AI receptionist for vets and opticians. Nobody frightened can be on hold.
Recalls, repeats and appointment moves fill your phone. A few are somebody in a car park with a dog on the back seat. Carrie clears the first sort completely, so the few reach a human being straight away instead of waiting behind a queue asking about contact lenses.
She gives no clinical advice about an animal or an eye. Where somebody is distressed she stops and fetches a person.
How does an AI receptionist work for a vet or an optician?
An AI receptionist clears the routine calls entirely, so the line is free, and it moves anybody upset to a person faster than a queue ever could. Both are local services rather than trades, and the same receptionist answers for both, with the limits set far tighter than on a trade.
Most of the day is predictable
Boosters due, a repeat prescription, moving Thursday to Friday, when the glasses will be ready, whether you take a particular insurance. All of it necessary, none of it needing your team.
Carrie takes all of that off the line
Booked, moved, answered, at the same time, however many of them ring at once. Your desk is not holding six of those conversations when the seventh call comes in.
The frightened one gets through immediately
Somebody upset about an animal is not questioned, not triaged and not asked to hold. She hands straight to a person, with what has happened already said, so nobody has to explain twice.
The call that matters
Twenty past four on a Thursday. Your desk is on the phone to somebody rebooking a booster and there are two more waiting. The next call is a man in a lay-by whose dog has been hit by a car. Today he waits, hears hold music, and hangs up to try somewhere else, which is the worst outcome available to everybody in this building.
With her taking the routine calls, the booster and the two behind it are already dealt with and the line is clear. He is on to a person in under ten seconds, and that person already knows there is a dog and a road, because it was passed across with the call.
Nothing about that is a clever feature. It is what a clear line does, and a clear line is what the routine calls take away.
What vets and opticians ask about it
Almost all of them are about the handover: how fast it is, and how it decides that a call is not one for it.
How does it decide a call is an emergency?
It does not decide, and that distinction is the whole design. It listens for signs that somebody is describing an animal in trouble or a person who is distressed, and when it hears any of them it stops and hands over. It does not weigh up how serious it is.
Where it is unsure, it hands over. A person taking a call that turned out to be routine costs a minute. The other way round costs something that cannot be put right.
What does she say to somebody with a sick animal?
What your practice already tells people, in your words, and then she gets somebody.
Every veterinary judgement stays with your clinicians, which is the reason your practice exists.
Same question for an eye. People ring about flashes and floaters.
Same answer, and if anything it matters more, because a caller describing that has no idea whether it is nothing or something. The call goes straight to one of your team, immediately, with the description passed on.
Can it do our boosters and recalls?
Yes, and it is the part that pays for itself. Vaccination reminders, annual eye tests, contact lens checks: all dated, all predictable, all the sort of thing a busy desk lets slip for a fortnight and then does in a rush.
It works through them steadily, offers real slots and books them, and the ones who say not now get written down rather than forgotten.
What about repeat prescriptions?
It takes the request and passes it on, and tells them a repeat is ready when your own system says it is.
Every authorisation stays with your clinicians.
Can it tell somebody whether their glasses are in?
If that is on a system it can read, yes, and it is a question an optician gets over and over. Answering it without anybody at the desk moving is a real difference to a Saturday.
Does it handle insurance questions?
It says which insurers you deal with and how claims work at your practice, because those are facts you set. It does not tell anybody whether a particular treatment will be covered, because that is between them and their insurer.
Out of hours: what happens?
It answers and gives your own out of hours wording, exactly as written, including the number people should ring.
Somebody gets a clear answer at eleven at night instead of a recorded message.
What does it take off our reception team?
The routine calls that stop her being free for the one that is not.
The person on the desk keeps the part nothing should take over. That is dealing with people who are worried.
What about people's data?
She holds what a booking needs and nothing clinical, all on your own systems.
Whoever handles data protection for the practice sees exactly that before it goes live.
How is it set up?
Carefully, and with your team in the room. What it may book, what it must never say, your own emergency wording, and exactly when it hands over. It goes live when somebody at the practice has listened to it and is happy.
Would an assistant tell a frightened owner to ring us?
Somebody with a hurt animal, or a sudden change in their sight, asks an assistant whether it is urgent before they ring anybody. The reply is triage, and it usually names somebody.
- Your own words are what it should be repeating. What counts as an emergency, what to do in the meantime, and how to reach you out of hours, written plainly on the page.
- Nobody frightened stays on hold. Being named puts them on your line, and a line busy with a booster rebooking sends them somewhere else.
- This is not a separate thing to buy. Google's own guide says its AI answers sit on the ordinary ranking systems, so one page done properly covers both.
Where else does she answer?
The phone is one of seven. Recall reminders and routine questions mostly move by text and email, and that is the same receptionist.
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 built for somebody whose situation has just changed. See details
Text messages
Where recalls and reminders actually get read. 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 phone answering for UK trades
Your phone answered on the first ring while your hands are full, in your business name, with the job written up and on your phone within seconds.
AI text answering for UK trades
Texts to your business answered in seconds, from your own number, with the job written up and on your phone. Evenings and weekends included.
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.
How long would that man in the lay-by wait?
Not because anybody did anything wrong. Because three people ahead of him were rebooking a Thursday.
Twenty minutes with Chad. Nothing to pay and nothing to sign. The whole receptionist, and all seven channels, are on the AI receptionist page.