How Greetly AI Receptionists Are Implemented in Real Businesses — Step by Step
Great AI reception is not a feature you toggle on—it’s an operational capability you launch. This guide breaks down exactly how Greetly AI goes from “let’s explore” to handling your real customers on real phone lines, booking appointments, capturing orders, and escalating to your team when it matters. The through-line across every step is reliability and low latency: callers speak naturally, the agent responds immediately, and your systems update in real time—without a physical receptionist on site.
Step 1: Discovery & Success Criteria
We start by understanding where AI reception will create measurable impact. You share call volumes, peak hours, languages, business hours and holidays, top intents (pricing, availability, booking, order status, directions, billing), escalation rules, and any compliance constraints. Together we define clear targets—fewer missed calls, faster first response, more completed bookings, higher after‑hours conversions. This anchors implementation to outcomes, not just features.
Step 2: Business Knowledge Ingestion
Your AI receptionist must “know your business” on day one. We gather the facts and nuance that make your phone experience feel genuinely yours:
- Offers, services, memberships, pricing tiers, promos, and geography served
- Schedules, lead times, cancellation policies, waitlists, and no‑show rules
- Brand voice and tone, approved talk tracks, and “must‑say / never‑say” phrases
- FAQs (hours, parking, insurance, custom prep steps), and escalation thresholds
- Integration rules—how to create a booking, add a note, take a deposit, or hand off to staff
This knowledge base is structured so the agent answers consistently and adapts as policies change—no retraining your whole team every quarter.
Step 3: Conversation Design & Call Flows
We design calls to feel like conversations, not menus. The agent greets, identifies intent, confirms details, and executes an action—booking, rescheduling, taking an order, or escalating. Key elements:
- Natural disambiguation (“Do you mean our downtown clinic or Riverside?”)
- Barge‑in handling (the caller can interrupt without breaking the flow)
- Guardrails and politeness strategies for stressed or frustrated callers
- Fast‑path actions (repeat caller recognized → jump straight to rebook)
- Compliance cues (“I’ll transfer you to a team member to discuss payment options.”)
All of this is prototyped with sample dialogues until it sounds like your brand.
Step 4: Compliance, Privacy, and Controls
If callers share personal or payment details, we configure data‑handling rules: minimization, retention periods, redaction in logs, opt‑in/opt‑out for recordings, and auditability. Access to dashboards follows least‑privilege standards. You own your data; the agent only uses what is needed to complete the task.
Step 5: Phone Numbers, Routing, and Schedules
Greetly AI provisions dedicated business numbers for your agent or connects to your existing numbers. We set:
- Routing logic by business hours and holidays
- After‑hours and overflow rules (straight to AI, or try staff first?)
- Caller ID rules, ring‑through and warm transfers to staff, voicemail fallback
- Location trees for multi‑site organizations (press‑menu avoided; natural language preferred)
From day one you can advertise the new number, port your current one, or forward calls while you phase in.
Step 6: Integrations That Make It Real
Your agent must do work—not just talk. We connect to the tools you already use:
- Calendars and scheduling: create, move, and cancel bookings; manage buffers and resources
- CRMs and ticketing: capture lead details, create follow‑ups, tag call outcomes
- Ordering or POS: take an order, check availability, capture deposits (if enabled)
- Vertical platforms: clinic, salon, gym, field services, property management
- Notifications: confirmations and reminders by SMS/email; internal alerts to Slack/Teams
The result: when a caller books, your schedule updates instantly; when a lead qualifies, your CRM has a complete record without manual entry.
Step 7: Low‑Latency Experience Engineering
Natural conversation depends on speed. We tune the pipeline end‑to‑end so callers never feel the system “thinking”:
- Streaming recognition so the agent starts responding while the caller speaks
- Snappy reasoning for common intents; deeper logic reserved for complex cases
- Rapid, natural speech synthesis with appropriate pacing and emphasis
- Caching of frequent answers (hours, pricing ranges, directions) and warm starts
- Regional routing so audio travels the shortest path possible
Target: sub‑second perceived response. The payoff is fewer talk‑overs, less frustration, and higher completion rates.
Step 8: UAT With Real‑World Noise
We pressure‑test before launch. Scenarios include accents and dialects, speaker changes, loud backgrounds, poor connections, code‑switching (mixing languages), and out‑of‑policy requests. We validate the hard cases—partial info (“sometime Thursday morning”), vague requests (“what’s the cheapest option?”), and emotional calls (urgent, upset). Only after the agent succeeds here do we sign off.
Step 9: Phased Go‑Live
You can launch fully or in phases:
- Parallel run: forward a slice of traffic to Greetly AI while staff take the rest
- After‑hours first: win nights/weekends, then expand to daytime overflow
- Location by location: prove success, then roll out network‑wide
Staff get a one‑pager explaining what the agent can do, how transfers work, and when to jump in. From the caller’s perspective, nothing feels “beta”—they just get answers faster.
Step 10: Measure, Learn, Improve
Post‑launch, you get transparent insight:
- Live dashboards: call volume, answer rate, bookings/orders completed, transfers, abandons
- Latency and quality metrics: how fast the agent heard, thought, and spoke
- Intent analytics: what callers want this week vs. last; gaps and new FAQs to add
- A/B tests: alternative greetings, call‑to‑action wording, and confirmation flows
We iterate. New services, new promos, seasonal schedules, more languages—your receptionist evolves as your business does.
Playbook Snapshots
Dental Clinic (Same‑Day Slots)
Agent checks provider calendars, triages by pain level, books the earliest slot with prep instructions, sends directions and forms, and flags urgent cases for staff. Insurance or payment policy questions follow the clinic’s approved script; sensitive billing escalates to a human.
Fitness Studio (Class Fill + No‑Show Control)
Agent promotes classes with available capacity, books members in seconds, automates reminders, and handles waitlists. If a caller cancels, the slot opens immediately and a waitlisted member is offered the seat.
Home Services (Dispatch Windows)
Agent validates service area, captures job details, proposes a two‑hour arrival window, collects deposit if required, and pushes the job to your field‑service app. Urgent safety issues go straight to on‑call staff.
Readiness Checklist
- Clear success metrics (bookings, answer rate, after‑hours conversions)
- Up‑to‑date services, prices, policies, and holidays
- Escalation and transfer rules your team agrees on
- Integrations enabled (calendar/CRM/ordering) and tested
- Announcement plan (website, Google profile, voicemail, email, and signage)
What You’ll Notice After Launch
- Fewer missed calls and faster call completion—especially outside business hours
- Calendars and CRMs always up‑to‑date without manual work
- Staff focusing on high‑value moments instead of repetitive phone tasks
- A front‑of‑house experience that finally scales with demand
FAQs
How long does setup take?
It depends on integrations and locations. Many customers begin with an after‑hours or single‑location rollout and expand quickly once results are clear.
Can we keep our existing phone number?
Yes. You can port, forward, or advertise a new dedicated number—whatever fits your rollout plan.
What about complex or emotional calls?
Escalation rules route sensitive or high‑stakes situations to staff immediately, with helpful context from the agent.
Do we control the agent’s voice and tone?
Yes. Greetings, phrasing, and brand voice are tuned during conversation design and refined over time.
What if our services or prices change?
Update once; your receptionist reflects it everywhere. That’s the point—no retraining a rotating front desk.