With Retell, weβve increased scheduling NPS by 38%, and filled underutilized provider capacity, allowing our team to focus on meaningful patient care instead of phone tag.
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AI Receptionist: 24/7 Call Answering Service
5.0
ON G2
Answer every call on the number you already use. Your AI receptionist books appointments, qualifies callers, and hands the rest to your team.
Trusted by over 4,000 businesses powering 100+ million calls per month.
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How It Works
Go from build to a live call in a day, on your existing number.
Build the agent
Point the agent at your website, services, hours, and pricing through a knowledge base that syncs as that content changes, so it answers callers the way you would. Define the call flow with a drag-and-drop builder: greeting, intent, availability check, booking, message-taking, transfer rules. Connect your calendar, your CRM, and any system the agent reads or writes mid-call. A standard agent needs no engineering team.
Test against front-desk scenarios
Run the agent through simulation against common front-desk scenarios before it touches a customer: a new booking, a reschedule, an hours-or-pricing question, an after-hours call, and a frustrated caller. Each run scores accuracy and shows where the agent guesses instead of looking up. Fix the flow, rerun, and keep the set to run again after every change.
Keep your number and go live
Keep your carrier, your number, and your phone system. Connect through SIP trunking with Twilio, Telnyx, or Vonage, or forward calls to the agent: all of them, only the ones you miss, or only after hours. Set the conditions for human escalation. Clear business verification, go live on one line, confirm your booking and transfer rates, then expand.
Monitor and retrain
Every call is transcribed, summarized, and tagged by outcome, and every booking lands in your calendar and CRM. Watch booking rate, missed-call recovery, transfer success, and the calls that ended with nothing, catch the questions the agent fumbles, and retrain the flow, with quality review across 100% of calls rather than a small sample.
Use Cases
Calls your AI receptionist handles from day one
Answer every call and greet in your name
The agent picks up on the first ring and greets callers in your business name, so the line never goes to voicemail, a busy signal, or a phone tree, even when many people call at once. It answers hours, location, pricing, and service questions from the connected knowledge base, covers nights, weekends, and holidays, and handles callers in multiple languages with automatic language detection.
Book, reschedule, and cancel in your calendar
The agent checks live availability, books into Cal.com or Google Calendar during the call, and reschedules or cancels an existing appointment in the same conversation. Confirmations and reminder calls cut no-shows. Dental practices, law firms, and home services run their front desk on it without hiring a part-time receptionist.
Qualify the caller, then transfer with context
The agent works out why someone is calling, gathers the details you need, and qualifies the request. It warm transfers to the right person, department, or on-call phone, and says who is holding and why before it connects. When that line rings out, the agent takes the message or books a callback instead of dead-ending the caller.
Follow up, remind, and log every message
The agent places appointment reminders, confirmations, review requests, and re-engagement calls through batch call campaigns. When the right person is out, it takes the message and drops it into HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, or a webhook with the transcript attached.
Cover overflow and after-hours
The agent fields overflow and after-hours calls, so no call rolls to voicemail. Send it everything, only the calls nobody picks up, or only the hours you are closed.
Serve callers in multiple languages
Native-quality speech in Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, French, and more, with automatic language detection, so one agent covers a bilingual front desk.
Built for Contact Centers, Not Demos
Retell is the AI Voice Platform Enterprise Contact Centers Run On
Retell lets you build, test and deploy AI phone agents that handle real call volume, so your team spends its time on the conversations that need a person.
Feature
Why businesses choose Retell AI as their AI receptionist
Sounds like your business
Pick from 100+ lifelike voices or clone your own, and tune tone and language so the agent matches a dental office or a law firm and greets callers in your business name, warm, human-like conversations instead of an outdated phone tree.
Books into your calendar, not just a message pad
The agent checks live availability and writes the appointment into Cal.com or Google Calendar during the call, so a captured call becomes a booked job. Pine Park Health raised scheduling NPS by 38% after putting calls through a voice agent. Results vary by setup.
Reads and writes your CRM mid-call
Connect HubSpot, Salesforce, Go High Level, Cal.com, and Google Calendar natively, or anything else through Zapier, n8n, or a webhook. The agent looks up a patient, a client, or an order while the caller is on the line, and writes the result back.
Runs on the number you already have
Keep your carrier, your number, and your phone system. Connect through SIP trunking with Twilio, Telnyx, Vonage, Genesys, or Five9, or forward the calls you want answered. Nothing about your published number changes.
Answers in roughly 600 milliseconds
End-to-end latency of about 600ms with proprietary turn-taking means callers never sit through dead air or talk over the agent. It handles interruptions and barge-in the way a strong receptionist does.
Never a missed call, never a busy signal
The agent answers every call at once, around the clock, starting at 20 concurrent calls and scaling on request. Callers who reach voicemail rarely leave one and rarely call back, and industry research puts the average missed call at about $12.15 in lost value. Results vary.
Scores 100% of calls
Every call is transcribed, summarized, and tagged by outcome through post-call analysis, and every booking lands in your calendar and CRM. Watch booking rate, missed-call recovery, and transfer rate in a dashboard, catch the questions the agent fumbles, and retrain the flow, instead of reviewing a small sample by hand.
Catch the transfers that fail
Transfers are where a front desk loses people. See which handoffs connected, which rang out, and which calls ended with nothing, then fix the routing rule behind them.
Test it before your callers do
Turn your real scenarios into a simulation suite and rerun it on every prompt change, so a fix for one caller never breaks the booking flow for the next.
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- Hubspot
- Twilio
- Vonage
- Go High Level
- n8n
- Zapier
- Salesforce
- Hubspot
- Twillio
- Vonage
- Go High Level
- 8n8
- Zapier
- Salesforce
- Avaya
- Genesys
- Five9
- Amazon Connect
- Telnyx
- Make
- Cal.com
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- Avaya
- Genesys
- Five9
- Amazon Connect
- Telnyx
- Make
- Cal.com
Pricing
Cut Costs by 90% with AI phone Agents
Pay as you go
$0 to start.
$0.07β$0.31 per minute β Pay only for what you use.
60 mins of free access.
20 concurrent calls.
10 Free Knowledge Bases.
Enterprise Plan
For companies with large volumes, data or deployment requirements, or support needs.
White glove service for your use case.
Premium support with dedicated solution engineer teams.
Custom pricing and concurrent calls based on your needs
FAQ
Frequently asked questions.
What is an AI receptionist?
An AI receptionist is a voice agent that answers your business calls, works out what each caller wants, and takes action. It greets callers in your business name, answers common questions from your knowledge base, books appointments during the call, routes or transfers calls to the right person, and logs every conversation for you to review. Unlike a basic chatbot or touch-tone IVR, it understands intent and acts on it rather than reading a menu.
Can I keep my existing phone number and phone system?
Yes. Keep your carrier, your number, and your phone system. Connect the line through SIP trunking with providers like Twilio, Telnyx, Vonage, Genesys, and Five9, or point a call forward at the agent. You choose what reaches it: every call, only the ones nobody answers, or only the hours you are closed. Callers keep dialing the number they already know.
How long does it take to go live?
A standard receptionist takes a day. Point the agent at your website, build the flow, test it against front-desk scenarios, forward one line, and take real calls the same afternoon. A build that has to integrate a practice management system, a case management platform, or a custom API usually runs three to six weeks with our team, because most of that work sits in the integration rather than the conversation.
How do I make an AI receptionist?
Point the agent at your website, services, hours, and pricing through a knowledge base, then define the call flow with a drag-and-drop builder and connect your calendar and CRM. Test it against common front-desk scenarios, keep your number by connecting the line through SIP trunking or a forward, and go live. A standard agent needs no engineering team, and most teams go from signup to live calls in a day.
What does the AI receptionist connect to?
Your calendar through Cal.com and Google Calendar, your CRM through HubSpot, Salesforce, and Go High Level, and your phone system through Twilio, Vonage, Telnyx, Genesys, Five9, and Amazon Connect. Anything else runs through Zapier, n8n, or a direct webhook. The agent reads a record and writes back to it during the call, so a booking or a new lead lands where your team already works.
Does Retell AI answer questions, book appointments, and route calls?
Yes. Retell answers callers' questions from your knowledge base, books appointments during the call through integrations such as Cal.com and Google Calendar, and reschedules or cancels an existing one in the same conversation. It routes or transfers calls to the right person with full context, qualifies leads, and captures caller details for follow-up.
What happens when the agent transfers a call and nobody answers?
Retell follows the escalation rules you set. When a call signals urgency or asks for a person, the agent warm transfers to a live team member or an on-call number and passes the full context first, so the caller never repeats themselves. If that line rings out, the agent comes back to the caller, takes the message, offers a booking, or promises a callback, and logs the whole thing to your CRM.
How many calls can it handle at once?
Every plan starts at 20 concurrent calls, which covers almost any single-location front desk, including the moment everyone rings at once. Multi-location and contact center deployments raise concurrency on request. The agent never returns a busy signal.
How much does it cost?
Retell charges per minute, with no platform fee, no minimums, no contract, and free credit to start. Voice minutes run from $0.07 to $0.31 depending on the models, voices, and tools your agent uses, and most receptionist agents sit in the middle of that range. You pay for minutes worked, not seats, which is why a busy line still costs less than a part-time front desk. If you want our team to build and integrate it for you, dedicated implementation support is an Enterprise add-on.
Which AI virtual receptionist is best for small businesses?
Small businesses want fast setup, no big upfront commitment, and pricing that tracks usage. Retell is pay-as-you-go from $0.07 per minute with no platform fee, runs on your existing number, connects to your CRM, and can be live in a day. Start on one line and grow from there. It scales from a single-location clinic or dental practice to multi-site operations without adding headcount.
How do I replace a front desk receptionist with AI?
In practice, most businesses augment their front desk rather than replace it. Route first contact, overflow, and after-hours calls to the agent and keep staff for in-person work and complex cases. The agent answers, books, qualifies, and routes calls in live conversation, and transfers anything it should not handle to a person with the full context attached, so no caller waits and your team focuses on the work that needs them.
What features should I look for in an AI receptionist?
Look for natural, low-latency conversation (Retell answers in roughly 600ms with proprietary turn-taking), answers drawn from your own knowledge base, real-time appointment booking through integrations like Cal.com and Google Calendar, call routing and warm transfers that pass full context, lead qualification and capture, and multilingual support. It should also meet enterprise security standards such as PII redaction and SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance, work on your existing number through SIP trunking, and give you post-call analytics so you can review and improve every call.
Does Retell AI Receptionist comply with data privacy regulations?
Yes. Retell is SOC 2 Type I and Type II and ISO 27001 certified, and compliant with HIPAA and GDPR. A Business Associate Agreement for HIPAA and a Data Processing Addendum with EU Standard Contractual Clauses for GDPR are available to self-sign at no extra cost. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, built-in PII redaction removes sensitive details from transcripts and recordings, and you can set data retention per agent from 1 day up to 2 years.
What do I need to verify before my agent takes live calls?
Before you buy a number or answer live calls, Retell verifies your identity and your business, the same checks any carrier runs. Sending texts adds A2P 10DLC brand and campaign registration. Have your business details ready at signup and it clears quickly. Tell us what the agent will say and who it calls, because transfer-only flows and calls that use another brand's name trigger a manual review.
