Where a human receptionist still wins
Starting with the parts we lose, because a comparison that only lists our strengths is an advert, not a comparison.
If you have a busy front counter with people walking in, you want a person. Nothing on this page changes that.
What a person does better
They read the room. A caller who is embarrassed, grieving, or building up to a complaint gets handled by instinct. Software does not have instinct and pretending otherwise is how this category gets a bad name.
They walk down the hall. A person can put their head round a door and get an answer nobody has ever written down. That is most of what a good receptionist does in a small office.
They hold a relationship. Regulars ring up for the chat as much as the appointment. A voice they have known for six years is worth something and no amount of automation replaces it.
They are on the desk. The person answering the phone usually greets the people coming through the door, signs for parcels and makes the coffee. That job is not a phone job.
What an automated receptionist does better
It is there at 11pm on a Sunday. Nights, weekends, Waitangi Day, the week between Christmas and New Year. No roster, no overtime, no swapping shifts.
It takes four calls at once. One person can take one call. Everyone else hears an engaged tone and rings the next business on the list.
It writes every single call down. Recording, transcript, summary, straight into your CRM. Not the ones somebody remembered to note. All of them.
It never has a bad Tuesday. Same greeting, same questions, same details captured, on the four hundredth call as on the first.
Side by side
| A person at the desk | An automated receptionist | |
|---|---|---|
| When the phone is covered | ||
| Hours | The hours you pay for | Every hour there is |
| Two calls at once | The second one waits or rings out | Both answered properly |
| Sick days and annual leave | Someone has to cover | Does not arise |
| Monthly cost | A wage, leave and employment overheads | NZ$129 for three months, then NZ$199 |
| On the call itself | ||
| A caller who is upset | Much better. This is a human job | Gets them to a person and flags it |
| Something nobody wrote down | Asks the person two desks away | Says it does not know and takes a message |
| Knowing who is ringing | Recognises the regulars | Recognises every number in your system |
| Quoting a price | Uses judgement | Only quotes what you have set, never guesses |
| After the caller hangs up | ||
| Written up | The ones there was time for | Every call, with a recording |
| Into the diary | Yes, once they get to it | Before the call has ended |
| Into the CRM | Usually re-keyed later | Nothing to re-key |
The AI plan includes 200 minutes, 50 texts and three simultaneous calls. There is no setup fee and no lock-in. Pay as you go is NZ$10 a month for the number, then NZ$1 a minute.
Also sold as a digital receptionist
A digital receptionist and an automated receptionist now mean the same thing as an AI receptionist. Software answers your phone, talks to the caller, and does the job a front desk does.
The words used to mean something narrower and much worse. For twenty years a digital receptionist was an auto attendant: press one for sales, press two for accounts, press three to hear these options again. Nobody wanted that. Everybody pressed zero.
The difference is worth being clear about, because a lot of what still gets sold under the old name is still a phone menu. If it cannot answer a question you did not anticipate, it is a menu.
Whatever happened to the e-receptionist
People still search for an e-receptionist, and they usually mean one of two things: a screen in a foyer that signs visitors in, or an off-site service that answers the phone.
This is the second one. There is no screen, no tablet on a stand, nothing to install and nothing on your wall. It lives on the phone number you already advertise.
If it is the visitor sign-in screen you are after, this is not it, and we would rather tell you now than after a demo.
How to tell which one you need
People walk in the door
Hire a person. The phone is the smaller half of that job and automating it does not save you the wage.
The phone rings while you are on the tools
This is the case it was built for. The calls you are currently missing are the ones it takes.
You already have a receptionist and she is drowning
Put it behind her. It takes the overflow and the out-of-hours calls, and she keeps the ones that need her.
Most of your calls are the same four questions
Hours, price ranges, where you are, can I book. It will handle all four and pass on the fifth.
Tell us what your phone is doing to you
If a person is the right answer for your business, we will say so. If it is this, the account opens instantly and your agent is trained within 24 hours.