What an AI receptionist does
It answers your calls with a computer voice or a chat, takes the caller's details, and depending on the product, books them into your diary, answers questions from what you have told it, or gives them a rough price.
On paper that solves the missed call. In practice, trades owners tell us about two problems with it.
Problem one: people do not want to book their home with a bot
Work on somebody's home is personal. They want to know who is coming, and whether that person sounds like they know what they are doing. A bot can take a name and a postcode, but it cannot give them the one thing they rang for: confidence in you.
Problem two: the price you have to change
A bot that gives a price is guessing at a job it has not seen. When you get there and the real price is higher, it lands like being offered a good deal and then told: wait, actually, it is £500 more. Even when your price is fair, the customer now feels caught out, and plenty of them walk.
The price is the most important thing you say to a customer, and it is the thing you least want a machine saying for you.
When an AI receptionist can make sense
To be fair to it: a firm with a team, fixed-price standard jobs and someone in the office to check every booking can get real use out of one. If the job is the same every time and the price never changes, a bot booking it does little harm.
Most sole traders and small firms are not that. The job is different every time, you price it yourself, and the customer wants you.
What to do instead
Answer the only question a missed caller has right now, did anyone get my call, and keep everything else for yourself. A text back within seconds, in your business name, saying you are on a job and will ring back, stops them calling the next firm. Then you ring them, you hear the job, and you price it.
Hi, it's Brennan Heating. Sorry I missed you, I'm on a job. I'll ring you back within the hour, or reply here with what you need.
Straight answers
- Is an AI receptionist cheaper than a person?
- Usually, yes. Whether it is cheaper than the jobs it loses is the question that matters, and only your own customers can answer it.
- Does Slate use AI to talk to my customers?
- No. The only thing Slate sends on its own is one text to somebody who rang you and got no answer, saying who you are. Everything else waits for you.
- What does Slate cost?
- £249 a month, one plan. The first 25 firms pay £199 a month for as long as they stay. You get 14 days free from the day you start, and if you are not happy within 14 days of your first payment, you message us and we refund it in full.
Slate OS gives you an office line that rings your mobile and texts back every call you miss, within seconds, in your business name. Quotes, invoices and chasing happen from your phone.