Get the customer
What an AI receptionist can and can't do
Every missed call is a lead you paid for and then dropped on the floor. A plumber on a job, a dentist's front desk at lunch, a one-person shop with the phone in the truck. The call rings out, the caller dials the next name, and nobody ever knows it happened.
An AI receptionist fixes the missed call. It does not fix everything, and vendors who say otherwise are selling. Here's what it actually does, and where a human still has to be.
What it does well
- Answers every call, first ring, seven days a week, in a voice that sounds like a person and knows your hours, services and prices.
- Takes the caller's name, need and best time, and books it straight into your calendar.
- Texts you a summary the moment the call ends, with the number, so you can call back if it matters.
- Handles the twenty questions you answer forty times a week: are you open, do you do X, how much is Y, where are you.
What it can't do
- Make a judgment call. It can't tell an emergency from a nuisance the way your receptionist can, unless you've given it rules for that.
- Close a sale that needs a conversation. It books the estimate; you still sell the job.
- Know what it doesn't know. When a caller goes off script, a good one says "let me have someone call you back" and does. A bad one guesses.
The setup that works
- Write down your top twenty questions and the answers you'd want given. That's the script.
- Decide what counts as urgent and where those go. A text to your cell, a transfer, a different number.
- Start with after-hours and overflow only. Let it prove itself before it takes the front line.
- Read the summaries daily for the first month. You'll fix three things in the first week.
We run one ourselves and it's in every plan we sell. If you'd rather see whether your response time is the problem first, the Growth Score measures it.