Answering the routine question
Opening hours, what something costs, whether you take new customers, where you are. The same handful of questions, all day, every day.
AI RECEPTIONIST GUIDE
AI receptionist: what it does, and which kind you need
An AI receptionist answers the people who contact your business, handles the routine part of what they want, hours, prices, availability, booking, and hands the rest to a human. The first decision is not which vendor. It is which channel: voice AI answers the phone, a messaging receptionist answers WhatsApp.
Send your website. See Elily answer as your business.
The short version
- Voice and messaging are different products. Choose by where your customers already contact you.
- The routine share is what gets automated: hours, prices, availability, booking, rescheduling.
- A receptionist that cannot hand over is an answering machine with better grammar.
- Elily is a messaging receptionist on your own WhatsApp number, free to start.
IN THIS GUIDE
Every page in the AI receptionist guide
- Dental practices How an AI receptionist handles dental enquiries, appointments, emergencies, treatment questions and recalls, without pretending to be a clinician. →
- Salons and spas What an AI receptionist does for hair, beauty, nail and spa businesses: answers price questions, books the right service and quiets the front desk. →
- Medical practices An AI receptionist for GP surgeries and private clinics: routine enquiries and appointments handled, clinical questions routed to people who can answer. →
- Law firms How law firms use an AI receptionist for new enquiries and out-of-hours cover without giving legal advice or skipping the checks a person must make. →
- Trades and home services An AI receptionist for plumbers, electricians, HVAC and roofers: catch the job while you are on site, sort emergencies from quotes and book the visit. →
- Veterinary practices How a veterinary practice uses an AI receptionist for appointments, repeat prescriptions and opening hours, while emergencies go straight to a human. →
- Estate agents An AI receptionist for estate and letting agents: answer listing questions, book viewings and valuations, and stop enquiries going cold overnight. →
- Cost and pricing How AI receptionist pricing is built, per minute, per conversation or per seat, what drives the monthly cost, and how to compare two quotes honestly. →
- Or a phone system? Cloud phone systems now sell AI receptionist add-ons. What that category is for, where a messaging receptionist differs, and how to decide between them. →
- Build your own Building an AI receptionist with n8n, Make, Zapier or a voice API: what each tool gives you, what you still have to build, and when buying wins. →
What separates a receptionist from an auto-reply
An auto-reply acknowledges. A receptionist finishes. That is the entire distinction, and it is worth holding on to while you read vendor pages, because almost everything in this market claims the second and delivers the first.
Finishing means four things in sequence: understanding what was actually asked, answering it from the business's own information, doing the thing the customer wanted, usually booking, and knowing when to stop and fetch a person. Miss any one of those and the customer is back where they started, only later.
The fourth is the one most often skipped, and the one customers care about most. A receptionist that cannot hand over traps people, and trapped people leave.
Voice AI or messaging: which one fits
Answer honestly about where your enquiries arrive today, not where you wish they arrived.
| Your situation | Voice AI receptionist | Messaging receptionist |
|---|---|---|
| Most enquiries arrive as phone calls | The right category | Only helps the ones who would have messaged |
| Customers already message you | Adds a channel nobody asked for | The right category |
| Staff cannot stop to take a call | Answers, but hands back to a busy team | Finishes in writing while they work |
| Enquiries need a photo or a link | Awkward on a call | Natural, and it stays in the thread |
| The enquiry arrives at 10pm | Answers, if the product is on | Answers, and the thread is there in the morning |
| You need call routing across a team | The right category | Not what it is for |
The four jobs worth automating
Quoting what you publish
The price of the service they asked about, not a link to a price list. Anything that genuinely depends on an assessment should say so.
Booking against live availability
Reading the real calendar before offering a time, then writing the confirmed appointment back to it.
Handing over cleanly
With the conversation attached, so the person taking over is not starting from nothing and the customer is not repeating themselves.
What to ask any AI receptionist vendor
- Which channel is this: voice, messaging, or both, and which one is the mature half?
- Does it answer from my own services, prices and hours, or from a script I write?
- Do I review what it learned before customers see it?
- Does it read live calendar availability before offering a time?
- Can it reschedule and cancel, or only create?
- What triggers a handover, and what does the person receive?
- What does it say when it does not know?
- What is the pricing unit, and what sits outside the subscription?
- Is the number registered to my business, and what happens if I leave?
- Can I read every conversation it has had?
Where an AI receptionist should stop
Every trade has a line, and the pages in this guide draw it explicitly for each one. In healthcare it is anything clinical. In law it is anything that resembles advice. In trades it is the emergency. In property it is the offer.
The general rule underneath them all is the same: answer what the business publishes, and hand over what the business judges. A vendor comfortable crossing that line for a demo will be comfortable crossing it with your customers.
See it as your own business
Send Elily your website link on WhatsApp. She reads your services, prices and hours and answers as your business, so you can test the handover before a customer finds it.
QUESTIONS BEFORE YOU START
Common questions
What is an AI receptionist?
Software that answers the people contacting a business, handles routine requests such as hours, prices, availability and booking, and hands anything else to a person. Some products answer phone calls with a synthetic voice; others answer written messages on a channel like WhatsApp.
Is an AI receptionist worth it for a small business?
It is worth it when you are losing enquiries because nobody can answer them at the moment they arrive, which for most small businesses means evenings, weekends and the hours staff are with customers. It is not worth it if your enquiries are already being answered promptly.
Can an AI receptionist book appointments?
The useful ones can, because they read live calendar availability before offering a time and write the confirmed appointment back. Products that only take a message create a to-do list rather than a booking, which is a much smaller benefit.
Will customers know it is not a person?
They should. Answering as the business rather than impersonating a named member of staff, and offering a visible route to a human, avoids the moment when someone realises and feels tricked. Being straightforward about it costs nothing.
What does an AI receptionist cost?
It depends on the pricing unit: per minute for voice, per conversation or per reply for messaging, per seat for team products. Elily prices by AI replies and its Free plan includes 150 a month with no expiry and no booking cap.
KEEP READING
Where this goes next
THE NEXT MESSAGE CAN BE HERS
Try the receptionist before you shortlist the vendors.
Send Elily your website link on WhatsApp. She answers as your business, so you can judge the category on your own customers' questions.
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