How to Set Up an AI Receptionist on Your Number

What do you need before you start?

• A Kall8 number: a new toll-free, vanity or local number, or the one you have today, transferred to Kall8 with no port-in fee.
• The phone to put callers through to: your cell, your office line or a hunt group of several phones.
• The company name callers should hear, exactly as you want it said.
• A short list of the questions callers ask most: hours, address, the areas you cover, the services you offer.

How do you add it when you sign up?

1. Choose your plan and your number. On Kall8 Phone and Microsoft Teams plans, keep the toll-free main line on the plan card: that's the number the receptionist answers.
2. Create your account and pay for your plan as usual.
3. On the last step, under "How should we answer your calls?", choose AI Receptionist answers.
4. Enter the company name callers will hear, the receptionist's name and the phone to transfer callers to, and pick one of six voices. Press the preview to hear the greeting.
5. Read the price lines, tick the agreement and choose Start my AI Receptionist. It's usually answering on your new number within minutes.

How do you add it if you're already a customer?

1. Log in to your Kall8 portal and open AI Agents.
2. Start from the Receptionist template and give it a name, a voice and your company name.
3. Add your transfer targets: the phone numbers and hunt groups callers may need.
4. Choose which of your Kall8 numbers it answers.

How do you choose a voice and greeting?

Pick the voice that sounds most like your business: warm, bright, calm, neutral, confident or deep. Keep the greeting short and say the company name first, so callers know straight away they've reached the right place. You can change both whenever you like.

How do you set up transfer targets?

Add one target for each person or group a caller might ask for, named the way callers ask ("the front desk", "Dr. Patel", "the on-call technician"). The receptionist announces the transfer, then rings that number. A phone-number transfer that isn't answered can go to voicemail when voicemail is on for your number (it's on when you add the AI Receptionist at signup); a hunt group follows its own end-of-hunt setting.

How do you run it only after hours?

Add a Scheduled Forwarding rule to the number: your phone rings during business hours and the receptionist answers in the evenings and at weekends. To have it answer only when your team doesn't, put it at the end of a hunt group (a paid add-on). Read more in after-hours call answering.

How do you test it?

1. Call your Kall8 number from a phone other than the one it transfers to.
2. Listen for the greeting and your company name, then ask one of the questions you wrote down.
3. Ask for a person and check that the transfer rings the right phone.
4. With voicemail on for the number, let the transfer ring out once and check that the message reaches your email.

The AI Receptionist is $55 a month plus a $10 setup fee on any Kall8 plan, with 250 AI minutes included per account, plus taxes and fees. See what it costs at your call volume.