Skip to main content
When a lead fills out your form, you’ve got maybe 5 minutes before they shop your competitor. auto-reply closes that gap: the AI Receptionist reads the submission, decides what to do, and either books the lead or routes the hard ones to you.

​
What the AI Receptionist does on a submission

For each new submission, the AI Receptionist:
  1. Reads the form fields — name, phone, what they need, when they need it.
  2. Classifies the intent — is this a quote request? a booking? something complex that needs a human?
  3. Drafts a personalized reply — referencing what they said specifically, in your business’s voice.
  4. Sends it via the channels you’ve enabled — email and/or SMS.
  5. (Optionally) escalates to a human — if it’s outside what the AI Receptionist handles, it logs a task for the assignee you picked.
By default the reply goes out after a short, natural pause (~1 minute) rather than the instant they hit submit — see Reply timing below. You can set it to Immediate if you’d rather.

​
Enable on a form

1

Open the form

From Dashboard → Forms, click the form you want.
2

Go to the AI reply tab

Click the AI reply tab at the top of the form builder.
3

Turn it on

Click Auto-reply on.
4

Pick channels

Two checkboxes:
  • Email — send the AI Receptionist reply to the lead’s email if they provided one.
  • SMS — send to their phone if they provided one (US-registered orgs need A2P 10DLC done; see A2P 10DLC).
Most owners enable both. SMS gets faster reply rates; email handles cases where the lead didn’t share a phone.
5

Choose the reply timing

Pick how soon the AI replies after a submission:
  • Immediate — replies right away.
  • Natural (~1 min) — a short pause so it reads like a person getting back to them, not a bot answering the millisecond they hit submit. This is the default.
  • Relaxed (~2 min) — a slightly longer wait.
  • Considered (~5 min) — a longer pause for higher-touch businesses.
The exact wait is slightly varied each time so it never feels robotic. See Reply timing.
6

Pick an escalation assignee

For submissions the AI Receptionist can’t handle (complex pricing, emergencies, anything ambiguous), it’ll create a task assigned to a specific teammate. Pick who. The task surfaces in Tasks with the full submission and the AI Receptionist’s reasoning attached.Required when auto-reply is on — the AI Receptionist won’t enable without an assignee, because we don’t want escalations to fall on the floor.
7

Save

Save the form. The next submission will trigger the AI Receptionist.

​
What does the AI Receptionist’s reply look like?

It’s tenant-branded — the customer sees the reply as coming from your business, not ServiceBooked. Email goes from your configured “from” address (Settings → Brand → Email sender). SMS goes from your provisioned business number. A typical reply:
Hi Alex! Thanks for reaching out about a kitchen remodel. Based on what you described — a 12x14 kitchen with new cabinets and counters — I’d estimate 3–4 weeks once we’re scheduled. I have an opening Tuesday at 2pm or Thursday at 10am if you’d like to do a walkthrough — does either work? — Mike at Jones Construction
The AI references their actual fields, gives a real-feeling quote-shaped answer, and offers concrete next steps (booking slots from your real calendar).

​
When the AI Receptionist escalates instead of replying

The AI Receptionist escalates when:
  • The submission is outside your services (e.g., someone asking for an industry you don’t serve)
  • It’s an emergency that needs immediate human attention
  • It needs custom pricing the AI Receptionist can’t reasonably estimate
  • Something is ambiguous and a real reply could go wrong
In those cases:
  • Lead gets a brief holding email: “Thanks for the request — someone from our team will be in touch shortly.”
  • A task is created for your designated assignee with the full submission + the AI Receptionist’s reasoning (“Submission says urgent water leak — needs immediate dispatch”).
  • A notification fires to that assignee’s bell + email.
This way every lead gets some response, and the hard ones don’t fall through the cracks.

​
Reply timing

An instant reply the moment someone submits a form reads as automated — most people know a human can’t type that fast. So by default the AI Receptionist waits a short, natural pause before replying:
  • Immediate — no delay. Good for emergency trades where speed is the whole pitch.
  • Natural (~1 min) — the default. Reads like a real person got back to them.
  • Relaxed (~2 min) — a slightly longer wait, if you want more time to reply yourself first.
  • Considered (~5 min) — a longer, more deliberate pause.
The exact wait is slightly randomized each time so it doesn’t land on a suspiciously exact “2:00 every time.” There’s a practical bonus: the pause is a window for you to reply first. If you see the lead come in and want to handle it personally, jump in — and if you turn auto-reply off (or disable it on that form) during the window, the AI won’t send. Set it per form on the AI reply tab.
Auto-reply only runs on submissions that come in after you turn it on. Enabling it doesn’t go back and reply to leads who already submitted — test it by sending a fresh submission (or use Test AI reply to dry-run without sending anything).

​
Per-form AI tone

The AI’s reply tone is driven by your global business profile (set in Settings → Business). For most owners that’s enough. If you want a specific form to use a different tone — e.g., a more casual “service area check” form vs. a formal “commercial RFP” form — open a support ticket and we can configure per-form overrides.

​
Disabling the auto-reply

Toggle it off any time. Submissions still go to your inbox and notifications still fire — they just don’t get an AI follow-up. You manually reply via the inbox. Some owners turn the AI Receptionist off for high-stakes forms (e.g., a custom-quote form where they prefer to write every reply themselves) while keeping it on for high-volume forms (e.g., a service-area check).

​
Booking via the auto-reply

If your AI Receptionist is set up well — calendar connected, knowledge base populated, services documented — leads frequently book their own appointments through the email/SMS thread that follows. The AI Receptionist offers slots, the lead picks one, the appointment goes on your calendar without you ever touching it. That’s the dream state. Most owners get there within 2–3 weeks of using the product, as they fine-tune the knowledge base based on what the AI Receptionist gets wrong.

​
Next

Form notifications

Configure who gets notified when submissions land.