Three things carry a store's context to the phone: its numbers, its AI agents, and its knowledge. Link all three to the right store and the AI answers every call with that brand's products, pricing, and policies — and each store's calls, texts, and reporting stay separate.
Assigning phone numbers
When you add or edit a number (Phone numbers > Add phone number), you set two things:
Name — used internally for your team to identify the number. Best practice: name it after its store, so routing, the inbox, and reports read clearly.
Store — in the product's words: "Link it to a store to show that store's customers and orders on calls. Leave it empty to share the number across stores."
So a number doesn't have to belong to a store — but when it does, calls and messages on that number use that store's orders, products, AI agents and business hours. A store-linked number also sends that store's SMS, keeps the store's default Caller ID name (or sets its own), and follows the store's routing and business hours.
For international stores, use a local number per country, each linked to its store.
When to link, and when to share: link the number to its store whenever you want AI answering it or store-level reporting on it — that's the best practice. Leave the store empty only for a genuinely shared line, and know the trade-off: an AI agent can't serve a shared line with full store context, because an AI agent belongs to one store.
Assigning AI agents
When you create an AI agent (AI agents > Create an AI agent), you pick its Store. The dialog states the rule exactly: "This agent uses this store's orders, products and knowledge, and only answers this store's numbers."
That's why one AI agent can't serve two stores from one line — it would have no way to know which store's catalog the caller means. After creating the agent, Assign to phone numbers chooses which of the store's numbers it answers.
Human agents and teams are different: one agent or team can be in the routing for phone lines across all your stores, independent of store. On an inbound call, the pop-up tells the agent which store the call belongs to.
One public number for several stores? Use an IVR.
If one phone number is already printed across your marketing and you don't want to change it, you can keep it — route it with an IVR:
Keep the public number as the entry point.
Start the call with an IVR: "Press 1 for [Store A], press 2 for [Store B]."
Each option forwards to that store's own line, where its AI agent and routing take over.
Callers keep dialing the number they know; each store's AI still answers with the right context. If you're setting this up, see Inbound call routing: 5 modes explained.
Knowledge: per store, or All stores
Every knowledge source in Consio is assigned to a store — or to All stores. A store's AI agents use the knowledge assigned to their store, plus anything assigned to All stores. An AI agent will not answer from another store's content: the AI answering for Store A works only from Store A's knowledge (and the shared All-stores content), so callers get that store's policies, pricing, and product details — not another brand's.
Open Knowledge base in the sidebar and you'll see the split:
Auto-synced — each store's product catalog and website pages, synced from that store's Shopify connection. These always belong to their store.
Custom — content you add yourself with + Add knowledge source, as Text ("write or paste information directly as text") or URL ("fetch and store content from a webpage"). When you add one, the Add to store picker chooses a single store or All stores.
The list shows each source's store, status (Processing, then Active), and who added it, and you can filter the whole list by store. The store's AI agents pick new knowledge up automatically once it's Active — no per-agent attachment needed. URL and file sources are read-only ("this content was automatically extracted from the original source") with a Refresh action; text sources you edit in place.
When to share, and when to split:
Same policy everywhere? Assign it to All stores once — a shared return policy or company FAQ shouldn't be maintained in three copies.
Genuinely different policies per region or brand? Add store-specific versions. A UK store with different return windows, or a brand with its own guarantee, gets its own source in its own store.
Completely different brands? Keep everything store-specific. Nothing leaks between them.
For how to write knowledge the AI answers well from, see Building your AI knowledge base.
Bringing existing numbers
If a store's number lives with another provider today, you can port it in — see Porting your phone number to Consio. Time the port against your store rollout so the number lands in the right store.