Is an AI receptionist right for your business?

Who it suits

An AI receptionist earns its keep when three things are true.

• You miss calls because of the work itself. You are on a roof, under a car or driving. Not because you are disorganised, but because the job and the phone cannot happen at once.
• Your callers need a quick answer. The more urgent your trade, the more a missed call is a lost job. Plumbers, locksmiths, recovery firms, drainage and heating engineers feel this most.
• The first call follows a pattern. What's wrong, where are you, how soon. If most of your first calls cover the same handful of questions, they can be asked well by something other than you.

If that sounds like your week, it will very likely pay for itself. For most trades, one recovered job a month more than covers the Starter plan.

Signs it's time

Most people who get one could have done with it months earlier. These are the signs to look for in your own week.

• Your missed calls list is full of numbers you don't know. Each one was somebody with a job.
• You ring people back and they've already found someone. This is the clearest sign of all.
• You answer the phone on a job and regret it. You lose your place, the customer in front of you waits, and you still can't write anything down.
• Somebody at home is taking your calls and it is starting to wear thin.
• You pay for adverts or leads. Every call has cost you money before it rings, so an unanswered one is money spent sending a customer elsewhere.
• Your evenings go on returning calls to find out what each job even is.
• You've thought about hiring someone for the phone but there isn't a full job in it yet.

Two or three of those is enough. You can put a figure on it with our guide to what a missed call costs.

The trades it suits best

Any business that takes enquiries by phone can use one, but some get more from it than others.

• Emergency trades: plumbers, heating engineers, locksmiths, drainage firms and vehicle recovery, where the caller books whoever answers first.
• Trades that can't touch a phone at work: roofers, tree surgeons, electricians mid-test, mechanics under a car.
• Trades with seasonal rushes: landscapers in spring, removals at the month end, pest controllers in summer, when the calls arrive faster than one person can take them.
• Quoted work with high job values: builders and roofers, where a single enquiry can be worth more than a year of the service.
• One-person businesses of any kind, where the person doing the work is also the person meant to be answering.

What it will and won't do on a call

It helps to be precise, because the phrase covers a lot of products.

A Kallorix receptionist answers as your business, asks the few questions your trade needs, and texts you the caller's name, number, where they are, what they need and how soon. She switches language if the caller does. She can text the caller a link to share a location or a photo. If you switch them on, she tries your mobile once for an urgent caller, and offers a free time from your calendar for you to confirm.

She does not diagnose faults, give safety or repair advice, quote prices you have not given her, or pretend to be a person if someone sincerely asks. She cannot ring the emergency services; she tells the caller to. A single call lasts up to five minutes.

Questions to ask any provider

These apply to us as much as to anyone. A good provider will answer all of them without hesitating.

• Does it make things up? Ask what it says when a caller asks something it doesn't know. The right answer is that it says so and takes a message.
• How is it priced? By the minute, by the call, or a flat fee. Work out what your own month would cost.
• What happens when the allowance runs out? Do calls stop being answered, or do you get a bill?
• Is there a contract? You should be able to leave when you like.
• Can I hear it as my business before I pay? Not a generic demo. Yours.
• Are calls recorded, and how long is anything kept?
• Do I keep my number?
• What if my phone can't divert calls?

Our guide to comparing AI receptionists goes through each of these and gives our own answers.

How to test one properly

A free trial only tells you something if you use it like a customer would.

• Ring it as your worst caller. Mumble. Interrupt. Give your number too fast. Ask for a price it shouldn't know.
• Ask something it can't know. It should say it is not sure and that someone will come back to them, not invent an answer.
• Read the text it sends. Could you do the job from that message alone?
• Get someone else to ring. A friend who doesn't know it is automated. Ask them how it felt.
• Use it for real for a few days. Divert your missed calls and see what comes through.

With Kallorix the first step costs nothing and needs no card: give us your website, or your trade and town, and ring your own receptionist. If you carry on, there are 7 days free, and nothing is charged until she is actually answering your calls.

If you're not there yet

If your phone is quiet for now, there are free things that help in the meantime. Record a proper voicemail greeting, ring back within minutes instead of hours, and work out what your missed calls cost so you know when to look again. A business that grows usually reaches the point where the phone becomes the bottleneck, and it is better to see that point coming.