Live demo
An AI receptionist for NZ small business that books jobs after hours
Pick a business, chat to its after-hours assistant, and watch the lead card and calendar fill in as you go. This is what the owner wakes up to.
Illustration · runs on a free AI model
For illustration only. These examples run on a free AI model, which is much weaker than the professional models we use to build real applications.
Type anything you like. Try changing the time, asking a price, or saying "there's a gas smell" to see an emergency handled.
What the owner sees Waiting for a message
Basic offline mode: the AI isn't available right now, so a set of simple keyword rules is answering. It understands much less and says so when it doesn't follow. Try again in a minute for the full version.
Lead card
Calendar, demo week
Text the owner receives
What this assistant knows (the business card)
Corvane Plumbing, Quillbrook Cafe & Kitchen, Halverin Precision Engineering, Maitai Ledger Accounting, Little Rata Goods and Kowhai Terrace Wines are made-up businesses, and the prices, hours and calendar are invented for this demo. A real build uses your own services, prices and calendar, and can answer website chat, email, text, Facebook messages or the phone.
What you just saw
An after-hours answering service that books the job
A Nelson plumber under a house, a cafe owner in the lunch rush, a machinist on the shop floor: the phone still rings. Some callers leave a voicemail. Others ring the next business on the list.
This demo is a small AI receptionist. An AI model reads each message and works out what the customer wants. It is set up to answer from a card of facts about the business and asks for one detail at a time. Times come from the calendar and totals from the price list, both worked out in code. The code also checks what the AI read against what the customer typed: a name, number, suburb, day or head count has to be in the message, and a price has to be on the card, or it isn't used. Anything typed in to change its rules or prices is ignored.
Every message is also checked for emergencies by the AI and by a set of keyword rules. If either one spots gas, fire, flooding, someone hurt or someone sick after eating, it gives a fixed safety message, stops booking and flags a person. Some jobs are never treated as routine even when nothing is wrong yet: possible asbestos, parts that hold pressure or carry a load, and severe allergies. It won't price or book those. Anything it couldn't use, changed, or read differently from the keyword rules goes in a "Check these" list at the top of the owner panel. If the AI is down, the demo drops to a basic offline mode that only follows simple messages. The badge above the owner panel shows which one answered.
- Answers questions about hours, area and prices from the business card, and says no to services that aren't on it
- Collects the job, suburb, name and phone number, then holds the next free time until the customer says yes
- Passes emergencies, complaints and requests for a person to a human
In a real Nelson business
How an AI chatbot for small business NZ connects to your systems
Your calendar
It reads your Google or Outlook calendar, offers only times you are free, and writes the booking in.
Your job management
Confirmed enquiries can create a job or a customer record in the system you use for quotes and invoices, so nothing is retyped. Xero and most job management tools can be connected.
SMS and email
The customer gets a text or email confirmation. You get a short summary like the one in the demo on your phone before you start work.
You stay in charge. You decide what it books on its own, what it passes to you and what it can say about price. You can read every conversation. If an answerphone message is all you need, I'll tell you.
What it saves
The arithmetic on missed calls, with your own numbers
I don't have a statistic for your business, so here is a sum you can redo with your own figures.
Worked example (hypothetical)
Say a plumbing business misses 6 calls a week outside working hours or while on the tools. Assume 1 in 3 of those callers would have booked a job, and an average job is worth $400.
6 calls x 1/3 = 2 jobs a week. 2 jobs x $400 = $800 a week. Over 48 working weeks that is $38,400 a year in work that went to someone else.
Check your call log for missed calls and be conservative about how many would have become jobs. The ROI calculator does the sum with your own figures.
It also saves time. If you spend 3 hours a week returning calls that only needed an address and a time, at $60 an hour that is 3 x $60 x 48 = $8,640 a year of your own time.
None of this is a promise. If your phone already gets answered every time, the case is weaker, and I'll say so.
Beyond the demo
What a real build adds
- Set up with your services, prices, service area and the way you talk to customers
- Works on your website chat, phone, email, text and Facebook messages
- Connected to your real calendar and job system
- Your own rules for what it books and what it passes to you
I run the job and I'm the person you deal with. Two senior AI developers here in Nelson build and test it with me. We usually begin with one channel and one kind of enquiry, then adjust it as your business changes.
Read more about AI chatbots and assistants, or see how this fits trades businesses, hospitality and tourism and manufacturers around Nelson Tasman. The job scheduling demo shows what happens after booking.
Questions
AI receptionist FAQs
Will callers know they are talking to an AI?
Yes. We set it up to say so, as this one does if you ask, and it hands over to a person whenever someone wants one.
Can it answer the phone, or only chat?
A real build can cover website chat, email, text, Facebook messages and phone calls. This demo is chat only.
What if it gets something wrong?
It is set up to use only what is on your business card, and the code checks its answers against the card. Prices, totals and free times come from your price list and calendar, not from the AI, and anything it is unsure of is listed for you to check. We test it with you before it goes live.
Is my customers' information safe?
We handle customer details under the NZ Privacy Act 2020 and keep only what you need. Before we start, I'll show you where they are stored.