Sam is Fountain’s AI Satisfaction Manager. Sam holds short voice conversations with your workers at key points in their employment, from a few days before their first day through their 90-day milestone and an exit interview, and turns what they say into scores, follow-up actions and retention signals your team can act on.
Workers get an email and SMS invitation and talk to Sam right in their browser, in English, Spanish or French. Sam adapts to what each worker says, follows up on anything unresolved, and flags workers who may be at risk of leaving. Results appear in Sam’s Responses and Insights tabs, and you can use Cue to dig into trends or follow up on what Sam finds.
Where To Find Sam
Sam lives under Talent Agents in the left navigation. Open Talent Agents → Sam to reach the Sam workspace.
What you need before you begin
Access to Sam is controlled by three permissions in the Talent Agents section of each role:
Can access Talent Agents: see and open Talent Agents from the navigation menu.
Can manage Talent Agents: change the configuration and settings of Talent Agents, including setting up, activating, pausing, and testing surveys.
Can view completed calls and results: see all completed calls, their transcripts, recordings, and insights.
By default, the Administrator role has all three. The Standard Role can access Talent Agents and view completed calls and results, but can't manage surveys. Other roles, such as the Restricted Role, have none of them unless you turn them on.
Set up workers before you activate a survey
Sam contacts workers, not applicants. A survey only reaches people who have a profile in Worker Profiles and who match its segment:
The milestone check-ins reach workers whose employment status is Active and whose start date matches the milestone.
The Pre first day check-in also includes Pre-hire workers.
The Exit interview uses the worker's termination date.
If you hire through Fountain Hire, make sure an automation in Settings → Automations turns hired applicants into workers with the right status before you activate a survey. For example:
An automation with An applicant as its source can run when an applicant's stage changes to Approved and use Update associated worker status to set the worker's status to Active.
If hired applicants aren't already created as workers, the Create or update worker using the Hire Connector mappings action creates them.
For more, see Automation Center - Building Automation Rules and Manage Worker Status.
Sam Needs Workers to Reach
If hired applicants never become workers, or never reach Active status, a survey's segment stays empty and no one receives an invite.
Surveys overview
The Sam workspace has three tabs:
Surveys (where you activate and configure check-ins)
Responses (individual completed calls)
Insights (aggregated themes)
This article will focus on the Surveys tab.
Each check-in is called a survey: a specific conversation Sam conducts with a worker at a particular milestone. You can activate as many or as few as you want.
On the Surveys tab, surveys are organized under All surveys, Active, and Inactive, each with a count. An active survey shows an Active badge and an Edit button. A survey that isn't set up yet shows Start setup, and one that's set up but not yet active shows Finish Setup. A paused survey shows a Paused badge.
Survey Templates
Sam includes seven survey templates. The same names appear in the Responses and Insights filters.
Pre first day check-in
Pre first day check-in
Outreach to new hires 3 days before their start date to confirm logistics, set day-one expectations, and catch any last-minute blockers that could cause a no-show.
Post first day check-in
Post first day check-in
A feedback conversation after a new hire's first day that captures logistics issues, gaps in onboarding, and first-impression signals.
First week check-in
First week check-in
An end-of-first-week call to confirm role clarity, training adequacy, and goal-setting before first impressions harden into disengagement.
30 day check-in
30 day check-in
A check-in to assess early settling-in, role confidence, and team integration, catching at-risk workers before the 30-day mark becomes a turnover event.
60-day check-in
60-day check-in
A call to assess manager relationship depth and engagement, designed to surface "quiet quitter" signals before they crystallize into attrition.
90-day check-in
90-day check-in
A milestone check at the end of onboarding that covers overall satisfaction, long-term commitment, and likelihood to recommend the company.
Exit interview
Exit interview
A pre-final-day call that captures honest feedback on why workers leave, such as pay, management, culture, or personal reasons, to help reduce future attrition.
Activate a check-in survey
Setting up a survey and taking it live are separate steps, so you can review everything before Sam contacts anyone.
Open Talent Agents → Sam and stay on the Surveys tab.
Find the survey you want to run and click Start setup on its card. This creates the survey's preconfigured segment and adds the survey to Settings → Automations as a paused automation.
The survey's page opens with the banner This survey is not active yet, and the survey doesn't contact anyone until you activate it. If you try to leave before activating, a Finish activating this survey dialog warns that the survey will stay inactive. Click Stay on page to keep working, or Leave anyway. The card then shows Finish Setup so you can pick up where you left off.
Review and adjust the trigger, the questions, and any custom instructions, and test the conversation (see Test Sam before workers see it). Sam only contacts workers when the trigger happens, and only once the survey is active.
When you're happy with the audience and the questions, click Activate at the top right of the survey page. The banner changes to This survey is active, the survey's automation switches from Paused to Active, and Sam starts reaching matching workers automatically.
Activate Takes the Survey Live
A survey stays inactive while you set it up. Once you click Activate, Sam begins reaching matching workers, so make your edits and test before you click it.
Choose who Sam targets
When you click Start setup, Sam creates a preconfigured segment for the survey. Each survey has its own default: for example, Exit interview targets workers whose termination date is tomorrow, and the milestone check-ins are based on start date and employment status.
For example, the Post first day check-in uses the Day 1 Milestone segment: "Workers whose employment status is Active and whose start date was exactly 1 day ago." A copy of the segment is saved with the survey, and it appears under Settings → Segments.
You can keep the default segment or change it before going live:
Swap in a different segment from your account, for example one scoped to a specific location, brand, or employment type.
Target an attribute change or worker update instead of a segment, for example only workers who have completed their first shift.
Add filters to narrow who's included.
Make your changes and click Save. Sam uses Fountain's automation center to send notifications based on these conditions.
Edit a survey's trigger
On a survey card, open the ⋮ menu and choose Edit (or click Edit directly), then click Edit on the Trigger row. This opens the survey's installation editor as a full page.
On the survey page, the Trigger row summarizes the current condition as a sentence, for example Run 90-day check-in when a worker enters 90-day milestone. In the installation editor, the same condition appears as WHEN a worker enters segment 90-Day Milestone.
Only Triggers And Filters Are Editable
In the trigger editor, the source and agent are locked to the values chosen when the survey was installed; only the Trigger and Filters can be changed here.
The editor has three blocks:
Source (a worker)
Trigger (choose at least one)
Filters (optional).
Each trigger row has its own edit and delete icons. Click Add under Trigger to pick a condition from the menu: when a worker enters or exits a segment, is created, deleted, or updated, or when a worker's attribute, job, location, Onboard status, or status changes.
Choosing "When a worker enters or exits a segment" opens a panel where you pick Enters segment or Leaves segment and choose the segment from a dropdown, for example 30-Day Milestone, 60-Day Milestone, 90-Day Milestone, Day 1 Milestone, Day 7 Milestone, All Workers, All new hires starting in 3 days, All recently departed workers, or All workers whose termination date is tomorrow.
Filters work the same way: click Add under Filters for a menu of conditions, such as only if a worker's attribute, job, location, Onboard status, segment, or status matches, or only if an applicant's attribute or stage matches, or only if the worker matches a dataset.
Click Save to apply your changes.
Customize Sam's questions
To adjust what Sam asks, open the survey (⋮ → Edit, or Edit on the card). The survey page shows the Trigger, Questions, and Custom instructions together, with Test and Save at the top right. While a survey isn't active yet, Activate appears there too.
The Questions section lists the questions Sam asks, in order, with a count of how many the survey has. For example, the 90-day check-in starts with these five:
"How are you feeling overall about your experience so far?"
"Do you feel like you've been able to grow or develop in these three months?"
"How would you describe the culture on your team? Do you feel like you genuinely belong there?"
"Now, can you see yourself still being here a year from now?"
"Last question: if a friend of yours was job hunting, would you tell them to apply here? And what would you tell them?"
To the right of each question are icons to add guidance (Add guidance), move the question up or down, and delete it.
To add a question:
Click Add question. A new numbered row appears at the end of the list.
Type the question in the Type a question field.
Optionally, click Add guidance on that row to add a short note on how Sam should follow up on the answer.
Use the arrows to move the question into position, then click Save.
Keep Questions Focused
Aim for three to five substantive questions per call. Sam fills in the gaps with natural follow-up probes, so you don't need to script every angle.
Write Conversational Questions
Open-ended, spoken-style questions work best. Prefer "How are you feeling about the role now that you've had a few weeks in it?" over "On a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with your onboarding experience?"
Use Guidance for Coaching Notes
Use Add guidance on a question to tell Sam how to handle the answer, for example "If they say no, accept it and don't push."
Add custom instructions
Use the Custom instructions box to tell Sam anything it should say or handle a specific way. Sam follows these instructions in every conversation for that survey. For example: “If someone asks about changing their shift schedule, tell them to give it another 2 weeks before we revisit how to change schedules.”
Click Save when you're done. Saved changes to questions and custom instructions apply to future invitations.
What you cannot edit
You can't edit Sam's persona and tone (name, voice, interruption handling), its call process and guidelines (how it opens and closes, error handling, guardrails), or its output instructions (what data it extracts and how). The source and agent are also locked once the survey is installed.
Sam chooses each call's language from the worker's Preferred language. See Use Sam.
Customize the invite message
Each survey's Invite message section has one row per channel, Email and SMS. Each row shows a preview of the message, a toggle that turns the channel on or off, and an Edit button. A row marked Fountain default uses Fountain's standard message.
Edit the email or SMS
The editor shows a live preview of the message as the worker will see it.
Click Edit on the Email or SMS row.
Change the text:
For email, you can also change the Subject and the Button label (the text on the button that starts the check-in), format the text, and add links or images.
For SMS, you can add emoji and variables.
To add details such as the worker's first name or the company name, click the { } icon and choose a variable. Variables are grouped under All, Worker, Company, and Brand, and include your own worker attributes.
Click Save invite message, or Close to leave without saving.
The SMS includes a {{loginLink}} placeholder, which is replaced with the worker's link to Sam. Keep it in the message so workers can start the call.
Turn a channel on or off
Use the toggle on a channel's row. One channel always stays on: switching off the last one switches the other back on. To stop invites altogether, pause the survey.
When you change a row from Fountain's default, a Reset option appears on it.
Test Sam before workers see it
Use the Test button at the top right of the survey page to hear the conversation yourself before it reaches workers.
Before you can test, prepare a test worker:
Open the worker's profile (Worker Profiles → [worker]), click Actions → Worker Settings, turn on Mark as test profile in the Custom worker settings dialog, and click Confirm. Only workers marked as a test profile appear in the test picker.
Make sure that worker has a job and a location. Sam uses the worker's name, phone, job, and location to guide the conversation.
Then, on the survey page:
Click Test. The Test in browser window opens.
Under Select a test worker, choose your test worker.
Click Start test call and enable your microphone when prompted.
Sam connects and begins the call. You'll see a live transcript with a Recording indicator and timer, plus Mute and End controls, exactly as a worker would experience it.
Pause, reactivate, or remove a survey
Each survey card has a ⋮ menu with Edit, Pause, and Uninstall
Pause stops the survey from sending invitations. The card shows a Paused badge and moves to the Inactive tab.
Uninstall removes the survey’s installation entirely.