What it can do: abilities

How abilities work

Open your receptionist under Assistants. The left column lists its abilities: Essentials, What it does, Knowledge base, Transfer calls and Contact your team, then under More abilities: Use your contacts, Text callers, Book appointments, Take deposits and Webhooks. The second tab is Voice and technical. Each ability is a switch with a few settings, and a tick means it is set up. Switch on only what you need; the receptionist never does something you have not switched on, even if a rule mentions it.

Essentials

Its name, what it says when it picks up, its voice (press play to hear each one), and the background sound: silence, a quiet office or a busy one.

What it does

Its job, the playbooks for your trade and every rule it follows, each one you can edit, plus Improve in your own words. See the article Tell it how to behave.

Knowledge base

What it knows about your business. See the article Teach it about your business.

The same panel has a Search the web switch. With it on, the receptionist may look up general public facts your information does not cover, such as a postcode or what a product is. Anything about your business still comes only from what you have given it.

Transfer calls

Put a caller through to a person. Add each person or team with their number and a sentence on when to transfer, for example: when the caller says it is urgent, or when they ask for accounts. The call is handed over to that person's phone, like a transfer on an office system, and the receptionist is then off the line, so use a number that is answered.

Add your own mobile first and ring in. Hearing yourself get put through is the quickest way to trust it.

Contact your team

How you hear about calls. Put in an email address and a mobile number. After every call that leaves a message, you get an email with the caller's name, number, what they want and the best time to ring, plus a summary. A text goes to the mobile too, so you see it on site. Texts are capped per day so a busy line cannot run up a bill.

Use your contacts

Recognise callers who are in your contacts and greet them by name. Choose which details it may use, and which details it should listen for and remember about each person, for example availability or a preferred branch. See the Contacts article.

Text callers

Send the caller a text during the call: your address, a link, a booking confirmation. It asks the caller first. Only on phone calls, not browser test calls.

Book appointments

Connect your calendar under Integrations and the receptionist offers real free slots, books the one the caller picks, and collects their name and email. Cal.com works today, with Google Calendar and Calendly on the way. Without a calendar it still takes the booking request as a message with the caller's preferred time.

Ring callers back

On the Team and Scale plans, every message under Conversations has a button: Have Emma ring them back. The receptionist rings the caller, says who it is and which business it is calling from, checks it is a good time, then helps with what they wanted, whether that is booking them in, answering their question or taking details. The call is saved under Conversations like any other.

If it reaches voicemail, it leaves a short message: who called, from which business, and the number to ring back. It never tries to book anything on a voicemail.

If the line drops

Phone signal fails, and people hang up by accident. If a call ends mid-conversation without a goodbye, the receptionist rings the person straight back, says it thinks you got cut off, and carries on from where it was without making them repeat themselves. This works on every plan. If the person does not answer, it leaves a short voicemail and does not try again.

Show your own number on call-backs

On Team and Scale, ring-backs can show your existing business number instead of the SiVoice one. Switch it on under Phone numbers: type your number, answer the call, type the code. The Your phone number guide has the full steps.

Take deposits

On the Team and Scale plans the receptionist texts the caller a secure Stripe link and takes a deposit on the call, paid into your own Stripe account. See the article Take deposits on the call.

Webhooks

For businesses with their own software. Send call details to another system before, during or after a call. If you do not know what a webhook is, you do not need this.

Voice and technical

The second tab. Speaking style and speed, which AI model to use, caller patience (choose patient for callers who pause a lot), and pronunciations. The defaults suit almost everyone. There is nothing to choose for hearing the caller: every receptionist listens with the same speech recognition, tuned to the accent of its voice.