AI receptionist for physios and driving instructors. That is exactly when it rings.
Your whole day is appointments you cannot walk out of, so every enquiry lands while you are unreachable and gets rung back at nine at night. Carrie answers during the session, books into the same diary, and chases the second appointment, which is the one that decides whether anybody finishes.
One person, one diary. She never books two people into the same hour, because she is reading it rather than keeping her own.
How does an AI receptionist work when you are the whole business?
An AI receptionist answers inside the hour you cannot leave, books against your real diary, and goes back to the people who came once and never rebooked. Neither is a trade, and both are local services we work with. It is the same receptionist, with the questions changed to suit an appointment business.
You are physically in the appointment
Hands on somebody's back, or sat next to a seventeen year old on a roundabout. There is no stepping out for a minute, and your day is made of those hours.
Carrie takes the call and books it
What is the problem, or what stage are they at. Have they been before. How many do they want. Then a real slot from your diary, at a time you actually work, with the right length.
Carrie goes back for the second appointment
The person who came once and did not rebook is a real hole in this trade. She contacts them, offers times, and gets them booked, which is a job nobody working alone ever finds time for.
The ones who stop at two
You saw eleven people last week and nine of them rebooked before they left. Two did not, and you meant to ring both. One was going to check her shifts and one wanted to see how he got on. It is Thursday now and you have not rung either of them, because between sessions you eat and between evenings you do the books.
Those two are not small. A course is six sessions or twenty lessons, and somebody who stops after two has not decided against you. They have just not been asked again, and by next Thursday they will have started at somebody else or given up.
With her doing it, both were contacted on the Tuesday, offered the times you actually had, and one of them is booked in for a Monday morning. That is a course you would have lost, recovered by a job you were never going to get round to.
What physios and instructors ask about it
Mostly about the diary, because there is only one of them, and about how much it is allowed to say when somebody describes a problem.
What does she say when somebody describes an injury?
She takes what they said in their own words and books the appointment.
If it sounds serious she says the wording you gave her and tells you straight away, so every judgement stays with you.
Can it tell a learner they are ready for a test?
Test readiness is your judgement, made in the car. What she does is book the lessons and take down when their theory is valid until, so you know how long you have got.
I am the only one here. Will it double book me?
It reads your diary rather than keeping a separate one, so a slot that went ten minutes ago has gone. It also knows the length of what you do: a first assessment is not a follow-up, and a two hour lesson is not an hour.
What about travel time between appointments?
For an instructor that is the whole diary, and she leaves whatever gap you tell her to. Pick-ups on opposite sides of town with nothing between them is how a day falls apart. It is the thing an automated booking gets wrong for this trade.
Can it sell a block of lessons or a course?
It can explain what your blocks are and what they cost, take somebody who wants one and get them booked in, and tell you so you can take the payment.
The payment stays with you, and for a block that is the right way round. It is a real commitment and it deserves a person.
What happens when somebody cancels at short notice?
She tells you immediately, and offers the slot back out to anybody waiting for one. Then she says your cancellation policy, in your words, exactly as you set it. She does not invent a fee and she does not waive one.
Do I have to give up my own number?
No. It is your number and it stays your number.
My work comes through recommendations. Is this worth it?
A recommendation still arrives as a phone call in the middle of a session. Worse, a recommended caller was told you were good and then got a voicemail, which is a bigger let-down than a cold caller getting one.
Can it deal with insurance or funded work?
It says which insurers you work with and how it goes at your clinic, because those are your facts.
What their own policy covers is between them and their insurer, and she tells them so.
Does it answer in the evening?
Yes, and for both of these that is when people ring. Somebody looks for a physio after their back has stopped them sleeping, and a parent rings about lessons once the tea is done.
How is it set up?
Twenty minutes: your appointment types and lengths, your working hours, travel gaps, your blocks and prices, your cancellation policy, and what always comes to you. Then you hear the first booking.
Will an assistant put us in front of somebody looking for a slot?
People describe what they need and ask an assistant who does it near them. A shoulder that will not lift, an automatic licence, a nervous learner. The reply names somebody, and Google writes the same sort of answer above the blue links.
- What you actually treat, or actually teach, is the matchable part. Automatic as well as manual, sports injuries, work after an operation: named in the words people use.
- Availability is a fact with a short life. A page saying you have Monday mornings is quotable while it is true, so say what you have rather than that you are busy.
- Then they ring, and you are mid-session. She answers, offers the times you really have, and books it while they are still interested.
Where else does she answer?
The phone is one of seven. For both of these a lot of first contact is a text or a message rather than a call, because people are asking before they commit.
The AI receptionist
All seven channels, and what she covers on each one. See the AI receptionist
A website for your line of work
The site that shows who has hours left and no next date. See details
Text messages
Where most first enquiries for this trade actually arrive. See details
What else is worth reading?
Every page here answers one question properly rather than skimming five. These are the others, and each one says what it is before you click it.
AI receptionist for plumbers
No heating at ten at night and they ring three firms. The one who answers gets the job. She answers every call, at any hour, and writes it up.
AI receptionist for roofers
One windy night and the phone goes forty times. She answers all forty, takes the address and the photo, and sorts the leaks from the quotes.
Foothold AI: websites and AI for local service businesses
A website that gets found, a back office that runs the day, and an app for your team. From £295 to set up and £99 a month. Suffolk based, UK wide.
Where we work: Suffolk and north Essex
Twenty towns across Suffolk and north Essex, from Sudbury. Most are twenty or thirty minutes away, and the person who builds your site comes out.
Who came twice and never came back?
Those two people did not decide against you. Nobody asked them again, because you were in an appointment all week.
Twenty minutes with Chad. Nothing to pay and nothing to sign. The whole receptionist, and all seven channels, are on the AI receptionist page.