5 questions to ask before buying an AI receptionist for your business

There are roughly 30 AI receptionist companies right now. Most of them have polished demos and identical-looking websites. The differences only show up in production. Here are the five questions we'd ask if we were buying. We've answered them ourselves first — read until the end for our honest scoring.

Question 1: "Can you call my business and have your AI book a slot in front of me?"

This separates the real products from the demoware. A live call — not a recorded demo, not a slide deck — answers four things at once:

Does the AI sound natural? (Within 5 seconds you'll know.)
How fast does it respond? (Real systems answer in <1 second. Bad ones lag 3-4 seconds.)
Does it actually book to a calendar? (Make them show you the booking appearing.)
How does it handle interruptions? (Try cutting it off mid-sentence — does it cope?)

If a vendor refuses or the demo is recorded only, walk away.

Question 2: "Can the voice be cloned, and what does the standard one sound like?"

Voice quality varies enormously. Robotic monotone tells your customers "this isn't a real business". Premium voice cloning makes them think you've hired someone polished.

What to ask:

Is voice cloning included or an add-on? (Industry: usually add-on, £30-£100 one-off.)
How much voice data do you need to clone it? (Good systems: 1 minute. Bad: 30+ minutes.)
Can I switch voices easily? (Look for a library of 10+ pre-built voices.)
Does it support a neutral/British/American accent?

Sub-question: "What languages does it speak?" If you have any non-English customers, this matters. Look for at least Spanish, French, Polish, Urdu — not just "English variants".

Question 3: "Which calendar and CRM does it integrate with — natively, not via Zapier?"

"We integrate with everything" usually means "we integrate with Zapier and Zapier integrates with everything". Zapier works fine for most things but adds latency and a monthly subscription you didn't budget for.

Native integrations to ask for, by industry:

Trades: Google Calendar, Outlook, Housecall Pro, Jobber.
Salons: Google Calendar, Square Appointments, Acuity, Setmore.
Dental / Medical: Open Dental, Dentrix, Calendar (Google / Outlook), Phreesia.
Real estate: HubSpot, Salesforce, Follow Up Boss, GoHighLevel.
Restaurants: OpenTable, Resy (often via Zapier — fine for this).
E-commerce: Shopify, WooCommerce, Slack.

If your most-used tool is Zapier-only, ask for confirmation that the Zapier flow actually works in production (vendors sometimes claim it but haven't tested it).

Question 4: "What's the actual monthly cost, including overage and add-ons?"

The headline price (e.g. £99/month) is rarely the price you'll pay. Always ask for the all-in cost based on your real usage.

How many minutes are included? (Watch out for "unlimited" — usually has a fair-use cap.)
What's the per-minute overage? (Industry: £0.30-£1.00/min. Anything above £0.80 is high.)
Are SMS included? (Some charge per SMS. Adds up fast.)
Setup fees? (Should be £0 for self-serve.)
Voice cloning, integrations, additional numbers — included or add-on?
Long-term contract? (Anything beyond month-to-month is a red flag for a small business.)

Ask the vendor to compute your "all-in monthly cost at 500 voice minutes". Then compare apples to apples.

Question 5: "What happens when the AI doesn't know the answer?"

This is the question vendors hate. Because the failure mode tells you more than the success mode.

Good systems will:

Politely say "let me get the owner to call you back" rather than make something up.
Instantly text/email you the question with caller details.
Optionally route to a human agent (your mobile, or a paid answering service like Smith.ai).
Remember the gap and prompt you to add the missing knowledge to your KB.
Provide an audit trail you can review.

Bad systems hallucinate prices, make up your business hours, or get stuck in a loop. Ask for a real-world example of how the vendor handles a tricky call (you can usually invent one — "I'm calling about my warranty for a service I had 5 years ago" is a good test).

Bonus question: "Can I see real customer transcripts (anonymised)?"

Vendors with confidence will show you anonymised transcripts of calls their AI handled. You'll see exactly how it sounds, what it does well, and where it drops the ball. Vendors who can't or won't share these may be hiding something.

How we score on these questions ourselves

Live demo call: ✅ Yes — call +44 7496 915 656 any time. No appointment needed.
Voice cloning: ✅ Included on the Scale plan (£397/mo). 1-minute sample needed. 14 pre-built voices in library available on all plans.
Native integrations: ✅ Google Calendar, Outlook, HubSpot, Salesforce, GoHighLevel, Pipedrive, Follow Up Boss, Square Appointments, Open Dental, Stripe.
All-in cost at 500 mins/month: Scale plan covers 1,000 min for £397 — no overage on that volume. Or Growth (£197) with 400 included + 100 overage at £0.75/min = £272 total. SMS & numbers included.
Failure mode: Polite escalation to your mobile + SMS with transcript + dashboard alert + suggested KB update. Live human escalation marketplace on Pro.
Sample transcripts: Available on request — email info@missedcallhelpai.com.

Want to evaluate us against another vendor? Try our 30-day money-back guarantee alongside theirs. Same business, same calls, real data. The difference shows up by day 3.
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