Questions worth asking first
Including the three a marketing page normally hides: the minutes really do run out, some channels need a provider's verification before they answer, and almost nobody is using this yet.
Will it sound like a robot?
Hear it and decide — that is what the demo is for, and it takes one click with no sign-up. It runs on a speech pipeline rather than a single speech-to-speech model, which is what makes it interruptible: talk over it and it stops, the way a person would.
What happens when it does not know something?
It says it will find out, takes a message, and files the question in your dashboard as a knowledge gap with the caller's exact words. That gap is the thing you answer once, after which it answers it forever. It is built to say “I'll find out” rather than to guess well.
Will it make things up?
It quotes the services, prices and answers you entered, and nothing else. It checks real availability before it offers a time. The trade playbook it runs on carries hard limits — never promise a result, never quote what you have not listed, never say somebody is booked when it only took a request.
Can it book into my diary?
Yes. Harkbell keeps a diary for you with clash detection, and it books straight into Square Appointments, Calendly, Acuity or Vagaro if that is where your bookings already live. Connect a Google or Outlook calendar on top and it also stops offering hours you are busy in — which covers Fresha, Booksy, GlossGenius and Mindbody, since those all sync out to one of the two. If you keep no bookable diary at all, it takes a structured booking request instead — the service, up to two preferred windows, and their details — and sends it to you to confirm in one tap. Confirming writes the appointment into Harkbell's diary and onto the calendar you connected; it does not reach inside Fresha, Booksy, GlossGenius or Mindbody, which sync out to a calendar and take nothing back, so you add that one entry yourself. Which route you are on is one choice for the business rather than one per service — a connected diary books every service on your list — and a request is also what the agent falls back to when that booking system cannot be reached mid-call, so an outage costs you a tap rather than the caller. A pending request holds nothing: the time stays bookable until you confirm, and a confirmation that has been overtaken tells you the slot has gone rather than double-booking you.
Does it work on the phone, or only on my website?
Both, and the phone is the main event. A real phone number comes with the paid plans, from Essential up — email us about one. It answers every call on the number, day or night, and transfers to you when the caller asks for a person. The website widget is the same agent on the free plan, which you can start on online today. WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger are built and waiting on Meta’s app review, and are a bonus on top rather than the reason to buy.
Does it make calls, or only answer them?
Both, once it has a number of its own — and numbers come with the paid plans. A message it takes becomes a callback task, and one tap has the agent ring that person back from your number, in its own voice, and report whether it spoke to them, left a voicemail or got no answer. Write it a note — “tell him the part arrived” — and it calls with that as its brief, now or at a time you choose. Switch on phone reminders and it rings clients before their appointment; when you are shut Monday while you move, one message rings everyone it applies to. The automated ones keep to 9am–8pm in your timezone, nothing is dialled that asked not to be, and marketing by phone is not built, on purpose.
Does it text my customers?
Yes, once it has a number, and numbers come with the paid plans. Then it sends booking confirmations, reminders, your deposit link and a review request after they have actually been in, all consent-gated and all on the same number that answers your calls. Clients can text photos back, which is what tattoo and PMU clients do anyway. The one thing to know is that US carriers register every business that sends texts, whatever platform it uses, and that registration takes days rather than minutes. We submit it with you, and email covers confirmations while it clears.
What happens when I run out of minutes?
Your agent stops, and you will have known it was coming: we email you at 80% of your plan's minutes and again when they are spent, and the billing panel warns at the same point. It is not a surprise and it is not an overage bill. What stops is the website widget answering and the calls the agent places for you. Your phone number is not touched at the cap — it is not released, it is not re-pointed, and no recorded message is put in front of it, because a number you have printed on your door must never hand a caller silence: the day the cap reaches the phone, it falls back to the transfer number you set rather than ringing unanswered. Anything answered past the allowance is on us. Upgrading, or a new billing period, puts it back on air with the same embed code.
Who can hear my calls?
You. Recordings and transcripts live on our servers in Northern Virginia, in the United States, and you can read any call back months later from the dashboard. We do not sell your data, we do not share it for advertising, and we do not use your calls to train AI models. Ask us to erase them and we will — the Delete your data page sets out exactly how, what goes, and the few things we are obliged to keep.
Does it work for my trade?
Harkbell is sold for seven trades, each with a brief of its own. Anything else gets the general brief plus everything you write down yourself. The trade brief is what adds the vocabulary and the limits on top. If your business needs more than that — its own systems connected, or more calls than a plan holds — we also build custom versions: say so on the contact page.
What if my callers do not speak English?
The agent is told to answer in the language the caller speaks and to fall back to English, and the models underneath it are multilingual. What it says is still assembled from what you typed, so your service names and your prices come out in the words you wrote them in rather than translated ones. We have not measured it language by language, so if a real share of your callers speak Spanish, try the demo in Spanish before you count on it.
Can I cancel?
Two clicks, from the billing panel, and you keep the rest of the period you paid for. Nothing is deleted the moment you leave — ask and we erase it.
Still not answered? Ask us the awkward one.
A real person reads hello@harkbell.com and you will get a straight answer, including when the answer is “not yet”.