The AI Receptionist Deep Dive: Beyond Just Answering Calls

**[00:00:00]** Hello everyone, my name is Amando Preso and welcome to the web talk show. Today we're talking about the AI receptionist deep dive. So basically we're going to talk about going beyond just answering calls and what this means for a lot of businesses. I was asked today by someone um there's no way they said that a an AI can answer my calls because they wouldn't know what to say. And sure, this there's some ignorance in that concept, but it's a very common thought because you think, "Oh, how is that thing going to know what to say?" And while it's true if you just turn on the phone and ask an AI to answer the well, it more than likely won't say what you want it to say, unless you are in a very well-known industry, then of course DIS are actually pretty smart in that sense, and they will very likely be able to give very accurate information just in general about the type of service in your industry and things like that. But you probably wanted to say things that are related to your specific business and you want a flow that's specific to what you offer to your customers and the tone of voice, etc. So that's what I want to unpack today. What an AI receptionist actually sounds like, what it can know, what it can say, what it can do. It's not an IVR. It's very different from having a phone system that says press one for sales, press two for support, press three for Spanish. This is very different because it's just talking like a regular person. It listens and it talks back and you can interrupt it and you can ask different questions and you can mispronounce things and it'll **[00:02:00]** understand and you can give it numbers and it'll understand. It'll it can ask you to clarify if it has questions. It doesn't have pre-programmed steps necessarily. It can have a free flowing conversation. It can even go outside the conversation and then bring you back in depending on the instructions that you give it. We were doing a test with this the other day with our agent and you can actually call it 210 9874321. That is our version and you can talk to it and it'll tell tell you about our services and workflow and it'll sort of guide you based on your pain points in the business and things like that. It it sort of asks uh specific questions that can sort of guide you towards what you need to learn and what you need to know. And then you can also book appointments which we'll get to uh shortly. But it's really cool because we were testing how far off it would go because we gave it certain instructions. And so one of the kids asked it, "How do you make a gingerbread cookie?" And so the agent laughed and said, "Oh, gingerbread cookies. I love them. You make me hungry." Well, you need this, this, is this. But let's get back to talking about AI workflows. So it'll it'll sort of bring the conversation back. And we might have time to actually demo it on the the stream today just so you see how it sounds. But you can be very clever in what you do. You can give it a personality. You can make it be thoughtful. You can make it be calm. You can be energetic. And it's just like talking to a regular person. And I think a demo will make a **[00:04:00]** lot of sense. But it's it's a lot of fun. And so going back to what it can or can't say, it is very important that you give it the right prompt so that it knows what you want it to say. You can tell it everything about your business. And this is what you should do. You should have a document. If you're working with someone like us, we want to build something like this. You want to have a document that has all your services, all your products, all your prices. If you do pricing directly, all even ways to calculate pricing. You can give it access to your calculator. It can know about your past history. It can know about your structure, your processes, your standard operating procedures. You can feed it a lot of information. And then it can also call systems. So, if you have a CRM, you wanted to be able to pull information about a customer to give them information about where they are in the process, where they stand in the queue, when their car, motorcycle, truck is going to be ready, whatever you want, it can know because you can give it access to different systems and it could be contained access. You can give it read only access. You can actually have it write to different systems if you want to. So, it could be very powerful depending on the industry you are. You might want more or less. And the amazing thing is how humanlike it sounds. And it's not trying to replace a human. It's just helping you take some of the load off your front office staff. So if you have a receptionist and they're on the phone all day and they're doing, "Please hold, please hold, **[00:06:00]** please hold." They just can't keep up with all these calls, then you're losing customers. and then the customers that you do have are getting frustrated and they might just hang up, especially if they're in a hurry. So something like this allows your front-end staff to focus on the most important task. So maybe they have to do a quote, an estimate, maybe they have to talk with someone that has an issue that's that's very nuanced, that just needs more human interaction, and that's perfect. But then all the other 12 calls that you're getting at the same time for booking appointments, for asking about your times, just typical frequently asked questions, the agent can take care of. And it can go even further and actually consult the system, give them their information, book appointments, and all that good stuff. So, are they good? Yes, I think they're very useful, especially if you have this painoint. If you don't run a business and you don't have this painoint, it might just go over your head and you're like, "No, no, this makes no sense. I want to talk to a human." And I've heard that, too. I personally don't necessarily want to talk to a human. I do when it's something that I need a human to do. But many times I found that we think we need a human to solve something. But that's only because we have the preconceived notion that a system cannot do it because we've had prior experience of a system failing at doing that. And that's why we have that misconception. If you you give it to a kid, you see you'll see they don't have that misconception. They'll just ask it anything. They don't care. They'll just ask because they don't **[00:08:00]** have an opposing history that will tell them no, no, it's not possible that that thing will help you. They'll just go ahead and ask. And I think we all need to step back and have that same curiosity that kids have because might we while we might stop ourselves and we might actually start talking to it like please help me with sales because you've had prior experience with a system that doesn't understand you and you have to annunciate here. No, just talk to it like a regular human. Even talk to it in your own language. If you have a different language, it might support different languages. And that's that's what's really neat about it. We can make these agents where they're multilingual and can understand English and Spanish and French and German and it can do what you want. And if you've ever chatted had a conversation with Chad GBT's voice thing, if you have the paid version, it works sort of like that, but it's just on the phone. It's very useful. So talking about that issue for misconception that I heard this morning about how is it going to know what to say? Well, we're going to tell it what to say. So, we're going to ask you a lot of questions about how you run your business, what types of services you offer, at what times of the day do you work, how long does your job typically take. Let's say you're an electrician, a plumber, etc. Well, you have all sorts of jobs. So maybe you need you have a service for unclogging the toilet or the drain or flushing out the water heater or fixing the AC or doing maintenance on the AC or doing a summer maintenance or doing a **[00:10:00]** winter maintenance or if you're in the car industry well maybe changing the filter maybe the air filter the oil filter the fuel filter you have to add air to tires rotate the tires do alignment anything like that if you're an electrician maybe checking the panel maybe switching some breakers out, checking the breakers, checking continuity in some of the lines. There's all sorts of services that each business has. And if while the AI itself, if you have using a big model, will know a lot of these general concepts, it's better to feed it information that's relevant to your specific business. And that way when people call it, they're basically talking to you. They they'll get the same type of response that they would get from you. And the cool part of it is you create a first version and then you just iterate on it. You get it to make to become better and better and better as you talk to it and learn. Oh, maybe it shouldn't say this or maybe it it was a little too harsh on this one or maybe it was a little too soft on this one or maybe it it's going too far off the conversation path. Let's add some rules to get it back. So, it becomes a very helpful tool again for your front office staff to be able to offload a lot of these calls that might just be distracting them from getting new customers, from helping existing customers out, etc. Now, quick thing here. If you are on LinkedIn, I don't know why LinkedIn keeps sort of refreshing the screen here and showing me a shorter duration. So, sorry about that if that is actually happening. I'm not sure if it's happening or if it's **[00:12:00]** just how it's displaying, but I think on YouTube we're we're live and everything. And if you're listening to this in the podcast, don't worry about what I just said. It's just for the sake of anyone who's listening live. So, I think we'll do a little demo. Let me see if we can call ours and see what it's it'll say. And I don't know how it's going to come through in the microphone, but let's check. Let's do a call to this number two and zero. 9874321. Let me know if you hear it because >> Hi there. Thank you for calling Perez Cordeno and Quandro. This is Jessica. What brings you here today? >> Hello, Jessica. Well, I I own a small bakery and I don't know. I saw one of your ads or videos or something and and it looked fun, so I wanted to learn a little bit more. >> Oh, that's great to hear. A bakery sounds like such a fun business. What caught your attention about our ad or video? What are you hoping to learn more about? >> Well, I it's something about the AI receptionist. They sound fun. So, how how does that work? Can Can I get an a receptionist? >> Absolutely. Our AI receptionist is like having a super helpful assistant that never takes a break. It can answer customer calls, schedule appointments, and even take messages all without you having to lift a finger. It's designed to handle those repetitive tasks that can eat up your time, especially during busy hours at your bakery. So instead of missing calls or juggling everything yourself, the AI can take care of customer interactions 24/7. This has sound like something that could help you out. What kind of task do you **[00:14:00]** find yourself juggling the most? Well, I calls there's there's just so many calls coming in and we're we're trying to help someone, but there's five, six other calls coming in for orders and we just we just can't take it. So, they have to go to voicemail and then some of those when we call back like they've already gone to someone else or they just don't >> That sounds really frustrating. Missing those calls can definitely mean losing out on orders. And I can see how that would be overwhelming, especially with so many customers trying to reach you. The AI receptionist could really help with that. It can answer every call, even when you're busy with customers in the bakery. It can take orders, answer common questions, and ensure that no call goes to the voicemail. This way, you can focus on serving your customers without worrying about missing out on new orders. >> Now, Jessica, sorry to interrupt, but I heard somewhere that you have some sort of demos. Do you have any demos that I can talk to like just to test one of these agents? >> Yes, we do. You can actually interact with one of our live demo agents to see how it works in real time. You can ask questions and experience how the AI handles customer interactions. We have a couple of options. Joe's auto entire, which is great for service inquiries, or Dolly's Pet Spot, which focuses on appointment scheduling. >> Oh, let's do Joe's the the uh the autoshop. I'm just curious to see how >> Great choice. Let me transfer you over now so you can experience it firsthand. Just a moment. >> Joe's Auto and Tire. Sam here. How can I help you today? >> Hello, Sam. **[00:16:00]** I I think I need an oil change. >> Thanks for calling Joe's Auto and Tire. I can definitely help you with that. What kind of vehicle do you have? I It's a It's an Accord. I don't remember the brand. Um but it's an Accord, I think. Um Yeah, something like that. >> Nope. >> No problem. Just to clarify, is it a Honda Accord? >> Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's a it's a Honda >> Got it. A 2024 Honda Accord. Are you looking for a conventional oil change or a synthetic oil change? I >> if you're not sure, I can help. >> Yeah, I don't know what's what's the difference. >> Good question. A conventional oil change uses standard oil, which is typically changed every 30 to 5,000 miles. >> Okay. A higher quality oil that lasts. >> Yeah, let's let's go with the conventional. I I don't want to spend >> Sounds good. We'll go with a conventional oil change. When were you hoping to bring your Honda Accord in? >> I have a few openings tomorrow, December 31st. We can get you in at 9:00 a.m., 10 a.m., or 11 a.m. Which time works best for you? >> Um, sorry. Could you send me back to Jessica, please? >> So, as you can see here, >> that was fast. This is Jessica. What brings you here today? >> Hey Jessica, can I can I hear the other >> So, as you can see, you can have multiple different voices attached to >> to your agent. In this case, we have three agents. >> Peta, this is Riley. How can I help you and your furry friend today? >> Thank you for calling. I appreciate you reaching out. However, we specialize in grooming small pets under **[00:18:00]** 40 pounds. >> For larger dogs, I'd recommend a full service grooming salon that can provide the care they need. >> Would you like to suggest? >> Now, I also have a smaller puppy. Um, it's a Pomeranian. Can you help with that one? >> Absolutely. We would love to help with your Pomeranian. What's your puppy's name? And what kind of grooming services are you looking for? Her name is Jewel and I think she needs a bath. >> Jewel sounds adorable. We offer a couple of bath options for her. We have a basic bath for $35 to $45 which includes >> so as you can see it's the sky's is the limit in what how you can set these up. This is just some demos that we have and it allows people to interact with the similar experience to what they currently have their business right so you might we have might not have all different industries we have a few and we keep adding more so that people can call in and be like okay so this sounds similar to the type of service that I'm doing so if you do an electrician one for example then it'll work for a plumber as well and many other trades that are similar you have an auto shop then It'll work for something similar to like auto detailing or maybe a truck shop or a diesel shop or even a mobile uh service provider and things like that. So, what I really like is that you can tailor it to the type of business that you have, but also to the type of customer that you have. So, it can have the type of attitude or personality based on what your customer expects from your business. And so **[00:20:00]** we talked about all the data that it can have, all the knowledge that it can have from your company so it can talk about the actual services and provide a good experience and ask answer all the questions. You can take a little further and have it book talk to your calendar, check available slots, actually book people into available slots. And I'll show a demo of that another time where I actually show the screen of it doing the appointment setting. But then also apart from the technical functionalities that it could do, you can have it talk in a way that resonates with your potential customer base. And I think that's really neat. Like you saw here, we had three agents on the line. One b our sort of main agent and then another very different one, a man instead of a woman for the car shop. And then we had another person who's maybe younger and more more I don't know a softer type of personality for the pet grooming u spa. So you can you can do all sorts of voices. You can do different tools for transcription. You can connect it to all sorts of tools as well. And I just think personally as a business owner that having something like this is super useful even for solo practitioners, uh, bigger businesses, nail salons, obviously all that sort of like service based appointment based businesses. It's great. People can be calling while they're driving on speaker phone, of course. They can they can just call in, get a reservation or or whatever. They don't have to be looking at their phone, which is dangerous a lot of times. And I've wanted something like this since a long time ago, a way when I started **[00:22:00]** the business at the very beginning, a way to be able to receive calls and actually provide value to people even if they're not necessarily booking something, just just be able to answer some questions that they have. And before it was just impossible or it was just completely out of the budget, it was just not something a small business could do. And nowadays with these tools with with how AI came into the picture, it is very affordable to do something like this. And it will provide a very nice experience for your clients of course, but then also for your staff because it allows you to offload a lot of the current workload that they have. And the best part of it is you can always have it transferred to someone else. So they're not stuck in the AI world, which is what we all fear when we call into a system and it's like you're just stuck there and they don't like to talk to humans. So no, no, no. I I really dislike that. I'm not for gatekeeping people. I'm more for allowing the customer to get access to their results the fastest. Now, if they need human support, it should transfer them immediately. So in my case when we program these most of them my clients have asked can we have them just hand off directly no questions asked right and that's what we do we set it up in a way where if they're having any trouble then the AI can say let me let me just transfer you over to to a person and then at that point it transfers over to a regular person and you can have different cues and it could go to specific people it could escalate it **[00:24:00]** even go directly to the business owner if it's a big issue or something like that so you can have all these routing rules so that people are not stuck in the AI but then can actually get their results fast if possible and if not it could just be escalated via a handoff but not trying to keep them over here just because right so that's not the point the point is again to provide results for the person so I hope this has helped some of you know a little more learn a little more about what an AI receptionist can do and how it can really help you um get more appointments booked, get more people to show up, take care of all customer inquiries, and take off some of the work for your front-end staff so that they can focus on more important tasks um within the business. So, I hope you liked this video and if you like this video, please like and subscribe. You can follow us on LinkedIn, on YouTube, you can ring the bell there on YouTube as well. And then this will be in the web talk show podcast which you can find on Spotify, iTunes and all other places where you can find your podcast. Thank you for joining us and