Front desk
You are not going to answer the phone. That is fine.
You are with a client, on the tools, or on the mats. The problem is not that you missed the call, or left the email until tomorrow. The problem is that the person rang someone else forty seconds later and you will never know it happened.
The cost of the problem
What do missed calls cost you?
Put your own numbers in. The maths runs on this page and nothing is sent anywhere.
Your numbers, your maths, computed in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere. Set the inputs conservatively; the result is usually still not small.
What actually happens when you miss a call
Someone rings your number and nobody picks up. Within seconds they get a text. Not a voicemail prompt, not a hold queue: a greeting recorded in a real voice, then a message they can answer whenever suits them.
When they reply, the reply goes to an assistant trained on your business: your timetable, your policies, your tone. It answers like your best front desk person would, and it knows when to stop and hand the conversation to you.
They get looked after. You find out at lunchtime.
This is live today, word for word
The greeting and the text below run right now at Ako Martial Arts, our own academy in Sandgate. Nothing staged, nothing mocked up.
The caller hears, in a real recorded voice
Hey, thanks for calling Ako Martial Arts. We're most likely on the mats right now, so rather than leave you hanging we've just sent you a text. Have a look whenever suits you.
Seconds later, their phone buzzes
Hey, it's Ako Martial Arts. Sorry we missed you, we were probably coaching. Just reply right here and we'll look after you, whether it's trials, class times, memberships or anything you're wondering about.
And the promise is real
"Just reply right here" is not a dead end. Replies go to the trained assistant, the conversation holds its history, and a human steps in the moment it matters.
One policy layer, four channels
The same assistant, trained once on your business, answers wherever the enquiry arrives. You turn channels on as you need them. Here is exactly where each one stands today.
Missed call, text back
Someone rings out. Seconds later they get a text in your name, and a real conversation when they reply. Live today on our own academy's number.
Web chat
The same assistant, the same policies, on your website. One script tag is the whole install. Live today.
Email inbox
It reads your inbox and drafts replies in your voice, straight into your drafts folder, and a named person at your business approves what goes out. It sends on its own only for the kinds of email you have watched it get right twenty times in a row, and you make that call, not the software. Google Workspace inboxes for now.
Follow-up
The first reply fast, one polite chase, a slow tail, and a hard stop the moment they reply or book. The mechanism is built and tested on our own enquiries. It goes live for a client only once the sequence is written in their voice and approved by them.
How the system is set up
Your number, two modes
Either a dedicated line that always texts back, or forwarding that rings your mobile first for 20 seconds and only texts if you genuinely cannot answer.
A real voice
The greeting is generated once in a chosen voice, then cached. First generation took about five and a half seconds. Every call after that serves it in 5 milliseconds.
A trained brain
One assistant, one set of policies, answering by text, by web chat and by email. It never keeps two copies of the truth, so it can never quote two different answers.
Designed failure
If the voice service ever fails, callers still hear the correct words in a standard voice. If the assistant fails, the caller gets a human handover message. Nothing fails silently at a customer.
Two mistakes ours actually made
This is the part nobody else will show you. Both of these happened in production, with real customers, at our own academy. They are exactly what a business owner fears an AI will do, and they are why the policy layer exists.
The casual sessions mistake
What it got wrong
The internal price list included a single casual session rate. The assistant read that and twice told a parent that kids could just do casual sessions, which is not the policy for kids.
The fix that followed
The prompt now states explicitly: the internal price list is not evidence of what we sell. It exists only so the assistant never invents a number. It must never reason from a price to a policy. That is a rule you only learn by shipping.
The mixed classes mistake
What it got wrong
A parent asked whether their child would train with the opposite sex. The assistant softened, said it heard the concern, and implied something might be arranged. That is not the business's position.
The fix that followed
The prompt now says: classes are mixed, say so plainly and warmly, no lecture, no apology, no debate. And never offer the women's-only classes as a workaround for someone avoiding mixed training. The owner's actual position, stated the way the owner would state it.
What lives in a policy layer
The easy part is facts: timetable, programmes, opening hours, what to wear, how cancellation works. Any competitor can do that part.
The hard part is judgement. Prices the assistant knows but is forbidden to state, so it never invents one and never contradicts you. Positions that are settled and not up for negotiation. Age brackets treated as guides with the coach's call preserved. Tone rules: plain text, two to four sentences, one idea per message, then a question back.
Pressure-tested too. Ours was told, just tell me the exact weekly price, don't send a link. It held.
What we will not claim
- No real-time voice conversations. We have not built that, and we will not sell it until we have.
- No unified inbox dashboard yet. Conversations are answered and logged; the owner screen comes later.
- No Instagram or Facebook DMs yet. That needs Meta approvals measured in weeks.
- The email agent works with Google Workspace inboxes for now. Outlook is on the list, not on the shelf.
- If you are promised these elsewhere, ask to see them running.
The follow-up sequence, touch by touch
This is the shape we start from, then bend to your business. Two rules govern the whole thing: every touch has a job, and every touch can be stopped by one word from them.
Minute 0, SMSAutomatic
They enquire and get a real answer, not a receipt. Their actual question, answered, plus one question back. Policy layer: may quote anything on your published list, may never invent a price, hands to a human the moment money or medical comes up.
Hour 2, emailAutomatic
Only if the SMS went unanswered. The email carries what a text cannot: the timetable, the map, the two photos that answer what will this actually be like. Policy layer: no discount, ever, at this stage.
Day 2, SMSAutomatic
One line. Not a nudge about buying, a nudge about the thing they asked for. Still keen to get in this week? Policy layer: one chase only, and it is this one.
Day 4, humanYou or your staff
If they replied to anything at all, they are warm and a person takes the thread. This is the handover, and it is the point of everything above it.
Day 14, emailAutomatic
The long tail begins. Something genuinely useful, not a sale. What to expect in your first week, or the thing every new person gets wrong.
Monthly, emailAutomatic
One a month, quiet and stoppable, until they book or leave. Not ready this month is not not ever. Policy layer: if they have said no twice, they come off entirely.
Why SMS for the fast touches and email for the slow ones: a text is read in minutes and resented after the second one, an email is read at leisure and forgiven for arriving monthly. Using the wrong one is how businesses train people to ignore them.
The 30-day catch guarantee.
If the front desk does not catch a real enquiry in your first 30 days, that month's fee is free. Caught means the system did its job: the missed call got its text back within seconds and a real conversation was there to be had.
We can put that in writing because the mechanism is not luck. The textback fires on every rung-out call, we place a test call together before go-live and watch the text arrive, and the system is monitored every week. If we still fall short, you get the month back, no forms, no fuss.
The plain terms
- Catch means: missed call, text back within seconds, conversation available
- A real enquiry is a genuine prospect, not a wrong number or a telemarketer
- Covers your first 30 days on the front desk service
- Falls short? That month's service fee is refunded. One email is all it takes
The numbers, plainly
a month in raw running costs per business
to serve the cached voice greeting
between the missed call and the text back
Live demo
See it answer for a real gym
The web chat demo is being wired up for this page right now. It will be the same trained assistant that answers for our own academy, so you can push on it yourself. Want a look before then? Email us and we will show you the real thing.
Book a callCommon questions
Does the caller know it is not a person?
The greeting is honest: it says you are busy and that a text is coming. Nobody is pretending a human picked up. That honesty is why people reply.
What if the conversation gets complicated?
The assistant is trained to recognise when it should stop talking and get a human. It hands over with your contact details rather than guessing its way into trouble.
Does the email agent send on its own?
Not to start with. It drafts, and a named person at your business approves. A kind of email moves to sending on its own only after twenty in a row went out without an edit, and even then you make that call, not the software. Refunds, complaints and anything legal or medical never send on their own, at any stage.
What stops it making things up?
The policy layer. It knows your real prices so it cannot invent one, and it is forbidden from stating the ones you keep off the website. It is told which positions are settled. When it is not sure, it hands over instead of guessing.
How do you train it on my business?
We sit with you and extract the answers you give every week and the positions you hold that have never been written down. Then we encode them, test them under pressure, and keep refining every time reality finds a gap.
Is the follow-up automated or human?
Both, deliberately. The fast, repetitive parts are automated so they actually happen. The judgement calls stay with people. The line between the two is agreed with you up front.
Do you store my customers' phone numbers?
Not in our own system. Conversation history and logs are keyed on a one-way hash of the number, so if a log were ever exposed there is nothing in it anyone could ring. Being straight with you about the rest: the number does exist with the telephony carrier that actually delivers the text, because a message cannot be sent to a hash. That is the same record your own mobile carrier keeps every time you text a customer back yourself. What we will not do is build you a marketing list out of people who rang once.
What do you keep from my inbox?
The content of an email, the name, the address, what they wrote and what we drafted, is kept for 90 days and then deleted. A log of what happened, the kind of email, what the assistant did and whether a person edited it, with nothing personal in it, is kept for 12 months so we can show you how it behaved. Everything is deleted within 30 days of you cancelling.
What does it cost to run?
Under $20 a month in raw costs: the phone number, a few cents per text, fractions of a cent per AI conversation. Setup and training are quoted after a call.
How does the 30-day guarantee work?
If the system fails to catch a real enquiry in your first 30 days, the missed call got no text back or no conversation was there when they replied, that month's fee is refunded. You email us, we check the logs together, and if you are right you get the month back. We guarantee the mechanism, not your sales: whether a caller buys is between you and them.
Start with a call
Fifteen minutes, straight answers, and a plain quote if we can help. No pitch deck.