Everything you need to know before deploying CRSTBL.

CRSTBL is a conversation-agent platform that turns your business information — menus, catalogs, service descriptions, policies, FAQs — into an AI agent your visitors can talk to. Instead of forcing customers to search menus, click through navigation, or scan long pages, CRSTBL lets them ask questions in their own words and get answers back.

CRSTBL is pronounced “Crystal Ball,” and the name is deliberate: conversations reveal what customers actually want, which is what most website analytics can’t tell you.

CRSTA is the AI conversation agent at the core of the platform. When a visitor talks to CRSTBL on your website, business page, or kiosk, they’re talking to CRSTA. See the full explainer in What is CRSTA?

Conversation Agents are the deployed units — your website concierge is one; a lobby kiosk might be another. Each runs on CRSTA.

Character Identity is the reusable brand persona layered on top — the voice and tone the agent uses. One Character Identity can drive multiple Conversation Agents so they sound like the same brand across every surface.

General-purpose AI tools answer from what they were trained on. CRSTBL answers from your business information — the menu, product catalog, or service descriptions you provide — and won’t make up things you didn’t give it.

CRSTBL is a controlled business conversation system, not a public chatbot. It’s built to represent your brand and use your data.

Businesses whose customers frequently need help finding something — a menu item, a product, a service, a location, a policy, an answer. That includes:

• Restaurants and food service
• Retailers with catalogs
• Professional service firms
• Manufacturers and distributors
• Multi-location and franchise businesses
• Real estate and medical practices

If your website visitors often have questions that a knowledgeable employee could answer, CRSTBL is designed for you.

Three main ones:

• Website drop-off. Visitors who can’t find what they came for leave. CRSTBL helps them find it through conversation instead of navigation.
• Repetitive customer questions. The same questions come in over and over — hours, availability, product specs, dietary restrictions. CRSTBL handles them 24/7.
• No visibility into customer intent. Traditional analytics tells you what visitors did, not what they wanted. Conversations tell you what they wanted.

Anything you give it. Common sources:

• Website content
• Product catalogs and menus
• Service descriptions
• PDFs, spec sheets, brochures
• Internal documentation and FAQs
• Business policies (returns, delivery, hours, locations)

The quality of CRSTBL’s answers scales with the quality of the information you provide during onboarding.

Yes. CRSTBL can guide visitors through a discovery conversation — asking about their needs, understanding constraints (budget, size, use case, dietary preference) — and recommend the right option from your catalog or menu.

Traditional chatbots follow scripted decision trees and break on anything outside the script. CRSTBL uses AI to interpret natural language, understands context across a conversation, and answers from your real business information without pre-scripting.

Full comparison: CRSTBL vs Traditional Chatbots.

No. CRSTBL adds a conversation layer on top of your existing website. Visitors can continue browsing normally, and CRSTBL is there when they have a question that navigation doesn’t answer well.

Most businesses adopt CRSTBL without redesigning their site.

CRSTBL supports multiple deployment surfaces:

• Website concierge (chat bubble on your existing site)
• AI-ready business page (a hosted CRSTBL page for AI engines and human visitors)
• Kiosk or tablet at a physical location
• Trade show or event booth
• Voice-enabled surfaces

Most businesses start with the website concierge and add other surfaces later.

It depends on the tier:

• CRSTBL Local is designed for one-day deployment. Sign up, provide business information, and your agent is live within about 24 hours.
• CRSTBL Enterprise is a 4–8 week structured onboarding process. Enterprise deployments involve organizing product catalogs, documentation, multi-location data, and integrations — the timeline reflects that complexity.

The primary deployment variable is the readiness of your business data, not the technology itself.

For CRSTBL Local, the minimum is:

• Your website URL (CRSTBL reads what’s there)
• Any menus, catalogs, or price lists you want the agent to reference
• Basic business info (hours, locations, contact)

For CRSTBL Enterprise, the onboarding team works with you to organize product catalogs, technical documentation, policies, and any integrations required for the deployment.

No, for CRSTBL Local. It’s designed to be operationally simple — most small businesses can deploy it without IT or engineering help.

For CRSTBL Enterprise, IT or data teams are often involved because deployments include integrations, multi-location workflows, and internal systems. The CRSTBL team drives most of the technical work; your internal team provides access and validates.

Yes. Business information can be updated any time as menus, prices, services, locations, promotions, or policies change. This matters especially for restaurants, retailers, and multi-location businesses where offerings shift frequently.

Two tiers:

• CRSTBL Local — $120/month per location. Includes a 14-day free trial. Self-serve, priced per site — a small business can run one location or a handful.
• CRSTBL Enterprise — from $1,000/month platform fee, with add-ons for chain-wide multi-location management, avatar deployment, character build, and metered usage. Designed for chains, franchises, distributor networks, and larger organizations that need unified analytics across sites.

Full details: Local pricing and Enterprise pricing.

Local is a per-location, self-serve deployment for restaurants, retailers, and small service businesses. Fast to deploy, simple weekly analytics, one Conversation Agent per location, one Character Identity. You can run a single site or add more Local subscriptions as your business grows.

Enterprise adds chain-wide multi-location management, unified cross-location analytics, semantic and context mapping, API access, avatar deployment options, and structured onboarding. Enterprise is the right fit once you need to manage many sites as one operation. Enterprise deployments are supported by the CRSTBL team throughout.

The Local free trial is 14 days at no charge. Your Conversation Agent is fully live during the trial, and you have access to weekly analytics from day one.

At the end of the trial, you can convert to a paid subscription or cancel — you’re only billed if you continue.

Enterprise does not include a free trial. Enterprise engagements begin with a scoping conversation and structured onboarding under a signed service agreement.

CRSTBL Local is month-to-month with no long-term commitment. You can cancel at any time from your account.

CRSTBL Enterprise agreements are structured during onboarding to fit the deployment scope, and typically include annual terms given the up-front onboarding investment. The service auto-renews unless canceled by the client. The specific terms are defined in the service agreement.

Yes. Many businesses start on Local and upgrade to Enterprise as they add locations, integrations, or need deeper analytics. Your existing configuration and conversation history carry over.

Customer conversation data is stored on secure cloud infrastructure with enterprise-grade encryption in transit and at rest.

Enterprise deployments can specify additional storage requirements, including region-specific storage where required by local regulations. Contact us for the current infrastructure detail sheet.

No. Conversation data is used to improve your Conversation Agent and to power your analytics. It is not used to train external or general-purpose AI models.

You do. Conversation data generated by your Conversation Agent belongs to your business. You can export it, use it in your own systems, and take it with you if you cancel.

No. CRSTBL runs without requiring PII from your visitors. Intent, analytics, and business insights come from the aggregate patterns in conversations, not from who is asking.

If you want to capture leads, you can optionally offer email capture — but that’s an opt-in, not a requirement.

Industries with information that’s hard to browse but easy to describe. Common fits:

• Restaurants — menu, dietary, hours, reservations
• Retail — product discovery, availability, sizing, comparisons
• Distributors and manufacturers — technical spec discovery, sales enablement
• Professional services — service scoping, booking, policy questions
• Medical, dental, real estate — service and location questions
• Multi-location and franchise operators — consistent conversations across every site

Yes. On CRSTBL Enterprise, each location can maintain its own product info, hours, policies, and menu variations while sharing a common brand voice via Character Identity. Multi-location deployments also unlock cross-location conversation analytics.

Yes. CRSTBL supports multilingual conversations, which matters for restaurants, retailers, trade shows, and multi-region businesses.

Yes, optionally. CRSTBL can offer to send a summary, resource, or follow-up by email when the visitor wants a record of the conversation. Lead capture is designed to feel like an offered convenience, not a gate on the conversation.

Yes. CRSTBL Local is designed for individual small business locations that want conversational AI without a large technical team, an onboarding project, or an enterprise contract. Sign up, provide your info, and your agent is live within a day. You can add more Local subscriptions as your business grows, or move to Enterprise when you need chain-wide analytics across sites.