AI receptionist or voicemail?

The short version

Voicemail records whatever a caller chooses to say, if they choose to say anything. An AI receptionist has a conversation: it answers as your business, asks the questions you would ask, and sends you the answers in a text.

If your callers are patient and you ring back quickly, voicemail does the job. If your callers are in a hurry, which in most trades they are, the difference is whether they stay on the line at all.

What the caller experiences

With voicemail, the caller hears a greeting and a beep. They have to decide on the spot what to say, with nobody prompting them. People with an urgent problem often hang up before the beep and ring the next firm. Those who do leave a message tend to leave half of what you need.

With an AI receptionist, the phone is answered with your business name by something that responds to them. It asks what has happened, where they are and how soon they need someone, one question at a time. The caller has been dealt with, which is the thing that stops them ringing round.

That is the heart of it. The value is not in the technology. It is in the caller feeling that someone has taken their problem and will ring them back.

What you receive

From voicemail you get a recording. You have to listen to it, sometimes twice, and write down the number. You cannot tell what a message is about, or how urgent, without playing it. If there are six, you play them in order.

From an AI receptionist you get a text you can read in five seconds between jobs: name, number, where they are, what they need and how urgent it is. Urgent calls are marked. You can decide which to ring first without listening to anything, and you often know what to load on the van before you ring back.

With Kallorix the caller can also be sent a link during the call, to share their exact location or a photo of the problem. Voicemail has no way to do that.

Side by side

• Cost: voicemail is free. Kallorix starts at £39 a month.
• Answers as your business: voicemail plays your greeting; a receptionist holds a conversation.
• Gets the details: voicemail gets whatever the caller volunteers; a receptionist asks for what your trade needs.
• Tells you what's urgent: voicemail, only once you have listened; a receptionist marks it in the text.
• Works at night: both do, but only one of them can try your mobile for a caller who can't wait.
• Other languages: voicemail, no; a Kallorix receptionist switches to the caller's language and still texts you in English.
• Set-up: voicemail is already there. A receptionist takes about ten minutes.
• Can go wrong by: voicemail, a full mailbox or a default greeting; a receptionist, mishearing a name or a number, which is why she reads numbers back.

When voicemail is enough

Plenty of businesses don't need more than voicemail, and there is no sense paying for something you won't use.

• You miss a call or two a week, not several a day.
• Your work is planned and quoted, so callers are happy to wait until the evening.
• Most of your calls are from existing customers who know you will ring back.
• You check messages between jobs and return them within minutes.

If that is you, spend ten minutes on a better greeting instead. Our guide to voicemail greetings for trades has wording you can record today.

When it isn't

• You do urgent work: leaks, lockouts, breakdowns, blocked drains, no heating.
• You miss calls most days because your hands are full or you are driving.
• You often ring people back to find they have already booked someone.
• You pay for advertising or leads, so each missed call has already cost you money.
• You get messages with no number, or no detail, and have to chase them.

The quickest test is to count. Look at your missed calls for a week and ring a few back. If most have gone elsewhere, voicemail is costing you more than it saves. Our guide to what a missed call costs shows how to put a figure on it.

You don't have to switch voicemail off

An AI receptionist uses the same mechanism as voicemail: your phone rings first, and calls you don't answer are passed on. You dial one code to send them to her instead of to your mailbox, and another to go back. Nothing changes for your customers, who ring the number they always have.

So trying it is not a commitment. You can hear your own receptionist in a free demo first, with no card, then use her for 7 days free. If it isn't for you, dial the code to switch back and your voicemail is exactly as you left it.