Families call when someone has just died. Your agent answers with care, captures what your director needs to respond, and routes the call to the on-call funeral director without a voicemail in between.
First-call notifications arrive at any hour. The family is in shock and they need a calm voice and a clear next step, not an automated menu or an answering service script.
Your directors cannot be at every visitation, every removal, and every phone line at the same time. The call still has to be answered the right way.
Pre-need inquiries and existing-family questions land alongside the first-call notifications. Each needs a different response and the wrong tone in either is a permanent impression.
Every feature below is included on every plan. No add-ons, no feature gates.
Answers first-call notifications with care, captures the family contact, location, and current circumstances, and routes immediately to the on-call director.
Connects first calls to your director's line during the hours you configure, and emails the full details to your team the moment the call ends — never a voicemail box between a family and your firm.
Handles pre-arrangement and pre-need planning inquiries with a different tone and a callback scheduled with your pre-need counselor.
Reads visitation times, service locations, livestream links, and out-of-town family details from your knowledge base so callers get the information they need without waiting.
Share your on-call rotation, pre-need counselor schedule, and standard tone guidance. Allison is configured in 15 minutes to handle first-call, pre-need, and service-information calls with the care your families expect.
A first-call handled poorly is a wound that does not heal for the family. Watchtower scores every first-call for tone and routing so you know every call met the standard your firm holds itself to.
Your agent answers in a voice and name you choose, included on every plan. Hear the voices →
First-call notification: "My mother just passed away at home, I do not know what to do next"
Pre-need inquiry: "My husband and I want to make arrangements ahead of time"
Service information: "What time is the visitation for the Johnson family?"
Out-of-town family: "I am flying in for my uncle's service, where is it?"
Clergy or florist: "I am the officiant for the Smith service, can I confirm the start time?"
Your knowledge base is fully customizable from the dashboard.
If they ask, they are told. Give your agent a name and it carries an instruction to answer honestly that it is an AI whenever a caller asks whether they are speaking with a person, and we will not configure it to claim otherwise. What it is built to do is answer immediately at three in the morning, stay calm, and capture what your director needs. The alternative most firms are choosing between is not a person: it is a voicemail box or an operator reading from a script.
The family gets a clear next step during the call, and the details reach everyone on your Calls notification list by email the moment it ends. If you want a first call to ring your director's phone rather than arrive as an email, that takes an escalation rule with a transfer destination and business hours covering the overnight window, because transfers are only attempted while your hours say you are open. Firms running a genuine 24-hour first-call line should set their hours to match. There is no automatic on-call rotation today: the destination and each member's transfer hours are settings you maintain.
The call falls back to a phone number you nominate. It is requested during onboarding and it is the single most important setting on the account for exactly this reason, though the flow does let you skip it, and skipping it means a caller in this situation hears an apology instead of reaching you. With one set, the caller hears a brief message and is connected to your line with their real number on caller ID, so a technical fault becomes an ordinary phone call to your firm. Everyone on your notification list gets an email either way, and fallback time is not billed as agent minutes.
Yes, and it should. The agent identifies what kind of call it is from the conversation, so a family calling about a death and a couple planning ahead do not get the same handling. First calls page the on-call director. Pre-need inquiries get a different tone and a callback scheduled with your pre-need counselor. Service-time questions from out-of-town family or clergy get answered directly from your knowledge base without disturbing anyone.
White-glove setup
Custom API integrations, webhooks, CRM sync, escalation design — designed, wired, and tested on live calls. Included with any plan. No setup fees.
Call Allison, describe your business, and she'll build your agent. Or sign up and configure it yourself.