Help Centre
Setup guides, common questions, and troubleshooting for Pickup.
How Pickup works
Pickup gives your business a Canadian phone number with an AI receptionist that answers calls 24/7. Here is the flow from start to finish:
- A customer dials your business number (your existing number, or your new Pickup number directly).
- Your carrier forwards the call to your Pickup number using call forwarding — either always-on, when you're busy, or when you don't answer.
- The AI receptionist picks up, announces that the call may be recorded, and greets the caller by your business name.
- The AI collects the caller's name, what they need, their location, and preferred timeline. If the caller wants to book, it confirms a date and time.
- You receive an SMS and email notification within seconds with a summary of the call.
- The full transcript, recording, and lead details appear in your Pickup dashboard immediately.
- If you connected Google Calendar, the AI's booked appointment is added to your calendar automatically.
You never need to be at your desk. Every missed call becomes a captured lead.
Setting up call forwarding
Call forwarding is how calls reach your AI receptionist. You set it up on your existing business phone — not in Pickup. There are two common approaches:
Option A — Forward when you don't answer (recommended)
Your phone rings first. If you pick up, you handle the call. If you miss it or are busy, it rolls over to Pickup. This is the most natural setup for most trades businesses.
Option B — Forward all calls
Every call goes straight to your AI receptionist. Use this if you want to stop answering the business line yourself entirely.
Rogers, Fido, Shaw Mobile
Dial these codes directly from your phone
| Type | Activate | Deactivate |
|---|---|---|
| All calls | *21*[your Pickup number]# | #21# |
| When busy | *67*[your Pickup number]# | #67# |
| No answer | *61*[your Pickup number]# | #61# |
| Unreachable | *62*[your Pickup number]# | #62# |
Replace [your Pickup number] with your full 10-digit Pickup number including area code (e.g. 5878502839). Press the green call button after dialling the code.
Bell, Virgin Plus
Dial from your phone
| Type | Activate | Deactivate |
|---|---|---|
| All calls | *72 [Pickup number] | *73 |
| No answer / busy | *92 [Pickup number] | *93 |
Press the green call button to activate. Bell landlines may differ — check your Bell account portal or call Bell at 310-BELL.
Telus, Koodo
Dial from your phone
| Type | Activate | Deactivate |
|---|---|---|
| All calls | *21*[Pickup number]# | #21# |
| When busy | *67*[Pickup number]# | #67# |
| No answer | *61*[Pickup number]# | #61# |
Freedom Mobile, Chatr, and others
Most Canadian carriers support standard GSM codes
| Type | Activate | Deactivate |
|---|---|---|
| All calls | *21*[Pickup number]# | #21# |
| No answer | *61*[Pickup number]# | #61# |
If these codes don't work, contact your carrier's support and ask them to set up call forwarding to your Pickup number.
Testing your forwarding
After activating forwarding, call your business number from a different phone. You should hear your AI receptionist answer within 2–3 rings. If the call rings through to your mobile voicemail instead, the forwarding code may not have activated — try again or contact your carrier.
Your AI receptionist
What does the AI say on calls?
Every call starts with "This call may be recorded," followed by your custom greeting (or the default: "Thank you for calling [Business Name]! My name is [Agent Name] — I'm the AI receptionist here. How can I help you today?"). The AI then gathers the caller's name, what they need, location, and timeline. If they want to book, it confirms a specific date and time.
Customizing your greeting
Go to Settings → Agent in your dashboard to update your agent's name or opening greeting. Changes take effect on the next call. Keep the greeting short — callers hear it before they can say anything.
What the AI will and won't do
- Will do: capture lead details, book appointments, answer general questions about your business, handle after-hours calls, flag urgent jobs
- Won't do: give exact pricing quotes, confirm specific team member availability, make outbound calls, or handle payment over the phone
If a caller asks for pricing, the AI says it will have the estimator go over that on the visit. You can review the transcript afterward and follow up.
What information does it capture?
After every call, the AI extracts: caller name, service requested, location, timeline, whether an appointment was booked, and the booked date/time (if applicable). This appears in your dashboard immediately alongside the full transcript and recording.
Notifications
SMS notifications
You'll receive a text to your mobile number within seconds of a call ending. The SMS includes the caller's name, what they need, and a link to the full call in your dashboard. Make sure your mobile number is correct in Settings → Notifications.
Email notifications
An email summary is sent to your account email after every call. It includes the AI-generated summary, the lead's contact info, and a call transcript excerpt. If you're not receiving these, check your spam/junk folder — add hello@use-pick-up.com to your contacts to prevent this.
Weekly digest
Every Monday morning you receive a digest email summarising the week's call activity — total calls, leads captured, appointments booked. If it's going to junk, mark it as "Not Junk" and add the sender to your contacts. Email reputation improves over time.
Google Calendar
Connecting your calendar
During onboarding, you'll be prompted to connect a Google account. Click Connect Google Calendar and sign in with the Google account tied to your business calendar. Pickup only creates new events — it never reads or modifies your existing calendar.
To connect or reconnect after onboarding, go to Settings → Calendar in your dashboard.
What gets added to my calendar?
When the AI books an appointment during a call, it creates a calendar event with the caller's name, the service they requested, and the confirmed date and time. The event title is formatted as: [Caller Name] — [Service].
Disconnecting Google Calendar
Go to Settings → Calendar and click Disconnect. Future appointments booked by the AI will still appear in your Pickup dashboard — they just won't be added to Google Calendar until you reconnect.
Dashboard & leads
Calls vs. leads
Calls are a record of every call your AI handled — including hang-ups and short calls. Leads are calls where the AI successfully captured at least a name and a service request. Every lead links back to the originating call.
Reviewing a call
Click any call in the Calls list to see the full transcript, play back the recording, and review the AI-extracted lead details. Transcripts are AI-generated and may occasionally misquote a word — use the recording to verify anything important.
Adding notes to a lead
Open a lead and click the notes field to add your own comments — follow-up actions, quote status, anything you want to track. Notes save automatically when you click away.
Analytics
The Analytics tab shows call volume by day, lead conversion rate, and top services requested. Data updates in real time as calls come in.
Billing & subscription
14-day free trial
Your trial starts the day you complete onboarding. A valid credit card is required to begin. You will not be charged until the trial ends. You can use every feature during the trial — there are no restrictions.
When am I charged?
On day 15, your card is charged $249 CAD for the first month. After that, billing is monthly on the same date. All invoices are sent to your account email and are also available in Settings → Billing.
Cancelling
Cancel anytime from Settings → Billing → Cancel subscription. You keep access until the end of the current billing period. We don't offer refunds for partial months. Your call data is retained for 90 days after cancellation — email hello@use-pick-up.com during that window to request an export.
Changing your payment method
Go to Settings → Billing → Manage payment. This opens your Stripe billing portal where you can update your card, download past invoices, and view upcoming charges.
Troubleshooting
Calls ring through to my voicemail instead of Pickup
Your call forwarding is not active. Dial the activation code for your carrier (see the Call Forwarding section above), then test by calling your business number from another phone. If it still doesn't forward, call your carrier and ask them to confirm forwarding is enabled on your line — some plans require it to be turned on by the carrier before the dial codes work.
The AI answers but uses the wrong business name
Go to Settings → Agent and check that your business name is correct, then click Save. The AI's system prompt will resync and the corrected name will be used on the next call.
I'm not receiving SMS notifications
Check Settings → Notifications and confirm your mobile number is correct including the area code (no +1 needed). Also check that the number can receive texts — some VoIP numbers cannot. If the number is correct and still not working, email hello@use-pick-up.com.
Email notifications are going to junk
Open the email in your junk folder, mark it as "Not Junk" (or "Not Spam"), and add hello@use-pick-up.com to your contacts. Email clients learn from this and future messages should land in your inbox. This is common with new domains and improves on its own within a few weeks.
Google Calendar appointments are not being created
Go to Settings → Calendar. If the status shows "Disconnected" or "Reconnect required," click Connect and re-authorize your Google account. This typically happens when you revoke app access in your Google security settings or when Google tokens expire.
The AI booked an appointment at the wrong time
The AI books based on what the caller verbally confirms. Open the call transcript in your dashboard to see exactly what was said. If the appointment needs to be changed, you'll need to contact the caller directly — Pickup doesn't modify or cancel calendar events once they're created.
A call shows up in the dashboard but no lead was created
A lead is only created when the AI successfully captures a name and a service request. Short calls, hang-ups, and calls where the caller didn't provide enough information will appear in the Calls list but won't generate a lead. Review the transcript to see what happened.
My Pickup number says "not registered with network" when I call it
This is usually a carrier-side routing issue that resolves on its own within a few hours. If it persists beyond 24 hours, email hello@use-pick-up.com with your Pickup number and we'll investigate.
Contact support
If you can't find an answer here, email us and we'll get back to you within one business day.
Pickup Support
General questions & account help: hello@use-pick-up.com
Privacy & data requests: privacy@use-pick-up.com