How to set up an AI receptionist, step by step

What to gather before you start

Before you open the dashboard, collect the information the receptionist will answer from. A trained front-desk person knows these things by heart; the AI only knows what you write down. Gathering it first turns setup into a single sitting instead of a week of small edits.

1. 1Services: everything you offer, in the words customers use, with a one-line description of each.
2. 2Prices: fixed prices, starting prices, call-out fees, and what you say when a price depends on a visit or a quote.
3. 3Hours: opening hours, after-hours rules, holiday closures and your time zone.
4. 4Service area: the towns, districts or radius you cover, and what to say to callers outside it.
5. 5Policies: cancellations, deposits, payment methods you accept, warranties, what to bring, parking.
6. 6Frequently asked questions: the ten or twenty questions you answer every week, with the answers you actually give.
7. 7Escalation cases: which situations should go straight to a person, and the number or people who take them.

A price list, a brochure or an old staff handbook is a good start; Frontivo.io reads uploaded documents and website content as well as typed notes. The getting started guide lists what the dashboard asks for.

Steps 1 and 2: name your receptionist voices and add your knowledge base

Every Frontivo.io plan comes with two receptionist voices, one female and one male. Name them and pick one for calls; on your website, visitors can choose which one to talk to.

1. 1Name your voices. Give each a name, a photo and a greeting that sounds like your business. Keep the greeting short: who they are, that they are an AI assistant for your company, and how they can help. See receptionist voices.
2. 2Add your knowledge base. Enter the services, prices, hours, service area, policies and FAQs you gathered, and upload any documents or point it at your website. This is what the receptionist answers from; if something is missing, it says it doesn't know and offers a person rather than guessing. Changes apply immediately, with no retraining. Write it the way you would brief a new employee: plain sentences, one clear answer per question. See train your AI and the knowledge base feature page.

Steps 3 and 4: set qualifying questions and escalation rules

Qualifying questions are what the receptionist asks a new caller so that the lead is useful when it reaches you. Escalation rules are the situations where it stops handling the conversation itself and gets a person.

1. 1Set your qualifying questions. Frontivo.io asks about the customer's need, timeline, urgency and location, and captures their name, phone or email and the service they want. Add the questions specific to your trade, such as the make of the appliance, the size of the property or whether they are an existing client. See lead qualification.
2. 2Set your escalation rules. The receptionist hands off when a caller asks for a person, and when a rule matches: an angry customer, a billing or legal question, an emergency, or a custom trigger you define. It transfers the live call to your team's number with a short whisper explaining who is calling (time on the transferred call counts toward your minutes); if nobody picks up, it takes a detailed message and alerts you at once by email, text or desktop notification. Start with fewer rules; it is easy to add one after a real conversation shows the need. See human handoff.

Step 5: connect your calendar

Connect the calendar the receptionist should book on so it only offers times that are genuinely open. Frontivo.io works with its built-in calendar, Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar, two-way: bookings, reschedules and cancellations sync, busy times are respected, and times are offered in your business's time zone.

1. 1Choose the built-in calendar, or connect Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar from the dashboard.
2. 2Set the appointment types and lengths you offer, and any buffer between them.
3. 3Block the times you never want booked: lunch, admin hours, holidays.
4. 4Book a test appointment through the Channel Tester and confirm it appears on your calendar with the details read back correctly.

The walkthrough with screenshots is appointments and Google Calendar; the feature overview is appointment booking.

Steps 6 and 7: install the website widget and connect your phone number

These are the two steps that put the receptionist in front of customers. The widget takes about 15 minutes; the phone number is connected after you subscribe: in seconds in the US and Canada, after a documents check in most other countries.

1. 1Install the website widget. Copy the script tag from the dashboard and paste it into your site's template or your site builder's custom code area. It works with any site builder, and visitors can type or talk to your agent straight away. See install the website widget.
2. 2Get and forward your phone number. Once you subscribe, Frontivo.io connects a local number in your country where available (in the US, Canada, Puerto Rico and a few other countries it is connected in seconds; most other countries, including the UK, Australia, Germany and the Philippines, need business documents first, which takes 1-3 business days; in some countries you confirm a monthly local-number fee on the card first; and where no local number is offered you get a US (+1) number in seconds). Set your existing line to forward to it, always or only when you don't answer, depending on what your phone provider supports. Customers keep dialling the number they know, and missed-call text-back is included. See your Frontivo.io phone number.

Step 8: connect WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger

On Growth, and on WhatsApp Only, Instagram Only or Messenger Only, the same receptionist answers WhatsApp, Instagram DMs and Facebook Messenger with the same knowledge base and calendar. Outside North America, WhatsApp is usually the channel customers reach for first, and it avoids the higher cost of international SMS.

1. 1Connect your Facebook Page and Instagram professional account from the dashboard; both are handled through Meta. See Instagram and Messenger.
2. 2After you subscribe, click Turn on WhatsApp on the WhatsApp card to put WhatsApp on a Frontivo.io number (usually live within a few minutes), or Use my existing number to put it on a number you already have (WhatsApp sends a 6-digit code you type on the card). You don't need a WhatsApp Business account or the WhatsApp app. See WhatsApp.
3. 3Send a test message on each channel and check the reply lands in the inbox. Test WhatsApp from a different WhatsApp number than the one you connected, or use the WhatsApp tab in the Channel Tester.

The feature overview is on WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger.

On Growth and Email Only you can also forward your business email (Gmail, Outlook or any email host) to your AI's own address, so it answers customer emails in the same thread. It takes about 5 minutes; see Set up AI email and the AI email overview.

Steps 9 and 10: test with the Channel Tester, then go live

Do not go live on a guess. The Channel Tester, included on every plan, lets you chat with and test-call your receptionist in the browser exactly as a customer would, before a single real call arrives.

1. 1Run the customer scripts. Play the five or ten calls you get most: a price check, a booking, a reschedule, an emergency, a question you cannot answer, a request for a person. Ask the way real customers ask, including vaguely. See Channel Tester and test calls.
2. 2Fix what you find. Wrong or missing answers go into the knowledge base, questions it should have asked into qualification, calls that should have reached you into escalation rules.
3. 3Add your team. Invite the people who will work the inbox and set their roles (Starter includes 3 users, Growth 5). See team members and roles.
4. 4Go live. Publish the widget, turn on call forwarding and keep your alerts on for the first week so you see every handoff as it happens.

Keep it improving: the weekly review

The receptionist gets better in proportion to how often someone reads what it did, and ten minutes a week is enough. Every plan gives you full transcripts and a short AI summary of every conversation in the inbox, and unanswered questions are saved as knowledge gaps.

1. 1Read the AI summaries of the week's conversations and skim any that were escalated or ended without a booking. See inbox takeover and summaries.
2. 2Open the knowledge gaps list and write an answer for each question the receptionist could not answer. Each one you fill is a call it handles alone next week.
3. 3Check the appointments list against your calendar and adjust availability or appointment lengths if bookings landed awkwardly. On Growth, the analytics dashboard shows volume by hour and channel.
4. 4Update the knowledge base whenever prices, hours or policies change. Changes apply immediately.

If you have not started yet, the 14-day free trial needs no card. For what to look for before you commit, read AI receptionist for small business.