How an AI receptionist works: a customer calls, it picks up, the booking is in your book
No app for them, no software for you, and nothing new on your counter. Here is the whole thing, in order.
One call, start to finish
Every step below is something you can hear for yourself — the recording on this site is a real call, and the language changes 5 times in it.
- 01
Someone calls the number on your window
You keep your number. Nothing changes for the person calling — they dial what they have always dialled, and there is nothing for them to install or sign up for.
- 02
It picks up straight away
No ringing out, no voicemail, no “your call is important to us”. It starts speaking in about two thirds of a second — quickly enough that nobody wonders whether the line went dead.
- 03
It answers in whatever language they speak
Nobody presses a key and nobody has to switch. It recognises more than twenty languages and follows the caller if they change mid-sentence — which, in a family business, happens more than you would think.
- 04
It asks what your trade actually needs to know
A table booking needs a party size. A dog groom needs the breed. A locksmith call needs where you are standing right now. It asks the questions your line of work requires, and it does not ask the ones it does not need.
- 05
It checks your real book — not a generic calendar
Who is working, what they can do, how long each thing actually takes with them, how many places are left. If there is no room, it says so and offers what there is, rather than promising a slot you cannot honour.
- 06
It writes the booking and texts a six-character code
The code is the thing your customer keeps. They can read it back to cancel or change, and you can find the booking by it. The booking is in your book before they hang up.
What it will not do
The worry is never whether it can answer. It is whether it will say something on your behalf that is not true.
It does not make things up
It can state your hours, your services and prices, your staff and who does what. Ask it about parking, allergens or whether dogs are welcome, and it says plainly that it cannot confirm that one — instead of guessing what is usual for a business like yours.
What it cannot answer becomes a callback
It asks for their number, reads it back digit by digit, writes the question down in their own words, and tells them you will get back to them. It lands at the top of your dashboard as somebody waiting on a call.
If it ever fails, your mobile rings
Four seconds of silence and the call falls through to a spoken message and then to your phone. For a small business an unanswered phone is worse than a slow app — you lose the customer and you never find out it happened.
It texts you four things — Everything else waits
A receptionist that buzzes your phone for every future booking is a receptionist you turn off — and when you turn it off, you turn off the cancellations too.
- Today’s bookings and cancellations
- Parties of six or more
- Any service crossing 80% full
- Nothing at all during the hours you set — it batches and waits
Setting it up takes a paragraph
You do not fill in forms or learn a screen. You describe your business the way you would describe it to a new member of staff, and it works out the rules from that. You read them back and change anything before it goes live.
Describe your business
“Three stylists. Tony does everything, Lisa does cuts and colour only. A cut is thirty minutes, a perm is three hours. Closed Sundays.” One paragraph, your own words. No forms, no field names, no onboarding call.
Check what it reads back
That paragraph becomes your staff, services, durations and hours — and, if your trade is not one we have already tuned, the rules for your trade too: what you call your people, what has to be asked on the call. We read the whole thing back in plain sentences. Nothing goes live until you say it is right.
Forward your line
You keep the number on your window and your Google listing. Forward it to the line we give you, and from that moment every call gets picked up.
Yours is probably one of the 16 we have already tuned.
And if it is not, it gets written from your paragraph like everything else. There is no waiting list.