The setup wizard: get your AI agent running

Before you start

You need two things: a WordPress website that is open to the public, and an administrator login for it.

SiteStaffr connects to your site over the internet to confirm it is yours, so a site it cannot reach cannot connect yet. That includes a site on your own computer, a staging site behind a password, a site in maintenance mode, and a site behind a firewall that blocks bots.

To install, open your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins, then Add Plugin (Add New Plugin on some WordPress versions), search for SiteStaffr, and click Install Now, then Activate.

Where to find the wizard

The wizard opens on its own when you activate the plugin. If it does not, click SiteStaffr in your dashboard menu: until setup is finished, every SiteStaffr screen opens the wizard, and other dashboard pages show a reminder with a Complete Setup button.

A progress bar across the top shows which of the three steps you are on. Steps 1 and 3 also have a link to the setup video, which opens in a new tab.

Step 1: Your business

The first screen, Welcome to SiteStaffr, asks for three things:

• Business Name is required. Enter the name your customers know you by.
• Business Phone Number is optional. Your agent gives it to visitors who want to reach you by phone; it never dials it. Any format works, including international ones, as long as it has at least seven digits.
• Business Email is required. It starts filled in with your WordPress admin email. SiteStaffr uses it for notifications, billing and your account.

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1. 1Business Name
2. 2Business Phone Number
3. 3Business Email
4. 4Next

Under the fields, a line links to the SiteStaffr Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Continuing means you agree to them.

Click Next. SiteStaffr stores your details and connects your site to your SiteStaffr account. It also starts reading your website in the background, so your Agent Summary is often ready by the time you reach step 3. If connecting fails, a message above the steps says why; see If your site will not connect. Fix it before you go on: the wizard lets you continue, but your agent does not work until your site connects.

Step 2: Choose how to start

The second screen, Choose how you want to start, shows four cards side by side:

• Free Trial, marked Start here: free for 30 days, no credit card, with voice and text to try on your own site. Like the paid plans, the trial includes unlimited AI text chat, plus the voice minutes shown on the card. Click Start free trial to go straight to step 3.
• Starter is $29 a month with 100 voice minutes, Business is $69 a month with 300 voice minutes, and Pro is $129 a month with 600 voice minutes. All three include unlimited AI text chat, and each card lists what else comes with the plan, such as how many AI voices you can choose from.

Clicking Select Starter, Select Business or Select Pro opens a secure checkout page. When the payment goes through, you come back to the wizard at step 3. If you leave the checkout page without paying, you return to the start of the wizard with your details still filled in, and can choose again.

If the trial ends without a paid plan, your site moves to the Free plan: AI text chat for up to 50 AI conversations a month, no credit card. Voice, the Blog Agent and AI Visibility are on the paid plans.

Your choice is not final. You can switch plans at any time from Usage & Billing in the SiteStaffr menu. A note under the cards covers agency license keys: key activation is not available yet, so agencies start each site with a trial for now. Back to Business Info returns to step 1.

Step 3: Business hours

The third screen, Train Your AI Agent, has two parts. The first is Business Hours, and it is required.

Your agent answers visitors 24/7 whatever you pick here. These are the hours your business itself is open, so your agent can tell visitors when you are available. Choose one:

• Mon-Fri 9am-5pm, Sat-Sun Closed, standard business hours.
• 24/7 Operations, for a business that runs around the clock.
• Custom Hours, which opens a weekly schedule. Each day has an Open or Closed switch and a start and end time, in half hour steps. Weekdays start at 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM and weekends start closed. If you switch Saturday or Sunday to Open, set both of its times, because they start at 12:00 AM.

You can change your hours later in SiteStaffr, Settings.

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1. 1Business Hours
2. 2Mon-Fri 9am-5pm, Sat-Sun Closed
3. 324/7 Operations
4. 4Custom Hours

Step 3: Your Agent Summary

The second part is your Agent Summary, also required. It is the short description of your business that your agent keeps in mind in every conversation. The Knowledge guide explains how it fits with everything else your agent knows.

SiteStaffr writes the summary for you from your own pages. The box headed Create Your AI Knowledge Base explains that it reads your website’s main pages and teaches your agent the essentials of your business. If the reading has not started yet, click Generate.

It reads up to 100 of your pages that have enough text to learn from, starting with your homepage and pages such as About, Services, Pricing, FAQ and Contact. It skips pages that are not content, such as login, cart and checkout pages. Each page it reads is also synced to your Knowledge, so your agent can answer detailed questions from the full text, not only from the summary.

While it works, a progress bar shows which page it is reading, then that it is writing your description. This runs on your website’s server, not in your browser, so you can finish setup, close the tab or come back later. If you finish before it is done, the summary appears in Settings when it is ready. If it never appears there, write it yourself in Settings.

When it is done, the box reads Your agent read 12 pages of your site, with your own count, and shows the summary. If the summary is long, Read full description opens the whole text. Edit turns it into a text box you can change. Keep it under 5,000 characters, or setup cannot be completed.

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1. 1Pages read
2. 2Edit
3. 3Save & Finish

If SiteStaffr cannot write a summary, for example because your site does not have enough text yet, a text box opens, with the reason shown under it. Write a few sentences about what you do and your main services.

SiteStaffr can write a summary up to 10 times a day. If you reach that, the Generate box comes back with a message to try again tomorrow.

Click Save & Finish to complete setup. Back to Plan Selection returns to step 2.

You're all set: meet your agent

When setup is complete, the wizard shows You’re All Set! with the line Your AI agent is live on your site and ready to help visitors. Three links follow:

• Meet your agent opens your website in a new tab so you can try your agent yourself, by text or voice. SiteStaffr marks it as a practice conversation, so it stays out of your stats, your leads and your notification emails. The link is only good for a quarter of an hour after the wizard opens, so if setup took longer, use Test your widget with a practice conversation on the Dashboard instead, which always gives you a working link.
• See what your AI learned opens My AI Agent on the Knowledge tab, where you can see every page your agent read and add more.
• Skip to Dashboard goes to the SiteStaffr Dashboard.

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1. 1Meet your agent
2. 2See what your AI learned
3. 3Skip to Dashboard

If your site will not connect

When you click Next on step 1, SiteStaffr connects your site to your account. If that fails, a message above the steps explains why, with a link to the setup video. The messages you may see:

• SiteStaffr could not reach your site. To connect, your site must be open to the public. Local sites, staging sites behind a password, sites in maintenance mode and sites behind a firewall that blocks bots cannot connect. Make your site public, then reload the page and try again.
• Your site could not reach SiteStaffr. Your web host is not letting your site connect out to SiteStaffr. Ask your host to allow outgoing connections from your site, then reload the page and try again.
• This site was connected to SiteStaffr before. The wizard stops here, because the connection has to be restored on our side. The support link in the message opens an email that already includes your site address.

For any other connection error, reload the page and try again. If it keeps happening, email [email protected] and we will help.

After setup

Until your first real visitor conversation, the SiteStaffr Dashboard shows a Getting started checklist in place of its usual numbers:

1. Complete your business setup
2. Sync your website knowledge so your agent can answer from it
3. Test your widget with a practice conversation
4. Your first visitor conversation will appear here

The first three tick off as they happen, and the checklist goes away when your first real visitor conversation arrives. The wizard usually takes care of the first two, and a practice conversation covers the third.

Everything you entered in the wizard can be changed later. Your business name, phone, hours and Agent Summary are in Settings, where your notification emails go is under Email Notifications in Settings, and your plan is in Usage & Billing. To choose more pages for your agent to learn from, see the Knowledge guide.