How your call is handled

When a caller rings a charter business using FirstMate, the assistant answers. Not after a few rings, and not because the captain saw the call and let it go — that number comes through to the assistant directly, every time. It is software, not the captain and not a recording of the captain, and it says so in its first few seconds so nobody is left guessing who they are talking to.

A caller who would rather not speak to it can hang up. Hanging up costs them nothing: the captain still sees that the number rang, and can call back.

1. 1

   You call the charter

   You ring the number the charter business publishes. That number is FirstMate's rather than the captain's own phone, which is the point of it — a captain out on the water can't answer either way, and this way the call still gets picked up.

2. 2

   The assistant picks up and identifies itself

   Before anything else, it names the business, tells you that you are speaking to an automated assistant, and tells you the call may be recorded. That notice comes first, and you can't talk over it, so the decision whether to carry on is yours to make before you have said anything.

3. 3

   You talk, it listens

   It asks about the trip you rang about — the dates you want, how many people are coming, and the kind of fishing you're after — then your name and the best number to call you back on. One thing at a time, out loud, in an ordinary conversation: it asks, waits for your answer, and only then moves on. There are no menus and nothing to press. Because it writes each turn for the call it is on, there is no fixed script to quote; the exchange below is representative — of a charter that has left pricing to the captain, which is the default — and the rules it works inside are in the next section:

   • Hi there. Thanks for calling Compass Rose Charters — I'm Captain Jake Reilly's automated assistant, and this call may be recorded. How can I help you?
   • Hoping to get out fishing. We were looking at the 14th or 15th of August.
   • Good stretch of days. How many of you would be coming?
   • Four of us. What does a half day run?
   • The captain handles pricing, so that's something to go over when the call comes. Were you after inshore or offshore?
   • Offshore, we want to try for mahi.
   • Nice. And who should the captain ask for?
   • Dave.
   • Thanks Dave. What's the best number to reach you on?
   • Same one I'm calling from, 555 0142.
   • Got it. So that's Dave, four of you, offshore for mahi, the 14th or 15th of August, on 555 0142. Does that all sound right, or is there anything you'd like to add or change?
   • That's right.
   • Sounds great. You'll get a call back as soon as possible. Thanks for calling Compass Rose Charters. Have a great day! Bye now.
4. 4

   The captain calls you back

   Once it has what it needs, it reads back what it wrote down and asks whether that is right or whether anything is missing, so a detail it misheard is caught while you are still on the phone. When you have confirmed it, it says the captain will call you back as soon as they can, and the call ends. The captain sees your number, the trip details, and a summary of what was said, and rings you back themselves. Nothing on that call was a booking.

Calls answered by the assistant may be recorded, and the audio and its transcript are processed by AI — to understand what you are saying while the call is happening, and afterwards to pull out the trip details and write the captain a short summary.

Florida is an all-party consent state for recorded calls, so the recording notice is spoken at the start of the call, before you have told the assistant anything. If you don't want to be recorded, hang up and the captain will still see that you called.

The recording, transcript and summary go to the captain whose number you rang, and to nobody else. They are not sold, not shared with other captains, not passed to advertisers, and never used for marketing. What we send to our AI provider is not used to train models. The full account, including who processes the audio and how long each piece is kept, is in our privacy policy.

The assistant exists to take trip details so the captain can return your call already knowing what you want. It is instructed, on every call, that it must never:

• quote a price the business has not published, estimate one, or work out a figure of its own — for a trip, a fee, or a deposit
• confirm that a date is available
• confirm, promise, hold or book a trip
• answer anything the business has not given it — it defers to the captain rather than guessing
• say anything promotional, or raise any service beyond the trip you asked about

Whether it discusses prices at all is the captain's choice, and it is off unless they switched it on. Most callers will hear that the captain handles pricing and will go over it when he calls. Where a captain has chosen to publish their prices, the assistant can read back a listed price word for word, and work out what a listed per-person rate comes to for your group — nothing else. It will not estimate, round, guess, or give you a figure for anything the business has not written down. It can always tell you how payment works — that a deposit holds a date, what payment methods are taken, that optional extras like fish cleaning carry a fee.

Nothing it says on the call is an offer, a quote, or a confirmation. Pricing, availability and booking are settled by the captain, with you, directly.

For each call: your phone number, the time of the call, and the identifier for that call. Where the assistant answered: the recording and its transcript, the summary written from it, and the trip details taken out of it — the dates you asked about, the party size, and the kind of trip.

It is visible only to the captain whose number you called, and is used only so they can return your call. Everything from a call is deleted after 12 months — the recording and the transcript on the same clock as the rest of it, because a recording is one more thing said on that call and giving it a separate deadline would mean explaining two numbers to someone who only asked about one. Opt-out records are kept indefinitely, because that is what lets us keep honouring them. This section covers calls specifically; for everything FirstMate holds, including the booking records a captain keeps for trips they have run, see our privacy policy.

Questions about this page, or to ask for a recording or anything else we hold about you to be deleted, email support@askfirstmate.com.