The AI receptionist: every call answered in your shop's name

What happens on a call

A call comes in. If the office does not pick up (or you have told the receptionist to take every call), it answers with your shop's name and greeting. It asks what is wrong first, then who it is speaking with, matching caller ID to an existing customer when it can. Then it asks what a good CSR would ask for that kind of call: is water still running, is the outdoor unit on, is anything sparking, how old is the roof.

For a routine job it offers real openings from your board and books one while the caller is on the line. The customer gets the confirmation, and the job lands on the dispatch board with the call notes attached, so the tech can read what the customer said before knocking. Every call is transcribed and lands in the one inbox with your texts, email and web leads.

How it stays accurate

The rule that matters most: every fact a caller hears comes from your SWITCHBOARD data through code. Your hours, whether a town is in your service area, an arrival window, a price you have allowed it to quote, a tech's name, an ETA. The AI's job is the part code cannot do: understand what the caller means, notice an upset caller, and say the next question naturally. If its own words ever carry a time, price or name that did not come from your data, that line is cut before it is spoken.

When it does not know something, it does not make it up. It takes the name, number and problem for a callback and tells the caller someone will call back.

What you teach it

• Your service area, town by town.
• Your trip charge or diagnostic fee, if you want it quoted.
• The jobs you do not take, so it can say so politely.
• Your phone menu, for example press 1 for an emergency.
• Who is on call, so real emergencies reach a person.

You change any of it in settings, and the next call uses the new answer.

When it answers

You choose: only after hours, only when the line is busy, every call, or ring the office first and let it catch what nobody picks up. Many shops start with after hours and missed calls, then widen it once they have listened to a week of transcripts.

What it is not

It is not an answering service that takes a message for the morning, and it is not a phone tree that makes people press buttons for five minutes. It is also not a salesperson: it books and triages, and quotes only the prices you have allowed. For bigger jobs it books the estimate visit. The comparison with a human answering service is in AI receptionist vs answering service.

Your number

You can keep your existing number. Most shops forward it first, which takes minutes, and port it later if they want to. Calls work as soon as forwarding is on. To see what missed calls cost you now, run the missed-call revenue calculator.