An AI receptionist in Newcastle, NSW: every call answered.

It is software that answers your phone in a voice, understands what the caller is asking, and either answers it, books something, or takes a message and passes it on. It runs on the number you already use.

It sits on the existing business number rather than a new one. A call comes in, it is answered straight away, and the caller has an ordinary conversation instead of a menu of options.

What one handles

• Answering the call itself.

  On the first ring, at any hour, without the caller sitting through a recorded list of options first.

• The ordinary questions.

  Your hours, your area, whether you do a particular job, what happens next. The things asked on most calls.

• Booking a time in.

  Into the real calendar, with a confirmation and a reminder going out afterwards.

• Taking the details down.

  Name, number, suburb and what the job is, in a message that arrives rather than a voicemail nobody plays.

• Handing the call over.

  Transferring to a person when the call genuinely needs one, rather than pushing through regardless.

The missed call is the other half of it. A call that goes unanswered gets a text back within a minute offering a time. That piece is automation, meaning a job that runs without anybody remembering, and it is the cheapest version of this.

Most small businesses cannot answer the phone during the hours people ring. The call that goes to voicemail is competing with the next business on the map, who picked up.

Watch any small business through a working day. The phone rings while somebody is under a house, mid appointment, with a client or driving. It goes to voicemail, and the caller does not leave one.

That is not a failure of effort. It is a business with no free hands between eight and five, which describes most of the businesses in Newcastle that are busy enough to be worth ringing.

The other half is the hours nobody is working at all. Enquiries arrive in the evening and on a Sunday, and a business answering then is answering while everybody else is shut.

Prices, availability it cannot see, and anything about a specific job. An assistant that guesses confidently is worse than no assistant, so its limits go down on paper before it answers a single call.

This is the part that decides whether customers like it, and it is the part people skip. What it is allowed to say goes down on paper, and somebody checks it, before it goes live.

The limits that get set

• It never gives a price.

  Every business has a job that looks standard and is not. A number given on a call becomes a number the business has to honour.

• It never offers availability it cannot see.

  Where it is not reading the real calendar, it does not offer a time. It takes the details instead.

• It never answers beyond its brief.

  It answers from a written set of facts about the business, and anything outside that set goes to a person.

• It says what it is when asked.

  These introduce themselves as an assistant. Callers accept that. Finding out afterwards is what loses the job.

The federal government's AI ethics principles land in the same place in more formal words. Being upfront is the part worth taking from them.

The difference between one customers like and one they hang up on is the wording and the facts behind it. Both come out of an hour with the owner rather than out of the software.

Every one of these comes down to the same two things. What it knows about the business, and how it says it.

What goes into it

• The facts about the business.

  Hours, area, what you do and what you do not, what happens after a booking. Written down once, and it is the list that stops it guessing.

• The words the business actually uses.

  Real examples of how somebody answers the phone now. Short sentences where the owner is short on the phone.

• The handover rules.

  Who a call goes to, when, and what happens where that person does not pick up either.

• The follow up, and where it stops.

  An assistant still texting somebody who already said no costs you a customer who was worth keeping.

spareday runs one of these on its own line, which means the wrong wording gets heard here first rather than by a client's customer.

Answer the missed calls first, then write down the facts and the limits. Put it on the real number, read every call for a fortnight, and only then let it start booking.

Each step is live before the next one starts, so nothing goes in front of a customer untested.

1. Answer the missed calls first

A text back within a minute on any unanswered call. It is the smallest piece, it goes live quickly, and it is usually where the first recovered job comes from.

2. Write down the facts

Hours, area, the jobs done, the jobs not done, and what happens after somebody books. An hour of work, and it is what makes it usable.

3. Write down the limits

Prices, availability, anything job specific. Written before it answers a call rather than after somebody complains about what it said.

4. It goes on the real number

Not a second number nobody rings. It goes on the line customers already have, with anything it cannot handle transferring to a person.

5. Read everything for a fortnight

Every call and every message. This is where the wording actually improves, and it takes a few minutes a day rather than a meeting.

6. Then it is given the calendar

Once it sounds right and the limits hold, booking goes on. That is the part with the most to go wrong, so it goes last.

The missed call text back goes live quickly. A voice assistant takes longer, and most of that time is writing what it knows and reading what it said rather than any setup.

The order it happens in

• First the missed calls start getting a reply.

  A text back on every unanswered call. It goes live early, and it is the piece that pays for the rest.

• Then the facts and the limits go down on paper.

  The list it answers from, and the list it refuses. Nothing is answering by voice yet at this stage.

• Then the voice goes on the real line.

  Somebody reads every call for a fortnight, the wording improves, and only then does it touch the calendar.

A business wanting something the software genuinely cannot do is asking for a piece of custom work rather than a setup. That is a separate job, named as one so nobody is surprised by it later.

Ask whose number it runs on, whether every call can be read, what it is forbidden to say, and what happens if you stop paying. The number question decides how easily you can walk away.

These are worth asking of any agency, including this one, so the answers given here are underneath each question.

• Whose name is the phone number in?

  The business's own name. A number sitting in an agency's account is the single hardest thing to get back later.

• Can I read every call and message?

  Yes, and easily. Where you cannot see what it said, there is no way to tell whether it is working.

• What is it forbidden to say?

  A written list, agreed before it goes live. Prices and availability are both on that list here.

• What happens if I stop paying?

  The number and the customer details stay yours. The only thing that stops is the answering.

A business with somebody on reception already has most of this covered. The piece still worth having is the after hours half, and that is a much smaller job.

Where the aim is a booking rather than a message, an AI receptionist that books the appointment sets out what has to be true first.