Ask Your Guests
a Real Question
Given a beep and no direction, most people say congratulations and hang up. Given a question, the same person tells you a story they have never told you. Write the question — your guests hear it just before the beep, and answer it.
Call in progress
0:14 · Right before the beep
Caller hears
"How did you meet one of us? Tell us the story from your side."
Asked per call
Exactly one
What Is a Caller Prompt?
A caller prompt is a question you write — in your own voice, or typed and spoken for you — that plays after your greeting and immediately before the beep. It is the last thing a caller hears, which is the only place in the call where a question actually changes what someone says next.
Essential includes two questions; Classic and Premium include up to ten. Each caller hears one, and you choose whether your questions are balanced by answer count, played in order, or chosen at random.
Every message is then filed under the question it answered, so you can listen to forty people answer the same thing in a row — or ignore the grouping entirely and listen straight through.
Step 1
You write the questions
2 with Essential; up to ten with Classic and Premium
Step 2
Each caller is asked one
Balanced by answer count, in your order, or at random
Step 3 — Afterwards
Answers arrive already sorted
Filter your inbox to one question and hear every answer to it
Questions Worth Asking
Examples, not templates — every word here would be yours to write
How did you meet one of us? Tell us the story from your side.
Nothing to press — the beep follows straight after the question.
A question that can be answered with one word gets answered with one word. Ask for a story.
What a Question Changes
The same guest, the same thirty seconds, a different message
Nobody Freezes at the Beep
The hardest part of leaving a message is deciding what to say while the tape is already running. A question hands that decision to the guest before the beep, so the pause happens in their head instead of in your recording.
You Don't Get Fifty of the Same Message
Ask several things and the rotation spreads your guests across them, least-answered first by default. Instead of fifty variations on "congratulations", you get ten stories about how people met you and ten pieces of advice.
Answers Sort Themselves
Each message is filed against the question that prompted it. Filter to one question and every answer to it plays in a row — a much easier way to find the one you half-remember than scrubbing through call order.
It Can Be Your Voice Asking
Record the question yourself, upload one you already have, or type it and choose the voice and tone that reads it. A question in your own voice sounds like you leaning in, not like a system collecting responses.
How to Write One That Works
A question is one more line before the beep. Make it earn the room.
Ask for a moment, not an opinion
"What do you think of them?" gets an adjective. "When did you know they were serious about each other?" gets a scene, with a place and a year in it.
Keep it to one sentence
A guest is holding a phone in a loud room. Two-part questions get half-answered, and the half they answer is usually the second one.
Write for the person who isn't close to you
Your best friend will say something lovely whatever you ask. The colleague who barely knows you is the one a good question rescues.
Say who should answer, if it matters
"If you knew him before the army, tell us what he was like then" gives the people it doesn't apply to permission to just talk instead.
And when to skip it: if your greeting already asks for something specific, a second question is a second thing to hold in mind. One ask, wherever you put it, beats two.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about custom caller prompts
Keep Exploring
More ways to shape what your guests say
Audio Guest Book Prompts: 50+ Questions to Ask
A long list of ready-to-use questions grouped by occasion — a good place to find the ones worth recording.
Custom Greetings
The message that plays before the question — in your voice, or spoken for you.
Feature →
Voicemail Organization
Tags, filters and search across everything your guests left — including by question.
Feature →
Decide What You Want to Hear
Essential includes two caller prompts; Classic and Premium include up to ten. One good question takes about a minute to write.