— AI for small business / Receptionist

Every call answered, including the ones at 7:40pm.

A voice agent on your existing number and a chat agent on your site. It answers from facts you approve, books into your real calendar, takes orders and messages, and passes anything awkward to a person with the context already written down.

Tell us what you need All AI services

What changes in a normal week.

Today With it in place
Calls after 5pm go to a voicemail most people never leave. The caller gets an answer, a booking, or a promise of a callback with a time attached.
Whoever is at the counter stops serving to answer “are you open Sunday?” for the ninth time. Hours, location, parking, and delivery-area questions are handled without anyone picking up.
Messages arrive as “call me back” with a number and nothing else. Each message lands as a short summary: who, what they need, how urgent, and the best time to reach them.

What it handles.

  • After-hours and overflow calls

    Rings through to your staff first and picks up only when nobody can, or takes every call outside opening hours. You choose the rule, and you can change it per day.

  • Bookings into your real calendar

    Checks live availability in Google Calendar, Microsoft 365, or your booking tool, books the slot, and sends the confirmation. No double-booking, no second calendar to maintain.

  • Order and enquiry intake

    For restaurants and trades: takes a structured order or job request, reads it back, and sends it to the kitchen screen, inbox, or job tool. It never takes card numbers by voice.

  • Answers from facts you approve

    Hours, services, service area, price ranges you are happy to quote, and policies. It answers only from that list and says “let me get someone” when the question is not on it.

  • A clean handoff to a person

    Urgent or upset callers are transferred straight away, or flagged for a callback, with a written summary so nobody asks the caller to repeat themselves.

  • The same brain on your website

    The chat agent on your site uses the same approved facts and the same booking rules, so the phone and the website never give different answers.

How we set it up.

Setup usually takes a few weeks. It starts on after-hours calls only, so nothing about your daytime service changes until you have read real transcripts.

  1. Listen first

    We go through a week of your real calls and messages with you and write down the twenty questions that make up most of them.

  2. Write the playbook

    Approved answers, booking rules, what counts as urgent, and who gets the transfer. You sign it off in plain English.

  3. Connect and test

    Forwarding or porting your number, calendar and order connections, then rounds of test calls, including bad lines, background noise, and awkward callers.

  4. Go live after hours

    Overflow and after-hours only for the first weeks. You get every transcript and a weekly note on what we changed.

  5. Tune and widen

    Once the transcripts read well, we widen the hours or add the website chat. We keep tuning as part of ongoing care.

What stops it going wrong.

A receptionist that invents a refund policy is worse than voicemail. These rules are built in, and the weekly transcript review is where we prove they hold.

  • Answers only from the approved playbook, and says so when it does not know.
  • Always offers a person, and transfers immediately on request or on signs of distress.
  • Tells callers they are speaking to an automated assistant, and that calls are recorded where they are.
  • Never takes payment card numbers, passwords, or health details by voice.
  • Can never approve a payment, refund, or change of banking details. Voice cloning makes that a fraud channel.
  • Transcripts and recordings are kept for a retention period you set, then deleted.

Is it for you?

A good fit when

  • You miss calls after hours, at lunch, or during the rush, and those calls are bookings or orders.
  • Most calls are the same handful of questions.
  • You already use an online calendar or booking tool, or are willing to.
  • Someone on your team will read the weekly summary for the first month.

Probably not yet when

  • Most calls are complex, emotional, or need a professional judgment on the spot.
  • Your phone volume is a few calls a week. A good voicemail and a fast callback cost less.
  • You want it to negotiate prices or make commitments on your behalf.

What it costs to run.

There is a one-time setup and a monthly running cost. The running cost is mostly usage: telephone minutes and model time, which scale with your call volume. We quote both in writing after a short brief, with the usage estimate based on your real call numbers rather than a guess.

What moves the number

  • Monthly call minutes and how many go to the agent rather than to staff.
  • How many systems it books or orders into (calendar, POS, job tool, CRM).
  • Phone only, or phone plus website chat.
  • Languages. English and French are routine; others are scoped case by case.
  • How much ongoing tuning you want as your services and hours change.

— Questions

Before you write.

Will callers know it is not a person?

Yes. It introduces itself as an automated assistant. That is both the honest choice and the practical one: callers are more patient with a system that is upfront, and it avoids consent problems with recording.

Do we need a new phone number?

No. Most setups forward your existing number to the agent on no-answer or after hours. Porting the number is possible if you want the agent to sit in front of every call, but it is rarely needed to start.

Can it speak French?

Yes. English and French are routine, and it can switch when the caller does. Other languages depend on voice quality for that language, and we test them with you before promising anything.

What happens when it gets something wrong?

You see it in the transcript, we fix the playbook or the rule that caused it, and we tell you what changed. Every call is logged, so mistakes are found by review rather than by an unhappy customer.

Is our call data used to train AI models?

We set it up on business-grade providers whose terms say customer data is not used for training, and we keep recordings and transcripts only as long as you choose. Where Canadian hosting matters to you, we say exactly which parts can stay in Canada and which cannot.

Can it take restaurant orders?

Yes. It reads the menu, handles modifiers, repeats the order back, and sends it where your other online orders go. For payment it sends a secure pay link by text, or the order is paid on pickup. It never takes card numbers by voice.

The other three AI services.

Further reading What an AI receptionist handles, and where it failsAI voice cloning and payment fraudRestaurants: moving off GloriaFood

— Engage

How many calls did you miss last week?

Tell us roughly how many calls you get, when they come in, and what most of them are about. We reply in writing within one business day with whether an AI receptionist makes sense for you.

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