An AI voice receptionist answers the calls you can't take, when you're busy, on another line or closed, and talks to the caller in a natural, friendly voice. It answers their questions using information about your business, takes their details and passes the enquiry straight to you. If you use a booking system or calendar, it can book them in there and then.
What happens when a call comes in
Here's the journey from the caller's side.
- The call goes unanswered. You're with a customer, the line's busy or it's after hours. Most business lines and mobiles can forward unanswered calls, or calls outside set hours, to another number. That's the usual way a missed-call service is connected, so customers keep ringing the number they already have.
- The receptionist picks up. It greets the caller in your business's name and asks how it can help.
- It answers what it can. Opening hours, where you are, which services you offer, typical prices, whether you cover their area: the questions you answer over and over.
- It takes the details. Name, number, what they need, and anything useful for the job, such as an address or the kind of appointment.
- It books, or hands over. If you use a booking system or calendar, it can book them into a free slot. If not, or if the request needs you, the enquiry is passed straight to you to follow up.
The caller gets an answer instead of a ringtone. You get an enquiry with the details written down, instead of a missed call from a number you don't recognise.
What it knows, and what it doesn't
The receptionist is tailored to your business. Before it takes a call, it's set up with your services, prices, opening hours, location and the questions customers usually ask. That's what lets it sound like part of your business rather than a call centre.
It only knows what it's been told. It won't know the van broke down this morning, or the price you agreed with a regular last week. So two habits matter:
- Keep its information current. When your prices, hours or services change, its information needs to change too.
- Hand over rather than guess. Anything outside its brief, such as a complaint, a complicated quote or a sensitive conversation, should become a message for you, not an improvised answer.
Missed and out-of-hours, not every call
The standard set-up covers your missed and out-of-hours calls on one site. You still answer when you can, and the receptionist only steps in when you can't.
That keeps you in charge. Your regulars still reach you whenever you're free, and the conversations that need a person still come to a person. If you'd rather have every call answered by the receptionist, or you run more than one site, both are possible and quoted separately.
Being straight with callers
It's worth being open with callers about who, or what, they're talking to.
- Say it's an automated assistant. A short line at the start of the call is fairer to callers and avoids awkwardness later.
- Cover it in your privacy notice. If calls are recorded or transcribed, or callers' details are stored, UK GDPR expects you to tell people how their information is used. This isn't legal advice; the ICO's guidance is the place to check.
- Plan for urgent calls. If some calls can't wait until morning, decide in advance what those callers should be told and how you can be reached.
What it costs, and how to sense-check it
Our AI Voice Receptionist is £349 a month on a 12-month agreement, or £299 a month if you're on our Scale plan. There's a £495 setup fee, waived when you commit for 12 months.
On its own, it includes 600 minutes of calls a month, then 25p a minute. On the Scale plan, calls are covered up to 1,500 minutes a month on a fair-use basis.
To see whether 600 minutes suits you, use your own call log. Here's a worked example, not data: if a typical call lasts three minutes, 600 minutes covers 200 calls a month, around 46 a week. If you went 100 minutes over in a month, that would add £25.
Then weigh the monthly cost against what missed calls cost you. As another worked example, if a typical job is worth £120, the receptionist at £349 a month needs to win you about three extra jobs a month to cover itself. Run the sum with your own figures before you decide.
Where we come in
We set up the AI Voice Receptionist around your business, from the questions it answers to how enquiries reach you. You can see the full pricing on our pricing page.