What if a customer calls with a food allergy emergency or a reaction in progress?

Voksha distinguishes between a caller asking a standard allergen question, whether a dish contains a specific ingredient like peanuts or shellfish, and a caller describing an active emergency, someone is having a reaction right now, and these need to be handled completely differently. For a standard allergen question, Voksha answers using your documented ingredient information, the same major allergens the FDA requires disclosure on, and flags anything needing kitchen confirmation.

If a caller describes an active medical emergency, an allergic reaction happening in real time, whether from a party currently dining or someone who ate food from your restaurant, this should be configured as an immediate transfer trigger, routing to a manager or, more importantly, prompting the caller to call 911 if they haven't already, since that's not a situation any phone system, human or AI, should try to manage or resolve on the call itself. Restaurants should set this up explicitly during onboarding rather than assuming default behavior covers it, an actual reaction in progress needs emergency services, not a callback.

Post-incident calls, someone calling the next day to report they had a reaction and believe it came from your restaurant, are a different case again, one where Voksha should capture full details, what was ordered, when, symptoms described, and immediately flag it as urgent for management and, if appropriate, your restaurant's insurance or liability process, rather than trying to resolve it conversationally. Getting all three of these distinct situations, standard allergen questions, active emergencies, and post-incident reports, configured correctly during setup is worth the extra time given what's at stake.