AI receptionist
An AI receptionist answers your business line the way a trained front-desk hire would: it picks up, finds out why the caller is ringing, takes their details and puts them through to the right person. Talk to the smrtPhone Phone Receptionist right here, before you decide.
Phone Receptionist
smrtAgent, trained by Jordan Fleming
Ready
Ready when you are
Example call
Hi, is this the company that does property management?
It is - you've reached the right place. Are you looking for help managing a property of your own, or are you a current tenant?
I own a few rental properties and need help managing them.
Wonderful - I can get you straight to our new-owner team. May I grab your name and the best number in case we get disconnected?
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Name and number taken
Routed to new-owner team
Built around the rules that matter once agents call and text
What it does
Three jobs a good front desk does, done on every call instead of the ones you have time for.
"Thanks for calling. How can I help?"
Picks up in your business's name, so a call that arrives while the team is on another line, on a job site or after hours still gets a professional greeting.
Asks the questions a good receptionist asks, confirms the caller has reached the right place and takes their name and best number in case the line drops.
Transfers to the right specialist or team when a human is needed, and passes along what it learned so nobody starts from zero.
With your team
Not a voicemail box and not a separate dashboard: a front desk that works inside the conversation and hands it on.
Press-one menus make the caller do the work. The Phone Receptionist talks to the caller in plain language and acts on what they say. If a caller explains they own a few rental properties and need them managed, it sends them to your new-owner team instead of reading out a list of options.
AI receptionist
Calls do not stop at five o'clock. smrtAgents cover after-hours and overflow work, so a lead that rings in the evening is answered and qualified instead of lost to voicemail.
A lead that rings in the evening is answered and qualified instead of lost to voicemail.
What the caller said is written to your CRM as the whole conversation, not a one-line note, so whoever picks it up knows what was asked. Add AI Tools to get transcripts and summaries on every recorded call.
Compared
Three ways to get calls answered, and what each one does with the call.
| What is compared | Answering service | Virtual receptionist | AI receptionist |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who picks up | Usually a person at a call team | Usually a person working remotely | An AI agent that talks in plain language |
| How it handles the call | Usually takes a message from a form or script | Greets, screens and forwards | Finds out what the caller needs, takes their details and routes the call |
| What reaches your team | A message | A message or a transferred call | The full conversation in your CRM, plus a transfer when a person is needed |
| Calls outside working hours | Depends on the service | Depends on the person's hours | smrtAgents cover after-hours and overflow work |
General descriptions of each type of service. Individual providers vary.
How it starts
Pick the Phone Receptionist from the smrtAgents marketplace and hire it into the front-desk job.
It runs the conversation: greeting, questions, details, and a transfer when a person is needed.
The full conversation, with its context intact, is written to your CRM for your team to act on.
FAQ
What it is, what it does on a call and how it fits alongside your team.
Want to see it on your own calls?
Book a demo and we will walk you through the Phone Receptionist.
Book a demoAn AI receptionist is software that answers incoming calls in conversation, the way a front-desk employee would. It greets the caller, works out what they need, collects their details and either helps them or transfers them to the right person. smrtPhone's version is the Phone Receptionist, a smrtAgent you hire from the marketplace.
Not quite. A virtual receptionist, or virtual phone receptionist, is usually a person who answers your calls remotely. An AI receptionist does the front-desk job itself: it talks to the caller in plain language, collects their details and routes the call. smrtPhone's Phone Receptionist is an AI virtual receptionist you hire from the smrtAgents marketplace, and it hands the call to your team when a person is needed.
An answering service usually takes a message and passes it on, voicemail records and waits, and a phone menu makes the caller press buttons and guess which option fits. An AI receptionist, sometimes called an AI answering service, talks to the caller in plain language, understands what they are after and acts on it, so the caller gets a conversation instead of a list of options.
Good AI receptionist software answers in plain language, finds out what the caller needs, takes their name and best number, transfers the call to the right person and keeps a record of the conversation. The Phone Receptionist does each of these, and the conversation is written to your CRM.
No. smrtAgents do not replace your team. They cover the work your team cannot do all at once: the second call that arrives while someone is already on the line, or the calls that come in outside working hours. When a person is needed, the call goes to a person.
Yes. The Phone Receptionist puts the caller through to the right specialist or team, and the details it gathered go with the call, so the caller does not have to repeat themselves.
Yes. An AI receptionist for real estate or property management works the way the Phone Receptionist's example call does: it confirms the caller has reached the right place, finds out whether they own property or are a current tenant, and sends them to the right team. If your calls are more about solving a problem than answering one, see conversational AI for customer service.
smrtAgents feed your CRM instead of a separate dashboard: the full conversation is written to the record with its context intact. smrtPhone connects to CRMs including Podio and Salesforce, and you can see the CRMs smrtPhone works with before you start.
smrtPhone's compliance coverage includes TCPA, CCPA, CPNI and STIR/SHAKEN, which start to matter as soon as an agent is calling or texting your customers.
Open the smrtAgents marketplace, choose the Phone Receptionist and hire it into the role. If you would like to see it work first, talk to it on this page or book a demo.
The Phone Receptionist answers, qualifies and routes, so your team only picks up the calls that need a person.