepting these Terms confirms that they are authorised to do so for your business.

4. Information we hold, and for how long

4.1 For each call the AI answers, we may hold:

• the caller's number, unless it was withheld;
• when the call started and ended, and where it went;
• a recording of the part of the call with the AI, and a written transcript of that part;
• any message taken, with the name, number, reason and other details the caller gives;
• a caller record, which links a number to a name given in a message the caller confirmed.

4.2 You choose how long each kind of record is kept, in the portal, within the limits below. These settings are your decision and your responsibility, and you can change them at any time. A change applies to records already held.

Record	Default	You can set
Call details	12 months	7 days to 24 months
Recordings	30 days	7 days, up to the call details setting
Transcripts	90 days	7 days, up to the call details setting
Messages	90 days after delivery	7 days, up to the call details setting
Caller records	12 months after the caller's last call	7 days to 24 months

4.3 Some periods are fixed:

• Health practices: messages are deleted 1 day after delivery. Caller records are off unless you turn them on.
• Messages that could not be delivered: deleted 7 days after they were taken.
• Records of disclosures (section 5): kept 3 years, as the Telecommunications Act 1997 requires.
• Logs of who viewed or played records, and of deletions: kept 3 years.
• History of changes to your settings: kept 3 years.
• Your acceptance of these Terms and of the other agreements in the portal: kept while you are our client and for 7 years after you leave.
• Call timing figures, which hold no personal information: kept 12 months.

4.4 Deleted records stay in our backups until those backups are replaced, which takes up to about 7 months. If a backup is ever restored, records past their period are deleted again straight away.

4.5 If a caller asks us to delete their details, we will do so and tell you. If a caller asks you, let us know and we will do it. If a caller asks what is held about them, we will help you answer.

4.6 When the service ends, we promptly delete your settings, your logins and your call records. Only the records in 4.3 with periods running beyond that are kept, for those periods.

5. Who sees your callers' information

5.1 We give you the details of calls and messages taken for you, by email and in the portal, to the logins you allow. Where these include a caller's number, we keep a record of that disclosure, as the Telecommunications Act 1997 requires.

5.2 We do not give your callers' information to anyone else, except where the law requires or permits it, for example under a warrant. Any such disclosure is recorded.

5.3 Recordings and transcripts are provided for your business. Do not pass them on to anyone else except as the law allows.

6. Recording

6.1 We record the part of each call the AI handles. When a call is transferred, the AI leaves the call and our recording stops.

6.2 If call recording is switched on for your phone service, the phone service provider also records the whole call, including after a transfer. That recording is held under your phone service arrangements, not by this service.

6.3 The staff notice you accept covers both.

7. Health practices

7.1 If you are a health practice, what callers say about their health or their appointments is health information. We handle it under the Health Records Act 2001 (Vic) as an organisation that is not a health service provider. We keep it only as long as the service needs it, then delete it.

7.2 We do not keep your patient records for you. Messages are deleted 1 day after delivery, so keep any message you need in your own records.

8. Availability

8.1 We aim to keep the service running at all times but cannot promise it will never be interrupted. Maintenance, or a fault in our equipment, the internet or your phone service, can interrupt it.

8.2 We will tell you in advance about planned maintenance that affects calls, wherever we can.

9. Changes to these Terms

9.1 We may update these Terms. Each version carries a number and date, and the current version can be read at any time.

9.2 When there is a new version, your administrator is asked to accept it at their next login. Until they do, their login can only be used to read and accept it; your other logins carry on as normal. Calls are not affected.

9.3 Until you accept a new version, the version you last accepted continues to apply. If you don't agree to a new version, you may end the service under section 10 without any early-ending fee.

10. Ending the service

10.1 Either of us may end the service by giving 30 days' written notice.

10.2 We may suspend the service if it is used unlawfully.

10.3 When the service ends, clause 4.6 applies. Sections 4, 5 and 11 continue to apply after it ends.

11. Liability

11.1 Nothing in these Terms excludes, restricts or changes any right you have under the Australian Consumer Law that cannot lawfully be excluded.

11.2 To the extent the law allows, our liability for failing to meet a consumer guarantee is limited to supplying the service again, or paying the cost of having it supplied again.

11.3 To the extent the law allows, neither of us is liable to the other for indirect or consequential loss, such as lost profits or lost business.

11.4 Because the service is automated (clause 1.3), we are not liable for a call misunderstood, a message incomplete or wrong, or a call put through to the wrong person, unless it results from our failure to provide the service with due care and skill.

11.5 These limits do not apply to fraud, or to death or personal injury caused by negligence.

12. General

12.1 These Terms, your quote, and the agreements you accept in the portal (the staff notice and the records settings) are the whole agreement for this service. If they conflict, these Terms apply ahead of the quote, unless the quote expressly says otherwise.

12.2 These Terms are governed by the law of Victoria, and the courts of Victoria have jurisdiction.

12.3 Notices may be given by email to the address each of us has provided. Ours is [email protected].

12.4 Contact: TelephonesOnline Pty Ltd, 78 Scanlon Drive, Epping VIC 3076. Phone 1300 088 088.