Voice Receptionist
Answer enquiries while you work.
An inbound receptionist that answers the call, captures the job and address, checks the caller against your service area and job list, and offers an available visit from your calendar. Anything unusual, urgent or unclear is escalated to you with a useful summary instead of being booked.
A real customer situation
A plumber is under a sink at one property when a customer calls about a leaking kitchen tap. The call goes to voicemail, the customer rings the next plumber on the list, and the job is gone before the first plumber has dried their hands.
Where the owner wants to be
Every call is answered, routine jobs in the area are booked into a confirmed slot with a read-back, and the owner gets an intake note with the problem and address — or a clear call-back task when the job needs a person.
What it handles
- Asks for any missing detail, such as the street address
- Checks the postcode and job type against your service rules
- Offers free slots and tries another day when the preferred day is full
- Reads the details back and books only after the caller says yes
- Sends urgent, out-of-area or unclear calls to staff with a summary
What it deliberately does not do
- Never books an urgent job or a job outside the service area
- Never shows a booking as confirmed without a verified calendar write
- Quotes only the approved call-out fee; the owner prices the work on site
- The public demo makes no phone call and sends no text
Interactive demo
Try it with sample data
No sign-up needed. Pick a scenario, change the inputs, then play the customer and the owner. The right-hand panel only shows what the workflow actually recorded.
Uses a sample calendar, service area and job list. No real call is made, no text is sent and no appointment is created.
Choose a scenario
Leaking kitchen tap in Surry Hills; Tuesday has free slots.
A burst pipe is treated as urgent and handed to staff.
Needs a street number and name.
Service area: 2010, 2011, 2016, 2017, 2021, 2031.
Thursday is fully booked in the sample calendar.
Turn off to simulate a calendar outage.
Customer side · Phone call
Press “Run scenario” to start. Every message and record here comes from sample data.
Workflow and harness
How Voice Receptionist runs
Reference schematic for the proposed workflow. Blue steps do the work, purple paths handle exceptions and returns, and amber checks are the harness controls that a step cannot pass without.
Overview — business stages
Read the full flow as text
- Incoming call (business step)
Greet, identify caller. Output: Call session with caller name and number. Leads to: Capture job and address. - Capture job and address (business step)
Required: name, mobile, job, street address, postcode. Output: Owner intake note. Leads to: Check service eligibility; Missing details. - Check service eligibility (business step)
Postcode allowlist; job in catalogue; not urgent. Output: Eligible / not eligible. Leads to: Find an available visit; Outside area or urgent. - Find an available visit (business step)
Free slots in the calendar for that day. Output: Offered slot (not held). Leads to: Customer confirms slot; No suitable slot. - Customer confirms slot (business step)
Read back job, address, time; explicit yes. Output: Confirmed request. Leads to: Create booking and receipt. - Create booking and receipt (business step)
Idempotent booking key; verified write before confirmation. Output: Booking reference, confirmation text, intake note. - Missing details (exception or return path)
Ask one question at a time; 3 unclear answers → staff. Output: Completed field. Leads to: Capture job and address (ask). - Outside area or urgent (exception or return path)
Stop or human handoff. Output: Referral, call-back task or pending handoff. - No suitable slot (exception or return path)
Try another day (max 3), then call-back. Output: New offer or call-back task. Leads to: Find an available visit (try another day). - Service rules (harness check)
Allowlist, catalogue, urgency policy, approved price answer. Output: Pass / fail with reason. Leads to: Check service eligibility (required check). - Explicit confirmation (harness check)
Only an explicit yes allows a calendar write. Output: Confirmation recorded. Leads to: Customer confirms slot (required check). - Verified calendar write (harness check)
Receipt must match booking key before confirming. Output: Verified receipt. Leads to: Create booking and receipt (required check).
Harness controls
- Validate required fields: name, mobile, address and postcode
- Apply approved service rules for area, job type and urgency
- Read back appointment details and require an explicit yes
- Write the booking with an idempotent booking key
- Hand urgent or ambiguous situations to staff under an owner-defined policy
Systems and data
Production requires telephony, business knowledge, a calendar or job system and confirmation messaging. The demo uses a fixture calendar, a sample postcode allowlist and job list, and a message outbox that holds every text.
Demo boundary
External calls, customer messages, payments and business writes use synthetic fixtures and an on-screen outbox. The demo shows only verified demo state. Custom production connections are a paid implementation deliverable.
What gets delivered
The records your business receives
Caller confirmation
Text with the booking reference, day and time, address and the approved call-out fee note.
Owner intake note
Caller name and mobile, reported problem, job type, address and booking reference — or the reason it needs a call-back.
Calendar booking
One appointment written with an idempotent booking key and a verified receipt; retries cannot double-book.
Custom deployment
Configured for your business during a paid implementation. Integrations are confirmed during discovery, never assumed.
Your business rules
- Your postcode allowlist and referral partners
- Your job catalogue, durations and which jobs count as urgent
- Calendar availability, travel buffers and working days
- Approved answers such as call-out fees
- Who takes urgent and unclear calls, and how quickly
Systems we connect
Measurement
We measure completed business against a baseline, not messages sent. No results are promised before discovery.
Business results
- Completed jobs from handled calls
- Staff time released from answering calls
- Failed bookings
Operational reliability
- Double bookings from retries (target: zero)
- Confirmations sent without a verified calendar write (target: zero)
- Urgent calls handed to staff within the agreed time
Want this answering your own business line?
Book a call about Voice Receptionist. We start with discovery: your current process, volumes, systems and who handles exceptions. The proposal then defines the integrations, approvals and acceptance tests before anything goes live.