The calls you owe people, made for you
Ring-backs, reminders and “tell him the part arrived” are the calls a front desk makes between the ones it answers — and the ones that never happen when nobody is at the desk.
Six o’clock, and the list…
The call you are losing right now
- Four people asked for a call back today. Three of their numbers are on a notepad and one is in your head.
- You ring the first at ten past six. She booked somewhere else at four. The second goes to voicemail; the third is eating.
- The fourth is the one who said it could not wait, and you can no longer remember which one that was.
What happens when it answers instead
Every message is a callback with the number on it
What the agent takes mid-call lands as a task carrying the caller’s number, their words, whether the number can be dialed at all, and the time it promised them. The urgent ones sit at the top, and everyone on the team who can clear callbacks is pushed the task on their phone rather than emailed it.
One tap, and the agent rings them back
From the task, from your own number, in your agent’s own voice — it introduces itself, says why it is calling, and reports back whether it spoke to them, left a voicemail or got no answer, with a one-line summary of what was said.
Write a note, and it makes the call
“Tell him the part arrived, we can fit him Thursday.” From a conversation or a contact, you write the note and the agent calls with it as its brief — now, or at a time you choose — and what the person said comes back to you on the task.
Reminders by phone, and the whole list when something changes
Switch on phone reminders and the agent rings each client before their appointment, and can hear “I can’t make it” — which becomes a message for you, never a diary edit it made on its own. When you are shut Monday while you move, one message rings everyone it applies to, one call at a time.
What this actually takes
- A phone number of your own, included from Essential up. The calls come from your number, so what the person sees ringing is you.
- Nothing else for a one-tap ring-back or a note. Phone reminders are a switch, off until you turn it on.
- A little patience for the automated ones: they ring only in daytime hours where the person is — by their clock, not yours — and a broadcast rings one person every two and a half minutes, so two hundred people is most of a day.
the part nobody else prints
What it will never do
- Ring anyone who has said not to. “Don’t call me again” is recorded the moment it is said, and every dial path refuses that number from then on.
- Place an automated call outside daytime hours where the person is. The hours are theirs, not yours — 9am–8pm every day for a US number, 10am–6pm on weekends in Canada, and elsewhere 10am–8pm on weekdays and 10am–5pm on Saturdays with no Sundays — so a call queued at midnight waits for their morning; only a one-tap dial you press yourself goes straight out.
- Sell. A broadcast carries an operational message to your own clients — a closure, a move, a change of hours. Marketing and cold outreach are not built, on purpose.
- Move an appointment because somebody said “I can’t make it” to a reminder. That becomes a message for you; the diary is yours to change.
Questions people ask about this
Does the person know it is the agent calling?
If you choose to tell them — you pick during setup, and can change it any time — the first thing it says is that they are speaking with your business’s AI front desk and that the call is recorded. Either way it introduces itself by name, from your business, never claims to be a person, and says it is your virtual receptionist if they ask. It calls from your own number, so what they see ringing is you.
What if they do not pick up?
Busy and no-answer get one more automated try, half an hour later. A voicemail does not — a message was left — and the task says which it was, with a one-line summary of anything that was said. Nothing is dialed again and again.
Can it ring my whole client list about an offer?
No. A broadcast carries an operational message to your own clients — shut Monday, moved premises, a change of hours — capped at two hundred people, one call every two and a half minutes inside the daytime window, and never anyone who asked not to be called. Marketing by phone is prohibited in our terms and deliberately not built.
Hear it on your own site before you decide.
The free plan has real answered minutes — enough to put it on your site, show the team, and find out whether it is any good.