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The AI Receptionist answers your phone when you can’t. Instead of (or in addition to) sending an auto-text, it picks up, has a real conversation with the caller, and books the job into your calendar — around the clock, including evenings and weekends. This is included on Growth and Pro plans. Starter has missed-call auto-text only.
The AI Receptionist is optional. It’s a single toggle — Let AI answer missed calls, in Settings → Phone — and leaving it off changes nothing else. Missed-call auto-text, voicemail, transcription, and your call log all work the same either way. If you’d rather text callers back and answer them yourself, here’s how to set that up.

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What the AI Receptionist can do on a call

  • Answer questions about your services, pricing, hours, and service area
  • Qualify a lead — figure out what they need, when they need it, and where they are
  • Book an appointment — check your real Google Calendar / Cal.com availability and confirm a slot
  • Take a message if the caller wants you to call them back personally
  • Request human help for complaints, complex quotes, or urgent service requests that need your team
The caller experience: they hear a natural, conversational voice (you pick which one) introduce itself with your business name. The AI Receptionist talks with them in real-time, thinks on its feet, and never gives the “press 1 for sales” robot energy.

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Set it up

1

Confirm your plan includes the AI Receptionist

From Settings → Billing, check that you’re on Growth or Pro. The AI Receptionist is gated behind the voice_ai feature flag, which is included on those plans.
2

Open Settings → Voice

Navigate to Settings → Voice in your dashboard.
3

Pick a language

Default is English (US). It also speaks English (UK, AU), Spanish, French (FR / CA), German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Simplified), Hindi, and Arabic. Pick the one your customers will use.If you want one language to apply everywhere — voice and chat, SMS, email, and your automated templates — or you need bilingual English + French, set it once under Communication language instead. That org-wide setting governs the AI’s language across all channels.
4

Pick a voice

Six voices to choose from:
  • Alloy — neutral, balanced
  • Echo — smooth, male
  • Fable — expressive, British
  • Nova — warm, friendly, female (most popular)
  • Onyx — deep, authoritative, male
  • Shimmer — clear, optimistic, female
Hit Play next to each to hear a sample. Pick whichever feels closest to how a human at your business would sound on the phone.
5

Set the greeting (optional)

The default greeting opens with “Hi, thanks for calling …” — works fine. If you want something specific (e.g. “Hi, you’ve reached the after-hours line for …”), edit it here.
6

Set a transfer number (optional)

If a caller asks for a human, the AI Receptionist can transfer to your office or mobile number during configured opening hours. Holidays and blackout dates also apply.Outside those hours, when hours are unknown, or when no transfer number is configured, it can request a callback from your team. It does not promise a callback deadline. Before attempting a transfer, it creates a follow-up task so your team can check whether the call connected and follow up if needed. Close that task if the transfer resolved the request.
7

Configure max duration and silence timeout

Defaults are usually fine:
  • Max duration: 15 minutes (it won’t run a call longer than this)
  • Silence timeout: 30 seconds (if the caller goes silent, it politely confirms the line and ends if no response)
8

Select a routing strategy

You can control when the AI Receptionist answers your calls:
  • Fallback (default): Rings your phone first; if you don’t answer, the AI picks up.
  • Always: The AI answers every call immediately. Your phone does not ring.
  • After-hours only: During business hours, your phone rings normally. After hours, the AI answers immediately.
  • After-hours fallback: Rings your phone first. The AI only picks up if you don’t answer and you are currently closed.
9

Save

The AI Receptionist is provisioned automatically the first time you save. After that, every call you don’t pick up routes to the AI Receptionist based on your strategy.

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How the AI Receptionist knows about your business

The AI Receptionist uses:
  1. Your services — set during onboarding, editable from Settings → Business → Services.
  2. Your hours — also from onboarding, editable from Settings → Business → Hours. It gives accurate “we’re open until 6pm tonight” answers.
  3. Your service area — the towns and regions you cover. Keep this description accurate; address-format checks do not verify geographic coverage.
  4. Your knowledge base — FAQ entries you’ve written that cover specific scenarios. Pricing tiers, common objections, what materials you bring, etc.
  5. Your calendar — real-time availability when offering appointment slots.
The more you fill in, the better the AI Receptionist sounds. Even just adding 5 knowledge-base entries for your most common questions (“Do you do emergency calls? What’s the trip charge?”) makes a noticeable difference. More on training your AI Receptionist →

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Auto-text alongside the AI Receptionist

You can run both: when a missed call comes in, the AI Receptionist answers AND we send the missed-call auto-text in parallel. The customer gets a written record + a voice conversation. This is off by default (the AI Receptionist conversation IS the response). Some owners prefer it on so the customer leaves with a text they can reference later. Toggle from Settings → Phone → Auto-text alongside AI Receptionist. You can also configure a custom message specifically for this auto-text instead of using your generic missed-call text.

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When the AI Receptionist can’t help

The AI Receptionist collects context and requests help when a request needs your team:
  • Immediate danger — directs the caller to local emergency services from a safe location before ordinary intake. It does not dispatch emergency responders or guide hazardous repairs.
  • Urgent service — checks actual availability and can request high-priority follow-up. Urgency does not mean a technician is dispatched or a same-day visit is guaranteed.
  • Custom quotes, complaints, refunds, or claims — records the request for your team without inventing prices or approving decisions.
  • Complex scheduling — recurring-series changes, staff or crew allocation, and multi-day jobs need human handling.
The AI only confirms an action when it succeeds. A queued follow-up is a request for your team, not a promised response time.

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Finding and changing appointments

The AI uses the incoming caller number to find an existing appointment. A name or a different number spoken on the call does not establish ownership. Withheld caller ID or a different booking number requires human verification; the AI can still collect a callback number. If more than one appointment matches, the AI asks which original date and time the caller means before making a change. See Conversation scenarios for booking requirements, secure management links, and requests that need your team.

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Reading what happened on a call

After every call, ServiceBooked saves:
  • The full transcript (turn-by-turn)
  • A natural-language summary
  • An audio recording you can play back
  • The duration and outcome (booked, qualified, escalated, hangup)
Find these under Calls or in the conversation thread for that contact.

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Voice minutes

Each plan with the AI Receptionist includes a monthly allowance:
  • Growth: 300 minutes/month
  • Pro: 600 minutes/month
You’ll get email warnings as you approach your allowance, so there are no surprises. If you regularly need more minutes than your plan includes, upgrade to the higher tier or contact us about a custom allowance. More on usage & limits →

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Next

Train your AI Receptionist on your FAQs

Add knowledge-base entries so the AI Receptionist answers like a real receptionist who knows your business.

A2P 10DLC compliance

Required for SMS in the US — make sure your texts actually deliver.