The plain-English guide
What an AI receptionist actually does when it picks up
An AI receptionist answers your business line in a natural Kiwi voice, in your business name, and texts you the job. This page covers how it works, what it's good at, what it honestly can't do, and what it costs in NZ.
A receptionist made of software, trained on your business
An AI receptionist is a phone-answering system that talks like a person instead of playing a menu. No "press 1 for bookings". A caller rings your number, it picks up in your business name, and it has a normal conversation: what's the job, where are you, how urgent is it, what's the best number to reach you on.
The reason it can do this for your business, and not some generic version of it, is that you train it during setup. It learns your services, your hours, your service area, and how you want calls handled. A caller in a suburb you don't cover gets told that straight away instead of wasting your callback. An after-hours emergency gets flagged as one.
It is not a recording, not a call centre, and not a person. Each of those comparisons matters, and they're covered further down.
How an AI receptionist works, start to finish
You train it
About 10 minutes: business name, services, hours, service area, and a voice you like. That's the whole setup.
You dial one divert code
You keep your number. Your phone still rings first. Only the calls you miss forward to the AI.
It answers and asks the right things
Name, number, address, the job, urgency. A conversation, not an interrogation, and nothing gets invented.
You get a job sheet
Text and email within a minute of hangup. Full transcript and recording in your dashboard.
What a real call looks like
Sixty seconds after that call ends, Chris has a job sheet on his phone: Sarah's name and number, the address, a tripping circuit in the kitchen, flagged urgent.
Where it earns its keep
Most tradies lose jobs at two moments: after hours, and while they're on the tools. Both are exactly when a machine that never sleeps does its best work. There's a full page on after-hours answering if that's your main leak.
The 9pm call
Hot water gone, switchboard tripping, roof leaking in a southerly. It picks up when you've clocked off, every night of the year.
The on-the-tools call
You're under a house with both hands full. The call gets answered anyway, and the details are on your phone at smoko.
Urgency triage
A burst pipe and a fence quote are not the same call. Every job sheet carries an urgency flag so you ring the right person back first.
The same on call forty
It doesn't get tired, short, or distracted. The last caller of the day gets the same answer as the first.
Spam handled free
Robocalls and telemarketers get filtered without eating your minutes or your patience.
Every call on record
Transcript and recording of each call sit in your dashboard. No more "I'm sure someone rang about a deck".
What it honestly can't do
Complex quotes
It can capture that someone wants a reroof on a 1970s weatherboard place in Papakura. It cannot price that job, and it won't try. It never invents prices. It takes the details, tells the caller you'll confirm pricing, and the quoting stays with you. Anyone selling an AI that quotes trade work off a phone call is selling you a complaint generator.
Existing-customer account questions
"Where's my invoice from March?" and "did you order that part yet?" need your records, and the AI doesn't have them. It takes a clear message with the caller's details and what they're chasing, so your callback takes thirty seconds instead of ten minutes of detective work.
Callers who want a human, full stop
Some people will always want a person, and arguing with them loses the job. The AI doesn't argue. On the Pro plan it can transfer urgent calls live to your mobile, so the caller gets a human: you. Otherwise it takes their details, flags the call, and you ring them back like you would any missed call, except now you have their name, number and job in front of you.
Judgement calls
Whether a job is worth taking, whether a customer is worth keeping, whether that noise in the wall is rats or wiring: still yours. The AI's job is to make sure the call that raises the question doesn't vanish into voicemail.
AI receptionist vs voicemail, call centres and staffed services
Versus voicemail
Voicemail is free and nearly useless: most callers hang up and ring the next tradie rather than leave a message. An AI receptionist engages the caller and captures the job. The voicemail alternative page digs into the numbers.
Versus a call centre answering service
A traditional phone answering service puts a human on your line, but usually one reading a generic script, billing per call, and mostly during business hours. The AI knows your business, costs a flat monthly rate, and doesn't clock off.
Versus a staffed virtual receptionist
Staffed virtual reception services employ real people to answer in your name, and for complex or sensitive calls a good human still wins. For a sole trader who mostly needs missed calls caught, the maths usually favours AI. The full comparison is on the virtual receptionist NZ page.
What an AI receptionist costs in NZ
TradieCall starts at $129/mo including GST. That gets 24/7 answering in your business name, a job sheet texted and emailed after every call, urgency flags, and spam blocking. Pro at $249/mo adds diary booking with Google Calendar sync and live transfer of urgent calls to your mobile. Trade Team at $449/mo covers bigger crews. The pricing page has the full breakdown.
The pricing is flat monthly. A busy storm week costs the same as a quiet one, which is not true of per-call human services, and nowhere near what a wage costs. If you're weighing this against actual staff, see hiring a receptionist vs AI. There's no lock-in either way: it's monthly, cancel anytime.
How to try one without risking a single caller
The trial is designed so no customer hears the AI before you do. Set it up in about 10 minutes, then ring your own number and try to trip it up. Ask it something outside your services. Demand a price. Pretend to be a difficult caller at 11pm. If it holds up, dial the divert code and go live. If it doesn't, you've lost 10 minutes and nothing else. The trial runs 7 days, free. Plumbers can see a trade-specific walkthrough on the plumbers page.
The questions everyone asks
Ring it yourself before anyone else does
Free 7-day trial. Set up in 10 minutes, keep your number, cancel anytime.
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