Before you hire a person, you write the job description. Do the same before you buy an AI receptionist: answer every enquiry instantly, with our real information, book customers in, and never embarrass us. Then hold every vendor to it. These eight questions will do most of the work.
1. Where do its answers come from?
This is the question that separates a receptionist from a chatbot in a suit. If the AI answers from a general model with a page of instructions, it will eventually invent a price, a policy, or an opening time — confidently. Demand answers grounded in a knowledge base you control: your prices, your services, your hours. Then test it in the demo: ask about a service you don't offer and watch what happens. The right behaviour is "I'm not sure — let me have someone confirm," not an invented answer.
2. What happens when it doesn't know?
Every AI hits the edge of its knowledge. The difference is what it does there. Acceptable: admits it, offers a human follow-up, flags the conversation. Unacceptable: bluffs. Ask the vendor to show you an escalation, not describe one.
3. Who owns the conversation data?
Every enquiry your customers send is commercially sensitive — names, numbers, jobs, budgets. Ask: where is it stored, who can read it, is it used to train models, and can you export or delete it? If the answers are vague, walk. (Ours: stored in a UK/EU-hosted database under your account, never sold, never used for third-party training.)
4. Can you read every transcript?
A receptionist you can't audit is a liability. You should be able to read the full text of every conversation — not summaries, not samples. This is also how you'll improve your knowledge base: real customer questions tell you exactly what to add.
5. How does it handle opt-outs and consent?
In the UK this isn't optional. STOP (and the standard variants) must be honoured instantly and automatically, with a single confirmation and nothing further. Conversations should be customer-initiated. If a vendor can't explain their compliance behaviour crisply, they haven't built it.
6. How is it priced — flat or metered?
Per-call and per-conversation pricing punishes you for succeeding: the month your marketing works is the month your receptionist bill spikes. A flat subscription is predictable and aligns the vendor with your growth. If the pricing page needs a calculator, that's your answer.
7. Who does the setup?
"Self-serve" often means "you do the work." For a busy trade or a hotel front office, done-for-you setup matters: the vendor loads your services, prices and booking link, you test it by texting the number yourself, and only then does it go live.
8. Does it book, or just chat?
Conversation without conversion is entertainment. The receptionist should qualify the enquiry and move it to a booking — sending your scheduling link at the right moment and flagging the lead as hot. Ask to see a full journey in the demo: enquiry → answered → qualified → booked.
Grounded answers · honest escalation · your data, your transcripts · instant STOP compliance · flat pricing · done-for-you setup · books, doesn't just chat. Any vendor that clears all eight is worth your time.
Hold us to all eight.
Book a demo and ask us every question on this list — we built the product to pass it.
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