An AI voice receptionist picks up every call your business gets, 24 hours a day, in your company's name. It answers questions, qualifies the lead, books the job on your calendar, and texts you a summary of what was said. It never takes a lunch break, never goes home at 5, and never lets a call roll to voicemail because it was on the other line.
1 of 4 · 14 stepsAn AI voice receptionist answers every call to your business 24/7 in your company's name, handles common questions, books jobs on your calendar, and texts you a summary. Set it up on your business number, train it on your services and prices, and it books the calls you would have missed.
Every call that goes to voicemail is a customer deciding whether to wait or call the next business. Most do not wait.
An AI voice receptionist picks up every call, answers the questions it can, and books the job before the caller moves on. It does this at 2 PM and at 2 AM, on the fifth call of a storm week and the first call of a quiet Tuesday.
Before you set anything up, decide what you want it to do. Is it answering every call, or just overflow when you are on the other line? Is it booking jobs, or just taking messages? Is it on 24/7, or just after hours? Most owners want it answering every call, booking the job, and texting a summary. Some want it only for nights and weekends. The setup is different for each. Write down what you want before you build anything, because a receptionist built to take messages will not book jobs even if you wish it would.
A roofer who wants overflow only sets it to pick up after 4 rings during the day and on every call after 6 PM. A plumber who wants every call sets it to answer on the second ring, all the time. Write your choice down before you touch any settings.
You can keep your current business number and forward it to the AI after a few rings, or you can move the number over entirely. If you forward, decide how many rings before the AI picks up. Two rings is the usual number, because it gives you a chance to grab it and the AI catches the rest. If you port the number over, the AI answers every call from the first ring. Do not set it to forward after 10 rings, because most callers hang up by ring 6. If you want a brand new number, pick a local area code, because customers answer local numbers and ignore out of state ones.
A local area code like 661 gets answered. A 800 number or an out of state area code gets ignored. Pick the one your town trusts.
The greeting is the first thing a caller hears. It should sound like your business. 'Thanks for calling [Company], how can I help?' is fine. 'Thank you for calling [Company], the leading provider of quality services in the greater metropolitan area' is not. Keep it short and natural. The AI will say it the same way every time, so make it something you would actually say. Do not have it claim to be a human. Do not have it claim to be 'the front desk' if you are a one truck shop. Callers can tell and it makes you look fake.
Good: 'Thanks for calling Henley Roofing, how can I help?' Bad: 'Thank you for contacting Henley Roofing, the premier roofing solutions provider serving the greater Bakersfield metropolitan region.' Say it the way you answer your phone.
Write down every service you offer, what it costs or how you quote it, and where you will and will not travel. The AI needs this to answer the questions callers actually ask. 'Do you do tankless water heaters?' 'What do you charge to come out?' 'Do you go to [city]?' If you do not give it the answers, it will either guess wrong or transfer every call to you. Be specific. 'Service call is $89, repairs quoted on site, we work in Bakersfield and Buttonwillow, we do not do new construction' is what it needs. Vague instructions give you a vague receptionist.
A plumber who loads 'Service call $89, tankless installs starting at $1,800, we do not touch new construction, we work Bakersfield and Buttonwillow only' gets fewer wrong calls than one who loads 'we do plumbing.'
Knowledge base starter
Business name: {your company}
Hours: {your real hours, including when you actually answer}
Service area: {cities or zip codes you actually drive to}
Services you offer: {list each one}
Price ranges: {service call $X, estimates free, etc.}
What you do not do: {new construction, solar, etc.}
What counts as an emergency: {active leak, no heat in winter, etc.}Decide how the AI should book. What appointment types do you offer, how long are they, and what buffer do you need between them? If you do estimates that take an hour and you need 30 minutes of drive time, do not let the AI book them back to back. Tell it your hours, your drive buffers, and how far out you will book. If you only book two weeks ahead, say so. If you do not work Sundays, say so. The AI books exactly what you tell it to book, so tell it the real rules, not the rules you wish you had.
Set estimates to 60 minutes with a 30 minute buffer, service calls to 90 minutes, and block Sundays. The AI reads those rules and never books an estimate at 4:30 when your next job is across town at 5.
Connect the AI to the calendar you actually use, not a separate one. If it books into a calendar you never check, you will double book yourself. Google Calendar, Outlook, or your CRM calendar all work. The AI reads the open slots and books into them, so it never double books. If you block time for a personal appointment, the AI sees it as busy and will not book over it. Make sure your personal calendar is actually connected or the AI will book jobs when you are supposed to be at your kid's game.
Some calls should not wait for a summary. An active leak, a furnace out in winter, a commercial account you always want to hear, whatever you decide. Write down what counts as urgent for your business. When one of those calls comes in, the AI gets the address and the problem and calls you right away instead of texting a summary later. You decide the rules. If you do not set them, every call gets summarized and the 2 AM leak waits until morning. Set the rules to match what you actually want to be woken up for.
A roofer sets 'water coming through the ceiling' and 'tree on the roof' as emergencies that call the owner at 2 AM. Everything else gets booked and texted in the morning. You decide your own list.
Some calls the AI cannot handle and should transfer to a human. A caller asking for something you do not do, a caller who insists on talking to a person, a caller who is already upset. Decide what triggers a transfer and who it transfers to. Give it your cell number or your office number. Do not transfer to a number you do not answer, because the caller just hits voicemail again and you look worse than if the AI had taken a message. Test the transfer by calling yourself and asking for something outside the AI's knowledge.
Some callers hang up before anyone answers, especially if it rang a few times. The AI can text them back within seconds. 'Hey, this is [Company], sorry we missed your call. How can I help?' Most of them text back and you book the job from the text thread. This one feature catches the callers who would otherwise be gone. Turn it on. If you do not, those callers call the next company and you never even knew they called.
A caller rings twice, hangs up, and the AI texts 'Hi, this is Valley Plumbing, sorry we missed your call. How can I help?' within seconds. They text back 'my sink is backed up' and the AI books it. Without the text back, that caller is already calling the next plumber.
If any of your customers speak Spanish, turn on bilingual answering. The AI detects the language and switches. This is not a separate number or a separate setup. It is one switch. If you serve an area with Spanish speakers and you do not turn it on, you are losing those calls to the company that does. If you do not serve any, leave it off. Do not turn it on just to have it, because it adds a small amount of setup to get the Spanish answers right.
Before you turn it on for real, call it yourself. Call from a different phone. Ask the questions your customers ask. Try to book a job. Try to throw it off with a weird request. Hang up early and see if it texts you back. Call in Spanish if you turned it on. Have a friend call and pretend to be a difficult customer. The test calls are where you find the gaps in your instructions. Fix the instructions, test again, and do not turn it on for customers until you would be happy to get the call yourself.
The agent answers in your business's name and sounds natural. If a caller asks whether they are talking to a person, it tells them it is an AI assistant for your business. Callers care far more about getting booked than about who answered. Do not have it claim to be human, and do not have it dodge the question. A straight answer keeps trust.
For the first month, listen to or read a few call transcripts every week. You will hear the questions it did not know how to answer and the jobs it booked wrong. Update your instructions and your booking rules based on what you hear. After a month, it mostly runs itself, but you should still check in monthly to keep it sharp. A receptionist you set up once and never tune slowly drifts out of date as your prices and services change.
You hear three callers ask about a service you stopped offering last month. You update the knowledge base to say you no longer do it, and the AI stops booking it. Without the weekly review, it keeps booking jobs you cannot take.
Compare how many calls you got to how many jobs you booked, before and after the AI. If you were booking one in five calls before and you are booking three in five now, the AI paid for itself. If the booking rate did not move, something in the setup is off and you need to listen to the calls and fix it. The number that matters is not how many calls the AI answered. It is how many of those calls turned into booked jobs. That is the whole point.
Within our first month we got a deal that gave us enough profit to pay for the service for a year.
Yes. Turn on bilingual answering and the AI detects the language and answers in Spanish. If you serve an area with Spanish speakers, turn it on. If you do not, leave it off.
Most will not unless you tell them. It sounds like a person and stays on track for the whole call. You can have it introduce itself as an assistant if you prefer, and most callers do not care as long as it helps them.
You decide. It can transfer the call to you or your team, take a message, or book a callback. Set the transfer rules once and it follows them every time.
Yes. Connect it to the calendar you actually use, set your hours and buffers, and it books into open slots without double booking. If you block personal time, it sees it as busy.
DIY tools run from free to about $50 a month, plus call time on some plans. RiverX Plus is $497 a month plus call time at $0.15 to $0.20 a minute, with the setup done for you. See our AI receptionist cost guide for the full breakdown.