Phone answering and triage
A receptionist with a patient at the desk cannot pick up the phone, and a caller who gets no answer may ring the next practice. An AI agent can take those calls on a voice line set up with you, find out what each caller needs, and book it or pass it on in writing.
The role in brief
Answers calls the team cannot take, finds out what the caller needs, books or moves an appointment, or sends a note to the right person.
A voice line built for the role behind your existing number, your appointment diary, and the team's chat or inbox.
The practice manager or branch manager. Urgent and clinical calls are put through to a person. Every other call reaches the team as a written note.
Calls answered, calls passed to a person and why, and bookings made on the call.
Who answers the phone today
A receptionist or a negotiator answers it, between everything else: the patient at the desk, the client collecting a prescription, the viewing they are already late for. Out of hours it is voicemail, a diverted mobile or an answering service that takes a message. The calls that get through are handled well. The cost is in the ones that ring out.
Calls that ring out
Someone looking for a new dentist, or a seller choosing between three estate agents, may not leave a voicemail. They ring the next name on the list. Nobody at the practice or the branch knows the call happened, so nobody counts what it was worth.
The front desk pulled two ways
The person answering the phone is also the person greeting whoever has just walked in. One of them waits, and in a dental or veterinary reception that wait happens in front of a full room. Calls about opening times and moved appointments take the desk away from the people standing at it.
The emergency behind a check-up call
A call about a dog that has eaten something it should not, a patient with a swollen face or a seller whose empty house has been broken into arrives in the same queue as a request to move a check-up. Whoever answers has to spot it and get it to the right person, every time.
How a call is handled, step by step
The agent answers, books and takes notes. Anything urgent, clinical or upset goes to a person. Your voice line, your call wording and what counts as urgent are set up with you as part of the role.
Answer
Picks up the calls your team cannot take, in hours or out, says it is an AI assistant for the practice or branch, and asks what the caller needs.
Nothing. A caller who asks for a person is put through or promised a call back.
Triage
Sorts the call by rules you write: routine, for a named person, or urgent. It gives no clinical opinion and no advice. On any urgent sign it stops and transfers.
Every urgent or clinical call. A person takes it, by your own emergency procedure.
Book or note
For routine calls, books, moves or cancels the appointment in your diary within the slots you allow, or takes a message with the caller's name, number and reason.
Bookings outside your rules, prices not on your approved list, and anything about treatment or an offer.
Hand over
Sends the team a written note of each call: who rang, why, what was booked and what they are waiting for, so a call back starts with the facts.
The call back itself, and every complaint.
Calls answered
Of the calls routed to the line, the share it answered, by hour of the day, counted from the phone system. Reviewed with you each month.
Calls passed to a person
How many calls were transferred or flagged for a call back, and the reason for each: urgent, clinical, a complaint, or the caller asked.
Bookings made on the call
Appointments, viewings and valuations booked, moved or cancelled during the call, counted from the diary entries the line made.
Dental practices
Check-up, recall and cancellation calls booked at busy times. A caller with severe pain, swelling or a knocked-out tooth goes straight to the practice team.
Veterinary practices
Booster and routine calls booked. No clinical opinion given; any request for urgent attention goes to a vet, as RCVS guidance expects of support staff.
Estate agents
Viewing and market appraisal calls booked into the branch diary while negotiators are out. The line never takes an offer, which goes to a negotiator.
Questions owners ask
Do we need a new phone number for this?
No. The line sits behind your existing number and takes the calls your team cannot pick up, in hours or out. A voice line is set up with you as part of the role, and tested on your own kinds of call before a caller reaches it.
What happens when a caller has an emergency?
The line is not there to judge one. You give us the words and signs that mean urgent, and on any of them it stops and puts the caller through to a person or to your out-of-hours provider. It never tells a caller that something can wait. That decision belongs to a dentist, a vet or your team.
Will callers know they are speaking to an AI?
Yes. It says so when it answers, and a caller can ask for a person at any point. If you choose to record or transcribe calls, callers are told so at the start, and why, as ICO guidance asks. A line that pretends to be a human receptionist is not something we would build.
Can it give prices or advice over the phone?
It can read out what you have published and approved: opening hours, the fee for a check-up, how to register. It gives no clinical advice, no opinion on an animal or a tooth, no valuation and no view on an offer. Those calls go to the person qualified to take them.