How to Set Up an AI Receptionist for Your Small Business

A good receptionist is worth their weight in gold. They answer the phone on the first ring, know your schedule cold, handle the "what are your hours?" questions without blinking, and make every caller feel like they matter.

The problem? A full-time receptionist costs $35,000–$45,000 per year. For a small business doing $300K–$1M in revenue, that's a huge line item for someone who's idle half the day and unavailable nights and weekends.

An AI receptionist costs a fraction of that, never calls in sick, and works at 2 AM on a Saturday. Here's how to set one up.

What an AI Receptionist Actually Handles

Let's be specific about what we're talking about. A well-configured AI receptionist can:

Answer phone calls with a natural-sounding voice
Respond to website chat in real time
Answer FAQs — hours, location, pricing, services, policies
Book appointments directly into your calendar
Qualify leads — ask the right questions and route hot leads to you
Take messages and send them to you via text or email
Handle after-hours calls so you never miss a potential customer
Transfer calls to the right person when needed

What it doesn't do (yet): handle complex negotiations, calm down an irate customer who needs a human touch, or replace the relationship-building that happens face-to-face. Those still need you.

Phone vs. Chat: Where to Start

Most businesses benefit from starting with one channel and expanding.

Start with chat if: You get most of your leads through your website, your customers skew younger, or you want to test the waters with lower stakes. Chat is easier to set up, easier to monitor, and customers are already used to chatbots.

Start with phone if: Your business is phone-dependent (medical offices, law firms, home services), you're missing calls regularly, or your after-hours coverage is nonexistent. Phone AI has gotten remarkably good — most callers can't tell the difference.

Our recommendation for most small businesses: start with chat, add phone within the first month. The AI learns from chat interactions, which makes it better on the phone when you add that channel.

The Setup Process

Here's what it actually takes to get an AI receptionist running:

Week 1: Knowledge Building We gather everything your receptionist needs to know. Your service list and pricing. Your hours and location(s). Your scheduling rules (which services take how long, buffer times between appointments, blackout dates). Your FAQs — the 30–50 questions customers ask most. Your policies on cancellations, refunds, and rescheduling.

This usually takes one 45-minute call with you plus access to your website and any existing materials.

Week 1–2: Configuration & Integration We connect your AI receptionist to your calendar (Google Calendar, Calendly, Acuity, or whatever you use), your CRM or customer database, your phone system, and your website. We configure the voice, the greeting, the conversation flows, and the escalation rules.

Week 2: Testing We run through dozens of test scenarios. Common questions, edge cases, confused callers, people who just want to talk to a human. We refine until it handles 90%+ of interactions correctly.

Week 2–3: Soft Launch Your AI receptionist goes live alongside your existing process. You monitor, we monitor, and we fine-tune based on real interactions. Most businesses are fully confident within 5–7 days of going live.

What to Expect in the First Month

Days 1–3: The AI handles 70–80% of interactions perfectly. The rest need minor adjustments.
Days 4–14: With tuning, accuracy climbs to 90–95%. You're checking in less often.
Days 15–30: The AI handles the workload independently. You review weekly summaries instead of monitoring every conversation.

The most common first-month issue isn't the AI getting things wrong — it's the AI being too helpful. It tries to answer questions it should escalate. We dial in those boundaries early.

The Cost Comparison

A full-time receptionist costs $3,000–$3,800/month for 40 hours per week. An AI receptionist costs $500/month and covers 168 hours per week — every evening, weekend, and holiday. That's 3.6x the coverage for a fraction of the cost, with unlimited simultaneous calls and zero sick days.

The businesses that benefit most aren't replacing a great receptionist — they're filling a gap. The owner is answering the phone between jobs, or calls go to voicemail after 5 PM, or a part-time front desk person is juggling too many tasks.

Get Started

An AI receptionist is one of the fastest ways to look more professional, capture more leads, and free up your time. Setup takes about two weeks, and most clients see ROI within the first month.

Book a free consultation and we'll walk through exactly how it would work for your business.