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SearchSynth
AI Receptionist & Lead Capture

A call that rings out is a job that went to whoever answered.

We build and run an AI receptionist for your business. It answers every call, day and night, and says up front that it is an AI assistant. It works out how urgent the call is, takes the job details, books into your real calendar, and passes the caller to a person when they ask or the situation needs it. Missed calls get a text back, web enquiries get a reply within minutes, and every conversation is written into your CRM.

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ONE RUNtriggeragentplan · actMCPCRMDOCSevalsshiphuman

swipe to see the whole diagram →

one call as an agent run — it uses your systems, gets checked, then acts or hands over to a human

Calls answered, day and night
24/7Calls answered, day and night
Tells every caller it is an AI assistant
DisclosedTells every caller it is an AI assistant
Summarised and written into your CRM
Every callSummarised and written into your CRM
Telephony and AI usage, billed separately from our fee
At costTelephony and AI usage, billed separately from our fee
01Scope

What the AI receptionist does

Nine jobs, one standard. Each is set up around your services, prices, service area and rules, tested against real call scenarios before launch, and reviewed after it.

Where most start

AI phone answering service

Every call is picked up, in hours and out of them. The receptionist introduces itself as an AI assistant, answers the questions it has been given answers to, and takes the details of the ones it has not.

  • Your existing number, forwarded or ported
  • After-hours, overflow or every call — your choice
  • Answers drawn from your services, prices and service area
  • A recording and transcript of every call, where the law allows

Booking into your real calendar

The AI appointment setter reads live availability from the calendar or scheduling system you already use and books the slot while the caller is still on the line. It does not take a message and promise a call back.

  • Reads and writes your actual calendar
  • Confirmation sent to the customer by text
  • Reschedules and cancellations handled the same way

Urgency triage

A burst pipe and a quote for next month are different calls. The receptionist asks the questions you would ask, sorts the call by your rules, and treats an emergency as one.

  • Triage questions written with you, per service
  • Emergency route to your on-call number

Warm transfer to a person

Any caller who asks for a person gets one. The receptionist also hands over when the call goes outside what it has been set up to handle, and tells your team what has been said so far.

  • Transfer on request, with no argument
  • A summary passed to whoever picks up
  • A fallback when nobody is free to take it

Missed call text back

When a call does go unanswered — a busy line, a dropped call, a caller who hangs up early — a text goes out straight away, so the conversation carries on by message.

  • Automatic text after a missed or abandoned call
  • Replies handled by the same assistant, or passed to you

Speed to lead on web and chat

Speed to lead means how quickly a new enquiry gets a first reply. Web forms and chat messages are answered within minutes, by text, email or a call, instead of waiting for someone to get back to the office.

  • Web form and chat enquiries picked up automatically
  • Qualifying questions asked before a person is involved

Quote follow-up

Quotes that have had no answer are chased on a schedule you approve. When the customer has a question or an objection, it goes to a person — the assistant does not push past it.

  • Follow-up schedule and wording agreed with you
  • Stops the moment the customer says no

CRM notes on every conversation

Who called, what they wanted, what was booked and what still needs a person. Written into your CRM as it happens, so AI lead generation does not end as a pile of voicemails.

  • Contact created or updated, with duplicates checked for
  • Summary, outcome and next step on the record
Why it keeps working

Testing, monitoring and tuning

The part a low-cost app leaves to you. Before launch we run the AI voice agent through the calls your business actually gets, including the awkward ones. After launch we read transcripts, find where it got something wrong, and fix it.

  • A written set of test calls, run before every change
  • Transcripts reviewed, with failures logged and fixed
  • Rules for what it must never say or promise
  • Alerts when calls fail, drop or cost more than expected

What you end up with

  • A live, tested phone line

    Your number answered by a receptionist set up for your business, switched on only after it has passed the test calls we agreed.

  • The call script and rules, in writing

    What it says, what it asks, what it books, when it transfers and what it will not do — a document you can read and change.

  • Connections to your systems

    Calendar or scheduling software, CRM and text messaging wired together, so a booked call shows up where your team already looks.

  • The test call set

    The scenarios it was tested against, kept and re-run whenever the script, your prices or the underlying AI model changes.

  • Transcripts and a plain report

    Calls answered, bookings made, transfers, missed-call texts sent and what the usage cost — visible to you, not only to us.

  • Accounts in your name

    The phone number and the telephony and AI accounts are set up under your business wherever the provider allows it, so you can leave without losing them.

What it is built on

Voice

  • Vapi
  • ElevenLabs

Telephony & text

  • Twilio
  • SMS

Models

  • Claude
  • GPT
  • Gemini

Scheduling

  • Google Calendar
  • Jobber
  • Housecall Pro
  • ServiceTitan

CRM

  • HubSpot
  • Salesforce
  • The CRM you already use

Glue & monitoring

  • n8n
  • Langfuse
02Process

How a build runs

  1. Days 1–3

    Listen to the calls you get

    We go through how calls are handled today: what people ask, what gets booked, what counts as urgent. If an off-the-shelf app would cover it, this is where we tell you.

  2. Week 1

    Script, rules and test calls

    We write what the receptionist says and the rules it follows, then write the test calls before building anything. You sign off both.

  3. Week 2

    Build and connect

    Phone line, voice, calendar, CRM and text-back are wired up. Recording notices and consent wording are set for where you operate.

  4. Weeks 2–3

    Test, then go live in stages

    We run the test calls, and you and your team try to break it. It starts on after-hours or overflow calls and takes more as it holds up.

  5. Ongoing

    Review and tune

    On the managed plan we read transcripts, fix what went wrong, update it when your prices or hours change, and report what it did.

03Pricing

Ways to start

Two fixed-fee builds and one monthly plan. Telephony and AI model usage are billed at cost by the providers and are separate from our fee in every package.

Receptionist Build

$2,500

fixed fee · 2–3 weeks

One phone line answered by an AI receptionist that books into your calendar — tested and launched.

  • One phone line, answered day and night
  • Call script and rules written with you
  • Booking into one calendar or scheduling system
  • Missed call text back
  • Warm transfer to your team
  • Test call set, run before launch

One location that loses calls after hours or while on a job.

Get started
Most chosen

Managed Receptionist

from$1,000

per month · 3-month minimum

We run it after launch: watching calls, reading transcripts, fixing failures and reporting what it did. Requires a build.

  • Monitoring and alerts on failed or dropped calls
  • Regular transcript review
  • Script and rule changes as your business changes
  • Test calls re-run before every change goes live
  • Monthly report on calls, bookings and usage cost

Owners who want it looked after, not left to drift.

Get started

Full Front Desk

$4,500

fixed fee · 4 weeks

Phone, text, web chat and forms handled as one front desk, connected to your CRM and scheduling system.

  • Everything in the Receptionist Build
  • Web chat and web form follow-up within minutes
  • CRM integration with a summary of every conversation
  • Scheduling system integration
  • Quote follow-up on a schedule you approve

Businesses where enquiries arrive by phone, form and chat.

Get started

Prices are starting points, not quotes. Scope drives the number, and you get a fixed one before you commit.

Related reading

How we think about AI Receptionist

9 min read

Construction lead generation: what actually works for contractors in 2026

Referrals and repeat work still bring most construction leads, shared leads make you compete for a customer you already paid for, and since October 2026 Google bills for some Local Services Ads calls you miss. What the evidence says works, what each option costs, and what to fix first.

Read it
8 min read

What an AI agent actually costs to run

Token pricing is the smallest and most predictable line on the bill. The costs that decide whether an agent pays for itself are the retries, the context growth, the human review and the maintenance — none of which appear on an API invoice.

Read it
10 min read

AI automation by sector: which applications actually reach production

Four in five enterprises have adopted AI agents; roughly one in nine runs them in production. The gap is not explained by sector. It is explained by the shape of the work being automated — and that shape is the same everywhere.

Read it
04AI Receptionist

AI Receptionist questions, answered

How much does an AI receptionist cost?
Ours costs $2,500 to build as a fixed fee, and from $1,000 per month if you want us to run it afterwards. The Full Front Desk, which adds web chat, form follow-up, CRM integration and quote follow-up, is $4,500 fixed. On top of that you pay the phone and AI providers for usage — the minutes and messages it actually handles — billed at cost and separate from our fee. We estimate that from your call volume before you commit.
Is an AI receptionist worth it for a small business?
It is worth it when you regularly miss calls that would have turned into paid work, and not otherwise. Count the calls you missed last month and what a typical job is worth to you; that is the whole calculation. If your needs are simple — take a message, give the opening hours — an off-the-shelf AI answering service app may be enough, and we will say so. A built one earns its cost when it has to book into your real schedule, follow your rules and connect to your systems.
Will callers know they are talking to an AI?
Yes — it says so at the start of every call. We will not build an AI receptionist that pretends to be human. Callers can ask for a person at any point and get transferred. Call recording and consent rules vary by location, and some places require everyone on the call to agree to recording, so the notice and wording are set for where you operate.
What is the difference between an AI receptionist and an answering service?
A traditional answering service has people take a message and pass it on; an AI receptionist can finish the job on the call. It reads your calendar and books the appointment, writes the details into your CRM, and sends the confirmation text. The trade-off is that it only handles what it has been set up for, which is why it transfers to a person when a call goes outside that.
Can an AI receptionist work as an HVAC answering service?
Yes, and trades like HVAC, plumbing and electrical are where it fits best, because calls come in while the team is on a job or after hours. It asks your triage questions, treats a no-heat or no-cooling call by your emergency rules, and books routine work into the schedule. It will not diagnose a fault or give a price it has not been given. Whether it can book directly depends on what your scheduling software allows other systems to do, and we check that before you pay for anything.
What should an AI receptionist not do?
It should not give quotes the business cannot stand behind, give medical or legal advice, or pretend to be a person. Ours quotes only from the prices you give it and says when a job needs someone to look at it first. For clinics and law firms it books and takes details, and leaves the advice to the professional. Anything outside its rules goes to a person.

Count last month's missed calls. Then let's see if this pays.

Bring your call log and what a typical job is worth. In 30 minutes we'll tell you whether an AI receptionist is worth building, roughly what it costs to run, and whether a cheaper app would do — including when the answer is yes.

30-minute strategy call

With an engineer, not a closer

Contact us

Typical reply time: under 4 business hours.

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