How to Set Up an AI Receptionist

An AI receptionist answers your business phone when you cannot. It uses the information you save about your business — services, hours, pricing you choose to share, and how you want calls handled — to talk with callers in plain language. It can answer questions, take messages, and book new appointments when your calendar is set up.

It is important to know the honest limits. When the AI does not know an answer, a price, or an available time, it takes a message instead of guessing. If you configure call transfers, calls can be passed to a destination you set, but pickup is not guaranteed. Changes to existing appointments are passed to you as requests, not confirmed changes. Knowing these boundaries up front helps you decide what information to load and what to leave to a callback.

• Answers calls using the business details you save
• Takes a message when it does not know an answer or price
• Books new appointments once services and availability are configured
• Sends existing-appointment changes to you as requests
• Shows calls, transcripts, summaries, and bookings in your dashboard

The quality of your AI receptionist depends on the information you give it. Before you start, gather the basics a caller would ask about: your services, your business hours, your service area, and which prices you are comfortable having shared on a call. If you want appointment booking, you will also need to configure your services and availability so the built-in calendar knows what can be scheduled and when.

With AllDayDesk, you can speed this up by entering your business name or website and letting the system pull in details automatically. Always review what it finds — websites are often out of date — and correct anything wrong before moving on. Accurate hours and service lists matter more than anything else you will enter.

• List your services and what each includes
• Confirm your current business hours and service area
• Decide which prices can be shared on calls
• Set up services and availability if you want new appointments booked
• Review any auto-filled details from your website and fix errors

Before your number goes live, AllDayDesk generates a personalized sample so you can hear how the receptionist sounds with your actual business information. Listen for the basics: does it say your business name correctly, does it describe your services the way you would, and does the tone fit your customers?

Keep in mind the sample is a demonstration. It does not create a real booking or affect your calendar. If something sounds off, fix the underlying detail — a misspelled business name or a wrong service description — and the calls will follow what you saved.

• Check pronunciation of your business name
• Confirm services and hours are described accurately
• Remember the sample creates no real booking
• Correct saved details if anything sounds wrong

You keep your existing business number. Calls are sent to the AI receptionist by forwarding, and the exact instructions depend on your phone provider — there is no universal code that works everywhere. First identify which service you actually have, because even one company can use different steps for different products.

Some verified examples show how much this varies. Verizon mobile uses *72 plus the destination for all-call forwarding and *71 for unanswered calls, while Verizon business landline uses *72 and *73 to turn it off. T-Mobile uses **21*1 plus the destination for unconditional forwarding. Spectrum Business Voice manages forwarding through the SpectrumBusiness.net portal rather than star codes. Vonage Business Communications turns forwarding on in its Call Forwarding settings. If you use Google Voice, note that Google explicitly does not support forwarding calls from a Google Voice number to an automated system, so that path will not work here.

If you are not sure what your provider supports, call their support line and ask how to forward all calls to another number. Once forwarding is on, place a test call from a different phone to confirm it reaches the receptionist, and save the disable code or portal steps so you can turn forwarding off whenever you want to answer yourself.

• Identify your exact phone service and product before using any instructions
• Use your provider's own forwarding steps — codes differ by carrier and product
• Test with a call from another phone after activating
• Save the disable code or portal steps for turning forwarding off
• Google Voice numbers cannot be forwarded to an automated system

Once forwarding is active, your dashboard becomes your window into the phone. Every call shows up with a transcript and a summary, and any bookings appear on the built-in AllDayDesk calendar. Check it daily at first to confirm the receptionist is handling calls the way you expect and to catch details that need correcting.

Two settings deserve early attention. First, if you want the receptionist to transfer calls to you in certain situations, you must configure a transfer destination and the rules for when transfers happen — and understand that neither pickup nor an immediate response is guaranteed. Second, if you prefer to keep appointments in Google Calendar, you can connect and authorize your Google account in Settings; the built-in dashboard calendar is the default until you do.

• Review transcripts and summaries in the dashboard regularly
• Configure transfer destinations and rules if you want transfers
• New appointments default to the built-in dashboard calendar
• Connect Google Calendar in Settings if you prefer it

Not all services work the same way, so compare a few before committing. Look at how setup works, whether you keep your existing number, how appointments are handled, and what you can see after each call. AllDayDesk — the product on this site — lets you start from your business name or website, hear a sample before going live, and see transcripts, summaries, and bookings in one dashboard.

It also helps to understand the alternatives. Human virtual receptionist services exist too: Ruby advertises plans starting at $245 per month, and Smith.ai offers both human receptionist plans and a separate AI receptionist product with on-demand escalation to live agents. Those are different approaches with different costs and capabilities, and starting prices alone do not tell the whole story — you need each provider's included allowance, overage rates, and hours. This comparison is based on published feature pages, not hands-on testing, so verify current details with each provider.

• Compare setup process, number porting, and booking handling
• AllDayDesk is this site's own product
• Human services like Ruby (from $245/month) and Smith.ai are alternatives
• Check included minutes, overage pricing, and hours with any provider
• This comparison reflects published pages, not independent testing