What data does it store?

The list above is roughly the same across this category, because it is what the product needs to work. The differences are in retention and access, which rarely appear on a feature page.

Recording is the biggest single variable. Audio is more sensitive than text, it is harder to redact, and it is the part consent rules speak to most directly.

For a healthcare or legal practice, the sensible starting position is to keep the phone record narrow and let the case system hold the detail.

What is retained and for how long, by default? Then: can that period be changed, and does changing it apply retroactively to what is already stored?

Who can read it? Your team is obvious. Ask specifically about vendor staff access, and under what circumstances.

Which subprocessors see call content? A phone assistant necessarily passes audio to a speech engine and text to a language model. Ask for the list in writing.

How do you delete a specific call, and does deletion reach the subprocessors too? A delete that only clears your dashboard is not a delete.

Say you run a family law office and a prospective client calls for four minutes. Inside the phone assistant, that call leaves a caller number, a time and duration, a transcript of roughly 600 words, a short summary, and an audio file if you've kept recording on.

Now follow it outward. The consultation it booked is an event in your Google Calendar, with her name and the words "custody consult" in the title. A notification about the call sits on your paralegal's personal phone. Your CRM holds a contact and a note, written there through Zapier, and Zapier's own task history keeps a record of what passed through it for a while.

That's five places, and deleting the call in one dashboard clears exactly one of them. None of this is unusual or alarming. It's simply how connected tools work, and it means your retention decision covers more than the vendor you're evaluating.

Take a sheet of paper and list every place a call's details can land: the assistant's dashboard, the calendar, the CRM, any automation tool in between, email, and staff phones. Next to each, write who can open it and how long it keeps things. Most small businesses have never done this, and it takes about half an hour.

With the map in hand, pick a retention period from your obligations, not from instinct. Some professions have to keep client communications for years, and others are better off keeping very little. Your regulator or your insurer will usually have a view, so ask them before you ask us.

People are the other half. Anyone who leaves your business should lose their login the same day, and notifications on a personal phone are worth a thought if that phone is shared with family.

When you talk to us or any vendor, ask one question the page above doesn't cover: can you export everything? If you ever switch providers or face a dispute, you'll want your call history in a file you control.

Recording can be switched off entirely, leaving the transcript and the structured details. A lot of practices prefer that shape.

Healthcare setups scope themselves to inquiry and scheduling data: who called, what they wanted, when they are coming in. Treatment detail belongs in your own system.

Ask us what is stored for your configuration and we will answer specifically rather than pointing at a policy page.