Privacy Policy

Effective and last revised: September 1, 2026

AnswerOtter, a service of Black Hills, Inc., provides managed AI phone-overflow service for veterinary clinics. This policy explains what we collect, how we use it, and how to contact us.

What we collect

We collect contact information from clinics, prospects, and people who contact us, including names, email addresses, phone numbers, clinic names, eligibility answers, onboarding information, and billing or service details needed to operate the service. For the operator-assisted first-clinic service, we use one private, clinic-bound Stripe Checkout Session for the $199 activation and, only after an affirmative continuation choice, a private clinic-bound Checkout Session in subscription mode for monthly continuation. Public Payment Links, the Customer Portal, and automated billing lifecycle actions are deferred. AnswerOtter receives account-bound Stripe object identifiers and payment status, not the full card number or security code.

When AnswerOtter answers calls for a clinic, we may process call recordings, transcripts, caller contact details, appointment requests, refill requests, and related conversation notes. We use this information to deliver the phone service, route messages, review call quality, improve setup quality, and help the clinic review what was said. The managed service does not include SMS or web chat.

When you call the public AnswerOtter demo line, it identifies itself as AI, states that the call may be recorded, and asks you to use made-up details. We may process the recording, transcript, caller number, and extracted test-call details to verify, secure, and improve the demonstration. Test summaries may be delivered only to an AnswerOtter-controlled inbox for verification; the demo line does not notify a veterinary clinic or create a real appointment or refill request. The demo line is currently configured for 30-day provider retention.

How we use information

• To provide, configure, support, and improve AnswerOtter.
• To respond to questions, demo requests, and service messages.
• To send business communications about AnswerOtter, including lawful outreach and follow-up.
• To comply with legal, billing, security, and operational requirements.

Clinic fact verification

For a service-fit request, we may retrieve a small number of public pages from the exact clinic website you submit. Our identified automated fetcher honors applicable robots instructions and stops when site terms prohibit this use. We retain the source URLs, timestamps, page digests, bounded excerpts of no more than 25 words and 240 characters, and our verification conclusions. We do not retain the fetched raw HTML or make a copy of the site.

We may also send the submitted clinic name and business address to Google Maps Platform's Places API and request current public business-listing fields needed to compare the clinic's submitted name, address, phone, and website. We do not send the requester's name, email address, or phone number to Google for this check. Google receives the server request and processes it under the Google Privacy Policy. Use of the Google Maps features and content is also subject to the Google Maps End User Additional Terms of Service. AnswerOtter retains the submitted clinic facts, the permitted Google Place ID, and bounded internal verification evidence; it does not retain the returned Google business-listing fields as a separate directory.

No sale of data

We do not sell personal information. We do not use clinic call logs to market unrelated products. We may share information with service providers only when needed to run AnswerOtter, such as communications, hosting, analytics, billing, or support tools.

Current and approved subprocessors

This list states both the provider and the exact activation scope. A provider receives personal information only when its corresponding feature is active. Listing an approved production provider does not mean an unfinished production feature has been activated.

Active services

• Vercel — website and application hosting, serverless request processing, and aggregate web analytics.
• Google Workspace — company email for inquiries, customer correspondence, support, and operational exception handling sent to an @answerotter.com address.
• Retell AI — voice-agent execution and call recordings, transcripts, and call-derived service details for the public demo. Clinic-service processing begins only after separate production activation.

Approved production services, not active until their feature is activated

• Neon — managed PostgreSQL storage for authenticated customer, service, billing-status, and audit records after the production database is activated.
• Resend — transactional customer email and delivery-event processing after the verified production sender is activated.
• Stripe — private clinic-bound Checkout, Invoice and payment-status verification, approved refunds, and cancellation records after the manual first-clinic billing process is activated. Public Payment Links, the Customer Portal, and automated billing lifecycle actions remain deferred.
• BoldSign — electronic-signature delivery, completed agreements, and signature audit trails after the production signing workflow is activated.
• Google Maps Platform — bounded public clinic-fact verification as described above after the restricted production credential is activated.
• Cloudflare — independent production-delivery monitoring and non-identifying operational evidence after the monitor is activated.

Outbound-mail infrastructure

Inframail hosts four dedicated AnswerOtter outbound mailboxes, and Instantly currently warms those mailboxes. No prospect list is loaded and no prospect campaign is authorized while the separate provider-policy and release gates remain closed. If a prospect campaign is later authorized, these providers may process the approved business contact information and message-delivery events for that campaign. They are not used for clinic call content or authenticated customer records.

Website analytics

We use Vercel Web Analytics to understand aggregate page views, referral sources, general location, device type, operating system, and browser information. It does not use third-party cookies or associate analytics reports with a visitor's name, email address, or IP address. We do not send contact-form contents or other sensitive information as analytics events.

Email and opt-out

We comply with CAN-SPAM requirements for commercial email. Marketing emails identify us, include a way to opt out, and honor opt-out requests. If you unsubscribe, we will stop sending marketing email to that address. Service or transactional messages may still be sent when needed to provide AnswerOtter.

Security and retention

We use reasonable administrative and technical safeguards for the size and nature of our business. Before paid-service caller data is collected, the applicable retention and deletion schedule for recordings, transcripts, delivered-message content, and setup data will be recorded in the clinic's written configuration. Signed agreements, billing, tax, security, and immutable audit evidence may follow separate required record schedules.

Clinic-specific retention, deletion, disclosure, or routing requirements must be agreed in writing before setup. Do not send passwords, full payment-card information, or unrelated caller details through ordinary email or public website forms.

Contact

Questions or requests can be sent to pat@answerotter.com. AnswerOtter is a service of Black Hills, Inc., Beverly Hills, CA.