AI Receptionist
The AI Receptionist answers your clients when you cannot. It picks up texts, email replies, and phone calls that come in to your Apptoto number, answers questions using what you have told it about your business, books new appointments on your booking page, reschedules appointments clients already have, and notifies you about anything it cannot handle itself.
You will find it on the AI Receptionist tab in the top navigation.
What it can do
Section titled “What it can do”- Answer questions about your hours, location, parking, policies, pricing, and anything else you write into its knowledge
- Confirm or cancel the appointment a conversation is about, when your message settings let clients do that
- Book new appointments using the availability on a booking page you choose
- Tell clients about their upcoming appointments, found from the phone number or email address they contact you from
- Reschedule appointments the client already has
- Answer calls only outside office hours, or only the ones nobody at your office picks up
- Greet callers it recognizes by first name
- Take a message on any channel when it cannot finish something itself, so you get a name, a way to reach them, and what they wanted
- Let a caller leave a voicemail instead, if you chose Let them leave a voicemail on the Who gets notified tab
- Transfer a caller to a person when your rules say it should
Confirming and cancelling follow the same rules as replying “1” or “2” to a reminder - your message settings decide, not the receptionist. See what it can do.
When a client asks for something outside what it can do, it says the office will follow up and takes a message for you - on a text or an email just as on a call.
Setting it up
Section titled “Setting it up”The first time you open the tab, setup walks you through it. It takes about five minutes, and the receptionist does not answer anyone until you reach the last step, where it turns on and starts answering calls.
It starts with a short look at what the receptionist can do, then seven numbered steps, with Try It Out beside them so you can text or call it as you go:
- Teach it about your business. Type your website and click Read my website, or tell it about your business yourself. Keep, edit, or drop the answers it finds.
- Choose what it handles - booking new appointments, and helping clients with the appointments they already have.
- Choose how calls get to it - forward your business number to your Apptoto number, give clients your Apptoto number, or decide later. If you already have an Apptoto number, giving clients that number is picked for you.
- Choose when it picks up - every call, when nobody picks up, or when you’re closed - and set your office phone.
- Choose who gets notified about the messages it takes.
- Pick its voice and how it answers the phone. Hear it plays the greeting in that voice so you can listen.
- It’s on. Moving on from step 6 turns the receptionist on, so it starts answering calls. If clients call your Apptoto number, call it yourself to try it, or keep using Try It Out. Then choose whether it also answers texts and email, and click Save.
Each step is saved as you go. Click Set up later at the top to stop and finish in Settings instead, or click a step’s number to go back to it. When you are done, the tab opens on Settings > Overview. Run setup again, to the right of Activity and Settings, walks you through it once more.
The bar at the top always describes what callers and clients get right now - “Not answering yet. Try it out, then turn it on.” while it is off, and a summary such as “Answering calls to (971) 406-4709 outside office hours and texts.” once it is on. The switch at the left of the bar turns it on and off straight away.
Turning it off stops it on every channel at once - calls, texts, and email, including conversations you assigned to it in your Inbox - so Apptoto asks you to confirm first. Calls ring your office phone the way they did before it was on. Turning it off saves nothing else, so anything half-edited on the page stays as it is.
Activity and Settings
Section titled “Activity and Settings”Just below the bar at the top, the Activity and Settings tabs switch between what the receptionist has been doing and how it is set up. The page opens on Activity once the receptionist is answering, and on Settings while you are still setting it up.
Activity lists every conversation it has handled, with transcripts and credit usage. Settings has the same sections as setup, in a row of tabs across the top:
| Tab | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Overview | What the receptionist is doing now, and what is left to do - forwarding your phone, sharing your number, handing it a conversation |
| What it knows | Your business name, what it knows about your business, the answers it gives word for word, and notes just for the receptionist |
| What it can do | Booking new appointments and the booking page it uses, and helping clients with the appointments they already have |
| How calls reach it | Your Apptoto number, and whether clients call it directly or you forward your business number to it |
| When it picks up | Every call, when nobody picks up, or when you’re closed, plus your office phone and when it puts callers through to a person |
| Who gets notified | Where the messages it takes go, topics that go to someone else, and a written message or a voicemail |
| How it sounds | The voice, how it answers the phone, typing sounds, and pronunciations |
| Texts and email | Which texts and emails are automatically assigned to it |
There is one Save button, and it saves all of them. Apart from the on/off switch, nothing you change takes effect until you click it. Try It Out talks to the saved receptionist, so the bar at the bottom says so while you have unsaved changes.