Virtual Receptionist Answering Service

The basic idea is simple: your phone keeps its number, and incoming calls get sent somewhere else to be answered. The usual method is call forwarding, a feature offered by nearly every phone carrier. You turn on forwarding from your phone or your carrier's account portal, and calls that would normally ring your line ring the answering service instead.

With AllDayDesk, the service answering those calls is an AI receptionist. It uses the business information you save, such as your services, hours, and location, to answer questions, take messages, and book appointments. You never change your public number, so customers dial you the same way they always have.

Forwarding instructions depend on your phone provider, so the exact steps vary. For example, Verizon mobile customers activate all-call forwarding by dialing *72 plus the 10-digit destination and turn it off with *73, while T-Mobile uses codes like **21*1 followed by the destination for unconditional forwarding. Business landline and hosted phone products often use a web portal instead of star codes, and the exact product name on your bill matters before you follow any set of instructions.

• You keep your existing public phone number; forwarding sends calls to the service.
• Setup steps differ by carrier and product, so check your provider's own directions.
• AllDayDesk answers using your saved business details, not a generic script.
• After each call, you can review the transcript, summary, and any booking in your dashboard.

A virtual receptionist answering service sits between your caller and you. When a call comes in, the service answers, greets the caller in your business's name, and works through the conversation using the details you saved. That usually means answering common questions about your services and hours, capturing the caller's name, number, and reason for calling, and booking new appointments.

New appointments go on the built-in AllDayDesk dashboard calendar by default, once you have configured your services and availability. If you prefer Google Calendar, you can optionally connect and authorize your Google account in Settings, and the service will use that connection.

Honest limits matter here. When the service does not know an answer, a price, or an available time, it takes a message instead of guessing. Changes to existing appointments are passed to you as requests rather than confirmed changes, so you stay in control of your schedule. If you want certain calls passed to you directly, you can configure transfers with a destination and rules, though pickup is not guaranteed since it depends on whether you or whoever you designate is available.

• Answers questions using your saved business information.
• Takes a message whenever an answer, price, or opening is unknown.
• Books new appointments on the dashboard calendar, or on Google Calendar after you connect it in Settings.
• Sends existing-appointment changes to you as requests, not confirmed edits.
• Configured transfers pass calls to you, with no guaranteed pickup.

Setup starts by choosing your business or entering its website. AllDayDesk pulls together the public details it finds and shows them to you to check, so the receptionist starts with accurate information about what you do and when you are open.

Next, you hear a personalized sample call so you know exactly how your receptionist will sound before anything goes live. The sample is a demonstration only and creates no real booking. After that, you choose your phone setup, which is where your carrier's forwarding instructions come in.

Once you are live, the dashboard is your window into everything: calls, transcripts, summaries, and bookings all appear there. You can review conversations, confirm appointment requests, and adjust your saved business information whenever something changes.

• Choose your business or enter its website to start.
• Check the details the service gathered before going live.
• Listen to a personalized sample; it creates no real booking.
• Choose phone setup and follow your carrier's forwarding steps.
• Review calls, transcripts, summaries, and bookings in the dashboard.

Virtual receptionist answering services generally fall into two camps: those staffed by people and those powered by AI. Human services, such as Ruby, which advertises plans starting at $245 per month, and Smith.ai's virtual receptionist service, which uses per-call pricing, employ trained agents to answer in your name. AnswerConnect offers 24/7 live answering by people as well. These are documented features from each company's own pages, not results from hands-on testing, and starting prices alone are not a complete cost comparison since included allowances, overages, hours, and contracts all vary.

AI services like AllDayDesk answer using software rather than a staffed team. The practical trade-offs come down to cost structure, consistency, and scope. An in-house receptionist, by contrast, does far more than answer phones, including greeting visitors and handling office tasks, so a phone service is not a full replacement for that role.

When comparing options, look past the headline price and check: what the monthly fee includes, what overage minutes or calls cost, whether coverage is around the clock, how appointments are handled, and how you get your messages. AllDayDesk displays its pricing separately on this site, so you can weigh it against the alternatives on the same terms.

• Human services: agents answer in your name; pricing often starts higher and varies by usage.
• AI services: software answers using your saved details; AllDayDesk is this site's own product.
• In-house receptionist: covers greeting visitors and office work, not just phones.
• Compare included minutes or calls, overage rates, hours, and contract terms before deciding.

Because forwarding is a phone-carrier feature, your setup steps depend on who provides your service. Mobile carriers typically use star codes dialed from the phone itself. Verizon mobile uses *72 plus the destination for all calls and *71 for unanswered calls, with *73 to disable. T-Mobile uses **21*1 plus the destination and # for unconditional forwarding, with separate codes for no-reply, unreachable, and busy conditions.

Business landline and hosted voice products often work differently. Comcast Business features like forwarding are managed through My Account or the Comcast Business App, and the exact steps depend on whether you have Voice Mobility, Business Voice, or VoiceEdge. Spectrum Business Voice manages forwarding through the SpectrumBusiness.net portal under Voice Settings or Forwarding Manager. Vonage Business Communications lets you select Call Forwarding and enable forwarding to a phone number.

Two things to know before you start. First, identify the exact product name on your bill, because instructions for one product do not apply to another from the same carrier. Second, Google Voice is a special case: Google explicitly states that forwarding calls from a Google Voice number to an automated system is unsupported, so a Google Voice number is not a suitable forwarding source.

• Mobile carriers: star codes dialed from the phone, such as *72 (Verizon) or **21*1 (T-Mobile).
• Business landline and hosted products: often a web portal instead of codes.
• Match instructions to the exact product name on your bill.
• Google Voice numbers cannot be forwarded to an automated system, per Google's own documentation.