An AI receptionist for the calls you cannot answer
You cannot answer every call, and hiring a receptionist may be more than you can justify. Answering the calls yourself means stopping the work you are paid for, and letting them ring out means a caller who wanted to book may try someone else. An AI receptionist is software that answers your phone in a synthetic voice and can be set up to do a narrow job (how a call works, step by step).
Sound familiar?
The call that comes in during a call. You are already on the phone with one customer when a second rings. It goes unanswered while you finish the first, and that caller may not wait.
The lunchtime hour. The front desk closes from one to two. The phone keeps ringing, and nobody is there to pick it up until two.
The Sunday enquiry. The business is closed, but the caller has a free moment and wants the booking made now, while they think of it.
How the AI call answering service works
- Your number stays. Your line diverts calls to a number the assistant answers on: every call, calls nobody answers in time, or calls while the line is engaged, all hours or to a schedule you set. Changing which calls or hours is a settings change, not a rebuild. If your own voicemail picks up first, the assistant never gets the call, so the divert is set to come before it.
- It answers in your name and says what it is. Its first sentence names your business and says it is an automated assistant; the exact words are below.
- It is scripted to do one of four things. It books an appointment into a calendar on the platform it runs on, which can sync with your Google, Outlook or iCloud calendar; answers a question from the short list you approved; or, in your opening hours, puts the caller through to a person. When it can do none of those, it takes their details so a person can ring back.
- You get the summary. Who called, what they wanted, what happened — into your inbox. The summary is written by the AI, so check the transcript before relying on a detail.
What the starting price buys
The price buys one assistant, scripted to its narrow job and sitting behind a divert, doing everything in the steps above. Before it goes live, you ring it from your own phone and try every path, the transfer included; after that, each month brings tuning and a report. Usage is not included: whatever the platform charges for, such as the call minutes, the AI voice and the line the calls divert to, is billed on top at cost, based on what you use. Your own phone provider may also charge for the diverted part of each call.
Add when you need it: call recording, switched on by you · a second line registered to your business · wiring into a CRM beyond the calendar. Each is an add-on, priced when you need it.
The opening line, word for word
Hello, you've reached the automated assistant for {Business}. I can book an appointment, take a message or put you through to someone. How can I help?
Out of hours, the offer becomes "I can book an appointment or take a message so someone can call you back." With recording on, the next sentence says so, and why: "This call is recorded to {reason}."
What keeps you safe
On this plan the assistant answers calls and never makes them. Two standards of ours: its answers carry no promotional content (the law on AI receptionists), and its first sentence says it is automated, which the terms of GoHighLevel, the platform it runs on, require too. Recording stays off unless you switch it on; then callers are told the call is recorded and why. Treatment, clinical and legal questions are scripted to go to a person. Clinics and practices that hold patient records are built under AI Integration, in an account of their own.
What it costs
A set-up fee and a monthly fee, shown on the pricing page with the rest of our services. Usage is billed on top at cost, based on what you use, at rates in pounds. What moves the plan price is calendar and CRM wiring and how many distinct jobs the assistant is scripted to do; your industry does not.
When something else fits better
If someone can watch an inbox but nobody can take a call, Missed-Call Text-Back is the smaller product, and both start from a divert of the number you publish. If the assistant needs more than the short list of answers you approved, or has to make calls, that is a bespoke build with its own answer set, priced as a project on AI Integration. That build answers from reviewed copy, declines treatment questions, and hands to a person anything that would need a product named.
None of this is legal advice; it describes how the assistant is scripted and disclosed. Get in touch with what your phones look like on a busy afternoon, or read how a project runs first.