Inbound
An AI answering service for the calls you cannot take
Nights, weekends, and the twenty minutes everyone is in a meeting. It takes the message, captures the details, and gets it to whoever needs it.
Incoming call
What this is for
A traditional answering service is a person in a call centre answering for forty companies at once. They have your name on a screen and nothing else, so every call comes back to you the next morning as the same line of text. The urgent leak and the price enquiry look identical. Sorting them is still your job, which is most of the job.
What happens to a call after hours
- 01
Answers as your business
The greeting is the one you wrote, with your name in it. Nobody is told they have reached an answering service, because they have not. They have reached your agent.
- 02
Takes the details in full
Name, number, and what the call is about, plus anything else you have asked it to collect. Those answers arrive as fields you can filter rather than a paragraph somebody typed at speed.
- 03
Sorts urgent from routine
You write the rules for what counts as urgent. A burst pipe pages the on-call number. A question about opening hours waits until Monday.
- 04
Delivers the message where you look
Each call lands with a transcript, a recording and an outcome attached. The first thing you read in the morning is what was actually said, not somebody's summary of it.
Related
- AI receptionistIt answers on the first ring, works out what the caller needs, and either handles it or puts them through to the right person. Every call leaves a transcript.
- After-hours answeringThe agent takes the calls that arrive at nine on a Sunday. It captures the details, decides what is urgent against rules you set, and wakes someone only when they should be woken.
- Virtual receptionistIt greets callers the way you would, answers the questions you have given it answers to, and hands over the ones you have not. You write the script; it follows it every time.
- AI receptionist for small businessOne number, no phone system to buy, and nothing to install. Connect a number and the agent picks up on it.
AI answering service: common questions
How is this different from a human answering service?
A human answering service takes a message and stops there. This one answers the question first, using the opening hours, coverage area and pricing you have given it, and only takes a message when there is genuinely nothing else it can do.
Can it answer only outside office hours?
Yes. Point the number at the agent on a schedule, or forward to it only when your line is busy or nobody picks up. Your team answers as normal during the day.
What does it do with a caller it cannot help?
It says so, plainly, and takes a message. If somebody is available it transfers instead. What it will not do is invent an answer to fill the silence, because anything outside the material you gave it is built as a handover.
Does it work for a small business with one number?
That is the common case. Nothing to install and no phone system to buy. Connect one number and the agent picks up on it.
How much does an AI answering service cost?
You are billed per minute of call time rather than a monthly seat or a per-message bundle. A quiet month costs less than a busy one.
Still stuck? Talk to our team.