You decide what Heep handles on its own.

No. Heep takes the requests you entrust to it, during the hours you choose, and passes the rest on. Your team keeps the final say on everything that matters. You can even start with the AI paused: messages land in the inbox, your team replies, and you switch Heep on when you are ready.

It is the room for manoeuvre you give Heep. On Free, it handles everything within your rules and only comes to you for the cases you have defined. On Balanced, it handles the everyday and passes things on as soon as it is in any doubt. On Restricted, it sticks to safe answers (opening hours, menu, confirmation) and passes everything else on to you. You can change level whenever you want.

Yes. You define the time slots when Heep replies, for example from 8pm to 9am, or only on days you are closed. Outside those slots, messages land in your inbox and your team replies as usual.

If it cannot find the information in your restaurant's memory, it does not make it up: it passes the question on to you and files it under points “to validate”. You complete the answer once, and it is used from then on. And if a guest gets irritated or the exchange goes round in circles, Heep stops by itself and notifies you.

That is your call. Heep introduces itself with the first name and the tone you choose, and you can instruct it to say it is your restaurant's automated assistant when a guest asks. On the guest's side, an indicator shows a reply is being written, as in any messaging app.

Every conversation keeps its full history: Heep's messages, your team's replies, actions taken (booking created, request passed on, email sent). You receive the notifications you have chosen, per person and per venue, and your analytics count what was handled on its own and what was passed on to you.

No. Heep takes the missed calls, the messages and the repetitive requests so that your team can stay focused on the floor.

You keep control: you choose the hours when the AI answers, how much latitude it has (free, balanced or restricted) and the subjects it always hands to a human, such as a severe allergy or a complaint. Your team can take over any conversation in one tap from the app.

Yes. You set the time slots where the AI answers on its own, from 8pm to 9am for instance, or only during the rush. Outside those hours, messages land in your inbox and your team answers them itself.

You can also pause the AI at any moment, on one conversation, one channel or the whole venue. It stops of its own accord if a guest gets annoyed or the exchange goes round in circles, and tells your team.

It does not guess. It tells the guest that a member of the team will come back to them, and your team gets a notification straight away, on their phones and in the inbox, flagged "action required".

Once you have answered, Heep offers to add your answer to its memory, in one tap. Next time, it will answer on its own.

Heep answers only from what you have given it and from your real data: the opening hours on your Google listing, the availability in your booking software. It does not decide you are full on its own, it looks at your diary. Before writing a booking, it checks that the slot is genuinely free in your software.

In the first few weeks, your team reads the conversations back from the inbox and corrects where needed; whatever was missing is added to the memory in one tap. You can also restrict the AI so that it hands over to a human more often.

Heep introduces itself as your restaurant's assistant. You decide how it introduces itself and what it answers if a guest asks whether they are talking to a human; we recommend saying so plainly and offering to hand over to a member of the team.

These instructions are set in the settings, or by writing to Heep Copilot. Remember as well to tell your guests that an automated assistant answers their messages, in your greeting message for instance.