Quick Setup
The five steps that get your receptionist answering.
On this page
Five steps, about fifteen minutes. At the end of it your receptionist will answer a real call and book a real appointment.
Nothing goes live until you say so
Ten minutes now saves a bad call later
Everything your receptionist says on a call comes from what you enter here. Ten minutes spent on your services and hours now is the difference between a caller hearing “we can be there Tuesday at nine” and hearing “someone will get back to you”.
Before you start
- Your business name, trade and the area you cover
- A rough list of the jobs you take, and any you don't
- Your opening hours, including any half-days
- The phone you want alerts to arrive on
- Your calendar login, if you want it to book appointments directly (optional — you can add it later)
How to do it
- 1
Tell it about your business
Open Business Config from the left menu and fill in the Profile card: business name, what you do, and the area you cover. This is how it introduces you on every call, so write the name the way you’d say it out loud.
- 2
List the work you take
In the Services card, add each type of job. Keep the names plain — the words your customers use, not your invoicing codes. Add a typical price or call-out fee where you’re comfortable quoting one; leave it blank where you’re not, and it will say a technician needs to look first.
- 3
Set your hours
In the Hours card, set your opening times and time zone. Your receptionist still answers around the clock — this tells it when to say you’re open, and which slots it can offer.
- 4
Choose where alerts go
In Owner alerts, add the email address and mobile number that should hear about a new lead. Most owners send texts to themselves and emails to the office.
- 5
Make a test call, then forward your line
Ring your receptionist and behave like a customer. When you’re happy with what it says, set your phone to forward calls to it — either all of them, or only the ones you miss.
Business Config → Profile, Services, Hours
screenshot coming soon
Your first week
From the moment forwarding is on, calls are answered. Here’s what you’ll notice in the first week:
- Your phone stops showing missed calls with no voicemail.
- New leads arrive as alerts, usually before the caller has put the phone down.
- Conversations fills up with recordings you can play back.
- Your dashboard starts showing how many calls became booked appointments.
Listen to the first five calls
A worked example
Summit Comfort Air & Heating, first afternoon
Dave enters the business name, picks “HVAC”, and sets the area to a 25-mile radius. He lists six services — no-cool call-outs, furnace repairs, installs, maintenance plans, duct cleaning, and thermostat swaps, and puts $89 against the diagnostic call-out. Hours are 7am–6pm weekdays, 8am–1pm Saturdays.
He rings it, pretends his AC is dead, and it offers him Wednesday at 9. He changes one thing: it was saying “service call” where his customers say “call-out”. Then he forwards his line. First real booking lands at 4:52pm.
If something looks wrong
Forwarding is usually the culprit — check it’s switched on at your carrier and pointed at the right number. See AI Did Not Answer.
Find the detail in Business Config and correct it. The change applies to the very next call — you never have to fix the same thing twice.
That means no calendar is connected yet, or your hours are empty. Connect a calendar under Connections, or set your hours in Business Config.
Start with missed calls only. You keep answering the ones you can, and your receptionist catches the rest — the safest way to build trust in it. Once you’ve listened to a week of recordings, most owners move to forwarding everything, because the receptionist books faster than a person juggling a job site.