Comparisons2 min read
How to choose an AI receptionist
Almost every product in this category demos well on a scripted call. The differences show up on the calls nobody scripted.
Published 16 April 2026 · Updated 15 August 2026
There are now dozens of AI receptionist products available to UK businesses, and the marketing is close to identical across all of them. Everybody answers 24/7, everybody sounds human, everybody books appointments.
The useful questions are the ones that separate them, and most are answerable in an afternoon.
Ring it before anything else
Every serious provider has a number you can dial. Ring it and behave like a difficult customer. Interrupt it. Change your mind halfway. Ask something off script. Talk over it.
How it handles being interrupted is the single best predictor of how it will handle your actual callers, and it is the thing that separates products that sound impressive in a video from products that survive a Tuesday.
The nine questions
Ask these directly and in writing. Reluctance to answer any of them in writing is itself an answer.
- Is pricing flat, or per minute or per call? What happens in a busy month?
- What is the contract length and the notice period?
- Is there a setup fee, and what does onboarding actually include?
- Does it book into our calendar, or only take messages?
- Can it transfer to a person, and on what rules?
- Do we get a transcript and a recording of every call?
- Where is call data stored, and what is the retention period?
- Is there a data processing agreement, and can we see it?
- How long does a script change take, and who makes it?
Easier to hear than to read about
Callwise answers your phone the way this article describes. Ring it, ask it something awkward, and see whether it holds up.
Talk to our AI assistantThe three things providers rarely volunteer
How it behaves when it does not know. The right answer is that it says so, takes a message and escalates. The wrong answer, and it is common, is that it invents something plausible, which is far more damaging than silence.
What happens if the caller becomes distressed or aggressive. There should be a defined path to a human or a graceful exit.
How quickly you can change what it says. If a script change is a support ticket with a five day turnaround, you cannot iterate, and iterating is where the conversion improvement comes from.
Number handling
You should keep your existing number. Anything that requires customers to learn a new one is a serious cost dressed up as a technicality.
Check how the handover works: whether calls hit your team first and overflow, or go to the assistant directly, and whether you can vary that by time of day. Most businesses want overflow during hours and direct answering outside them.
Judge it on bookings, not on calls
Ask any provider to report appointments created rather than calls handled. A call answered is an input. A booking is the output you are buying.
Run a thirty day trial with that as the single measure, and make sure you can leave at the end of it.
Questions people ask
Should we pick a UK provider?
It helps for accents, dialling conventions and data residency, and it matters for how the assistant handles postcodes and UK phone numbers. Ask where data is processed regardless.
How long does setup usually take?
Anything from a day to several weeks depending on how much configuration a provider insists on. Ask for a firm date and what is needed from you.
Read next
How much does an AI receptionist cost in the UK?
Most quoted prices hide the thing that actually decides your bill, which is whether you are charged for the calls you receive or a flat fee for all of them.
Do they actually sound human?
The voice is rarely the problem. What gives most of them away is timing.
What happens when it does not know
Every assistant meets a question it cannot answer. What it does next is the most important thing about it, and the least demonstrated in any sales call.
Hear it answer a call
Ring the assistant and ask it the awkward question your customers always ask. If you like what you hear, it will book you in there and then.
Talk to our AI assistantNo form, no sales call. Thirty seconds on the phone with the thing itself.