Voicemail, receptionist or AI: three ways to answer the phone
It is half past nine in the morning. You have colour on your hands, and the phone rings. You cannot pick it up. Ten minutes later it rings again. It is probably someone who wants to book a time. Maybe she calls the next salon on her list instead.
That is everyday life in most small businesses. The question is not whether you should do something about the phone. The question is what you choose. There are three common answers: an answering machine, a person at the front desk, or an AI that takes the call. Here are all three, with the good and the bad.
The answering machine
The answering machine is the cheapest option, and you already have it. You record a message, and the customer leaves one back.
Upsides: it costs almost nothing. It is easy to set up. You decide what it says, and you can change it in a minute when you go on holiday.
Downsides: an answering machine does not book anything. It just moves the work to another time, namely yours. After closing you sit with a list of callbacks. Some of them you do not get to until the next day, and by then the customer has moved on. Many people do not leave a message at all. They hang up.
What it costs in time: the calls do not disappear, they turn into callbacks. Notice how much time you spend on them over one week. That is the real price.
Who it fits: the one chair salon with a good online booking page, where the recording says “book online yourself, I call back after five”. Then the machine becomes a signpost instead of a pile of work.
The receptionist
A person at the front desk is still the best option if the finances can carry it. A receptionist answers the phone, greets guests, sells products, keeps the calendar straight and can hear when a customer is unhappy.
Upsides: the customer talks to a human who can make a decision. Difficult calls, complaints, rebooking a whole day and everything that does not look like a normal appointment gets handled right away. The receptionist also does all the things a phone cannot: coffee, tidying, following up on customers who have not been in for a while.
Downsides: it is the most expensive of the three. A salary is a salary, including the days when the phone barely rings. On top of that come holiday, sick days and training. And the front desk is not staffed around the clock. The call at nine on a Sunday evening still lands on voicemail.
What it costs in money: work it out with your own numbers. Take the hourly wage with everything on top, multiply by the hours you actually need, and hold it up against how many bookings the desk has to bring in to pay for itself. For some businesses it clearly pays. For others it clearly does not.
Who it fits: the clinic or salon with several practitioners, a busy waiting area and a high average per treatment. When someone has to stand at the desk anyway, the phone is almost free on top.
The AI phone assistant
The third option is new. An AI takes the call, speaks Danish with the customer, finds an open slot in the calendar, books it and sends an SMS confirmation. The customer does not have to leave a message, and you do not have to call back. NordBooq is the first booking system in Denmark with a built in AI phone assistant, and it is optional.
Upsides: it answers every time, including nine on a Sunday evening and in the middle of a colour. It does not take holiday. It costs the same whether two calls come in or thirty. And it books into the same calendar you already use, so you do not end up with double bookings.
Downsides: it is not a human, and some customers would rather talk to one. It is good at the ordinary things, meaning booking, moving and cancelling an appointment. It is not the right answer for a complaint, a difficult conversation or a question that needs your professional judgement. There still has to be a way through to you. And it is only as good as your calendar: if the staff schedule is out of date, it will book into gaps that do not exist.
What it costs in time: mostly at the start. You have to set it up so it knows your treatments, your time per treatment and your rules. After that it is maintenance, not work.
Who it fits: you, if you lose calls because your hands are full. You, if the evening calls keep coming. You, if you tried a part time receptionist and found out that the phone rings at the wrong hours.
It is not either or
The three do not rule each other out. A clinic can have a receptionist during opening hours and an AI that picks up the calls the desk cannot reach, plus the ones that come in at night. A small salon can use online booking as the main road, AI as the phone answer and itself as the backstop. What matters is that no call ends as nothing.
When each one makes sense
| Your situation | What makes sense |
|---|---|
| One chair, few calls, a good online booking page | Answering machine pointing to online booking |
| Two or three chairs, the phone rings while you work | AI phone assistant |
| Many calls after closing and at weekends | AI phone assistant |
| Full book, guests at the desk all day, high price per treatment | Receptionist |
| Clinic with several practitioners and difficult conversations | Receptionist in opening hours, AI outside them |
| You just opened and need to keep costs down | Online booking plus voicemail, add AI when calls grow |
Watch your own phone for a week before you decide anything. Write down how many calls you missed, and when they came in. The answer those numbers give you is better than anything anyone can sell you.
If you want to see how the AI phone assistant behaves with your own treatments and your own calendar, you can try it in NordBooq. It is optional, and you can switch it off again.