What is an automated answering service?

Every business owner knows the feeling: a call comes in after hours, and the lead is gone by morning.

Say you miss 30 calls a month, and your average customer is worth $350 per year. That’s over $125,000 in at-risk revenue annually.

Small businesses can’t staff a front desk 24/7. But they can help customers reach someone instantly. Automated answering services can refer to a phone tree, a recorded menu that asks callers to press one for sales and two for support, then routes them. But the term can also refer to a live receptionist or AI voice agent. They listen to what the caller says in their own words, answers from a knowledge base you build, takes a message, or transfers the call.

Here’s what different kinds of automated answering services do, how they work, and what to look for in a platform.

Automated answering services: IVR vs AI receptionist vs live answering

“Automated answering service” can refer to multiple technologies and workflows. How do the big three — IVR systems, AI receptionists, and live virtual receptionists — stack up?

💡 Related: IVA vs IVR

Most businesses run a mix of automated and human answering services. Some use automation as a backup for when their team is unavailable to pick up. Others use it as a first point of contact to provide a quicker customer experience. Either setup is easy to tailor to how your business actually works.

What an automated answering service does, and why you need one

An AI automated answering service can:

• Answer inbound calls after business hours, or on any schedule you choose 
• Send info via SMS when a caller asks for it, like applications, lead capture forms, or booking links
• Pre-screen callers with lead qualification questions 
• Transfer calls to any phone number

Let’s say you specialize in business lending, and a lead calls at midnight saying they’re interested in applying. An automated answering service can pick up, answer questions, and send the lending application via SMS. It can also ask qualifying questions like, “Do you have a timeline in mind?” If the lead calls back the next day, your automated answering service can transfer calls to a team member in real time.

How an automated answering service works

It all starts with the call flow you create. You might set your automated answering service to screen all incoming calls. Or it may only kick in when your team clocks out for the day.

First, your AI receptionist greets the caller with a customized script. This might vary depending on whether they call during or after business hours. Most tools also have a disclosure that lets callers know they’re speaking with an AI agent.

Next, your automated answering service listens to the caller. It understands their intent using machine learning, natural language processing, and other tools. It can also use preset instructions to respond appropriately to specific scenarios.

Let’s say someone asks for an estimate to fix their HVAC unit. Based on prior instructions, your answering service might:

• Ask for more details based on the criteria you set
• Create a work request in Jobber or another CRM
• Send a notification to your Slack channel, letting you know there’s a new appointment

Once the call ends, the work continues. A good automated answering service logs the call in your CRM, captures a recording and transcript, and stores everything in the caller’s contact thread. That way, any team member can pick up the context later without having to ask the caller to repeat themselves.

How Quo’s automated answering service works

Quo, formerly OpenPhone, is a platform for business communications. It supports calling and texting as a team and gives you access to our AI receptionist, Sona.

You can use Sona to handle routine calls 24/7. It answers FAQs, qualifies leads, and captures messages so you can follow up with context. Everything is integrated directly with the Call Flow builder. That way, you can customize your call flow to your call management strategy.

Here’s how Sona works:

• Upload your website or internal docs to train Sona. You might provide it with your business hours, locations, or service options. This ensures Sona understands the basics of your business within minutes.
• Next, set a schedule so Sona knows when to help with call handling. Depending on your needs, this might be after 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, and on weekends. This ensures you can pick up the phone 24/7, even when you’re out or off for the day.

• Set up call transfers so Sona can perform hand offs with team members. You can also link external phone numbers for emergencies.
• Every Sona call is logged and summarized in your Quo workspace. You’ll get a call recording, transcript, and summary with action items for each call. No need to wait for end-of-day emails or chase down missing information. Any rep can jump into your workspace and get the full context of conversations.
• Connect with tools you already use. Quo has native CRM integrations and connections with Zapier and Make. This makes it easy to push call data into other platforms. You can add jobs to Jobber, update contacts in HubSpot, and send notifications to apps like Slack.

Who uses automated answering services

Any fast-growing company with high call volumes can use a missed call service to get more done in a day.

That said, automated answering services work extremely well for service-based businesses. The ones most often using automated answering services include:

• Home services companies, including plumbing, HVAC, tree, and pest control businesses. If you’re missing five calls a week at $600 per job, that’s over $150,000 in at-risk revenue per year. An automated answering service can help you pick up the phone automatically, even after hours. It can also help book jobs automatically. No need to hire another full-time employee.
• Vacation rentals. Answering services can handle guest emergencies at any time via call forwarding to emergency numbers. That way, you can turn 2 a.m. lockouts into solved problems by morning. Non-emergency calls can be routed to Sona, then you can follow up during business hours.
• Legal and professional services. The first call is often the deciding factor in whether a customer decides to hire you for a case. That’s why many companies use an always-on answering service to qualify potential clients and route existing ones.
• Real estate. Use automated answering services to help capture buyer and seller leads after hours. That way, you can safely “turn off” for the day without accidentally driving callers to competitors.

What to look for in an automated answering service

Before settling on an automated answering service, make sure it checks the following boxes:

• Set up speed and ease. You shouldn’t need QA teams or IT resources to set up your answering service. It should be easy to upload knowledge, configure call handling, and adjust call management settings.
• Quality of the AI conversation. Can your automated answering service understand intent? Or is it essentially a phone menu tree? You can test this yourself during your demo or trial by using natural speech when conversing with the tool.
• Integrations. What happens after the call ends? The best automated answering services natively integrate with tools like HubSpot and Salesforce so details from AI-handled calls are automatically logged. You should be able to use Zapier or Make integrations if a platform doesn’t have a native connection to your CRM. Be sure to ask vendors for a full list of integrations before signing on the dotted line.
• Call recordings, transcripts, and summaries. You should be able to listen back to every call or read every call transcript without paying extra. You shouldn’t need to purchase add-ons or ask the sales team to “activate” any features.
• Transparent pricing. Many traditional answering services offer per-minute pricing. But this can get expensive as your business grows. Instead, look for a service that offers per-call or monthly pricing. This easily scales with higher call volumes.
• Text-enabled answering services. Your AI receptionist should be able to send SMS messages during phone calls. That way, you can automatically send booking links and schedule appointments.
• Easy to test and switch. Look for a system with month-to-month plans and transparent, predictable pricing. You should also look for free number porting so you can easily switch providers if you outgrow your existing platform.

Limitations to know before you set one up

Automated answering services are powerful tools, but they’re not designed to be perfect out of the box.

Here are some common limitations you should know:

• AI can get confused with non-standard requests. Some automated answering services only respond to keywords and phrases. That means they won’t understand more complex or unscripted questions. To fix this, make sure your automated service has specific instructions for complex calls, like transferring to a human. That way, instead of looping the caller or sending them to voicemail, there’s a clear path to resolve tricky situations.
• You’ll get out what you put in. Your AI answering service will learn from your website, FAQs, and any docs you upload. That means the better your source material is, the better your calls will go. Remember: most teams spend one to two weeks fine-tuning the call flows they want. Don’t expect to “set it and forget it,” especially if you want to maintain high customer satisfaction with your calls.
• Emotional, complex, and high-stakes calls shouldn’t be automated. Some calls are almost always better handled by humans. Imagine an angry customer threatening to cancel, a grieving family navigating a loss, or a buyer ready to close on a $50,000 deal. Make sure to set up triggers telling your AI receptionist when to transfer to in-house reps. That way, you don’t chase off callers with sensitive issues.
• Compliance considerations for regulated industries. If you’re in the healthcare, legal, or finance industries, get an answering service that meets your requirements. For example, you’ll need a HIPAA-compliant service for handling patient information. For general security and data handling, look for a service that’s SOC 2 Type II certified. Take calls from EU customers? Opt for a service supporting GDPR.

As you’re building your answering service, here are some common hiccups: 

• Deploying without connecting it to your systems. This can create data silos and confusion for your team. 
• Never defining what happens when it can’t help. Decide in advance what counts as urgent, and who receives those calls.
• Building conversation flows that behave like a phone menu. The idea is to build a voice agent that creates as close to a natural conversation as possible. 

Verdict: Is an automated answering service right for your business? 

An automated answering service is worth setting up if the calls you’re missing are ones you could have handled with information you already have. Hours, pricing, availability, booking: an AI agent handles those 24/7.

It can be the wrong tool if most of your calls need judgment, or if you’re not prepared to spend the first week or two teaching it about your business. The systems that disappoint are usually the ones not configured properly. 

If you already pay for a business phone system, check whether it includes an AI agent before adding a separate service. Quo includes 10 Sona calls a month on every plan, which is enough to find out whether automation suits your call mix. Try Quo today with a seven-day free trial. 

Still looking? Dive deeper into costs, features, and limitations with our guide to the best AI phone answering services.

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