Ways to answer business calls: Four ways to answer your phone. Here is the honest arithmetic.
See what each option is genuinely good at, including the two places where we would tell you not to buy from us. Prime Assist answers every call at once, never queued.
What are the alternatives to an AI receptionist?
New to the idea? Start with what an AI receptionist is. There are four practical ways to handle inbound calls: in-house reception staff, an outsourced human answering service, an IVR menu with voicemail, or an AI voice agent. In-house reception is best for complex, emotional and in-person work but cannot cover nights, weekends or simultaneous calls. Human answering services provide out-of-hours cover but usually take a message rather than completing the task, and charge per call or per minute. IVR and voicemail are cheap and scale infinitely but resolve nothing. An AI voice agent answers every call at once, completes routine tasks inside your own systems, and escalates the rest to a human. Most businesses are best served by a combination rather than one option.
What to check before you choose an AI receptionist: four things.
Connectivity, capacity, testing and cost, set out as a specification rather than a sales pitch. Where a call centre is quicker, the table says so.
Works with your phone system
If it can forward a call, we answer it. No new provider, no porting, no hardware.
Every call answered at once
Calls are never queued, however many ring together.
Tested on your own calls first
Your team signs off the scripts, and they are tested with scripted calls before go-live. We publish no accuracy figure.
£150
a month including VAT, for 500 minutes
£125 plus VAT, with standard setup, integrations and every location included.Note 1: messaging channels and complex setup Unused minutes roll over, and new customers get their first three months free with a 12-month commitment.Note 2: new customer offer terms
| CAPABILITY | Prime Assist AI receptionist | Traditional call centre Outsourced human agents |
|---|---|---|
| CONNECTIVITY | ||
| Works with your existing phone system Landline, PBX, SIP trunk or cloud | Any system that can forward a call | You divert your line to their centre |
| Hardware to buy or install | None | None |
| Number porting required to start | No, a divert is enough | No |
| Named integrations that read and write Diaries, CRM, clinical and job systems | A growing directory, each marked live or in progress | Rarely, message taking only |
| Time to go live | A date given at your demo | Days |
| COVERAGE, SAFETY AND DATA | ||
| Calls answered at the same time | All answered at once | Limited to agents on shift |
| Hours covered | 24 / 7 / 365, bank holidays included | Contracted hours, premium out of hours |
| A clinical safety case under DCB0129 Signed off by a named Clinical Safety Officer | Yes | Not applicable: DCB0129 covers health IT systems |
| UK or EU processing region, committed by contract | Yes | Varies by provider |
| COMMERCIALS | ||
| Pricing model | Published, from £150 a month including VAT for 500 minutes | Per call or per minute |
| Cost in your busiest month | Rolled-over minutes are used first; extra minutes are 36p a minute including VAT (30p plus VAT) | Rises with volume |
| Integration and set-up fees | Standard set-up included; any build fee priced in the quote | Varies by provider |
Where the difference comes from
Call centres and answering services bill per call or per minute for a person to take a message, which your team then has to action. Prime Assist completes the task in your own system, from 500 minutes a month for £150 including VAT (£125 plus VAT), with standard setup, integrations and every location included, and the minutes you do not use roll over to the next month.
Put your own numbers through the calculatorWhy there are no speed or accuracy figures
We publish no figure we have not independently measured or verified, and that applies to our own latency and accuracy. Ring the demo line and judge the speed for yourself. See the full comparisons
Pick the comparison that matches your current setup.
AI receptionist vs human answering service
Message taking versus task completion, and what happens to the minutes you do not use.
Read the comparisonAI receptionist vs hiring a receptionist
Where a person is irreplaceable, and where asking them to be a queue is the real waste.
Read the comparisonAI receptionist vs IVR and voicemail
Press one for frustration. Why menu trees measure well internally and fail callers.
Read the comparisonHow to choose between AI voice agents
Twelve questions to ask any vendor, including the ones we find uncomfortable.
Read the buyer guideComparing for your sector? See how it works for GP practices and for law firms and solicitors, or browse all industries.
Two situations where we are the wrong answer.
Your calls are mostly emotional or consultative
Bereavement services, crisis support, complex sales that hinge on rapport. If almost every call needs judgement and empathy from the first second, an AI receptionist is a thin layer of value. Hire well instead.
You have no system to write into
If your diary is a paper book and your customer records are in someone’s head, most of the value evaporates. Fix that first, even with a free calendar, and then talk to us.
We would rather lose a sale than deploy into a business where this will not work. It is cheaper for both of us.
Questions buyers actually ask.
Ask us something elseWhich option suits a business with no out-of-hours cover?
One that answers at any hour and resolves the call. Prime Assist answers 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including weekends and bank holidays, with every concurrent call answered at once rather than queued, and urgent, clinical, regulated, safeguarding, distressed and out-of-remit calls go to a named person on written triggers agreed with you. An answering service can also cover nights, usually by taking a message; voicemail and an IVR record or route the call without resolving it. For the detail, read AI receptionist vs answering service, compared in detail.
Will an AI receptionist annoy my customers?
It depends entirely on whether it completes the task. Callers dislike menu trees and hold music. Being answered at once by something that books the appointment and confirms by text is a different experience from waiting in a queue to speak to a person.
Should I use AI and humans together?
Almost always yes. The strongest configuration is AI on first answer for every call, with immediate escalation to your team for anything urgent, emotional or unusual. Your people stop being a queue.
How do I know if it will handle my calls?
Take a week of call reasons and sort them into routine, judgement-needed and emergency. The routine column is what an AI voice agent should take. If that column is under a fifth of your volume, be sceptical of any vendor promising to change everything.
What should I ask a voice AI vendor?
Where the data is hosted, who is accountable for safety, what happens on escalation, whether it writes into your systems or just emails you, what happens when it does not understand, and whether pricing rises with call volume. Our buyer guide lists twelve.
Page last updated . Every figure and claim on it is on our facts page.
Three ways to test us. Only one of them involves talking to a human.
Buying voice AI on a slide deck is how people end up with something that fails on the first awkward caller. So we made the product itself easy to try before you commit to anything.
Hear it for yourself, right now
Ring the line, choose a scenario, for example a dental practice or a trades business, and talk to Prime Assist the way one of your callers would. Ask it to book you in, then try to catch it out. No form and no email address.
Call +44 20 3747 7785We only get in touch if you ask us to.
Put a number on your missed calls
Two questions show the calls you miss today next to the same calls with Prime Assist, where every call is answered at once. Add your own figures to see what they are worth, what answering them would cost from £150 a month including VAT, and how many of your bookings that price equals.
Run my numbersNo email needed: nothing you enter leaves your browser.
Watch it handle your calls
Bring the three calls that waste the most of your team’s day. We run them live, in your sector’s language, and tell you honestly which ones we would not take. One short form to book.
Book a demoNo card, no sales sequence, one human reply.
Do all three, in that order, and it takes a little over half an hour in total. We would rather you tested the product than read our claims about it.
- DCB0129 safety case
- UK or EU processing region
- First three months free for new customers, with a 12-month commitmentNote 2: new customer offer terms
Let AI answer the phone, so your team can answer the person in front of them.
Bring last week’s call log. We will tell you which calls we would take and which we would not.
Free proof of concept on one call type, no cost and no obligation.
HEAR IT FIRST
Call +44 20 3747 7785 and put Prime Assist through its paces before you book anything.
Notes
- Text, iMessage, WhatsApp and web chat are quoted in writing after the demo. A complex setup, for example work that needs our Clinical Safety Officer, may carry a one-off fee, quoted and agreed in writing before work starts. Back to text, note 1
- New customer offer: 12 months for the price of 9. When you sign, you commit to all 12 months, starting on the day you go live. Months 1 to 3 are free, then you pay your bundle price each month for months 4 to 12, from £150 including VAT (£125 plus VAT), with the price before VAT fixed for your 12 months. On 500 minutes, the bundle for your 12 months costs £1,350 including VAT (£1,125 plus VAT), plus any extra minutes, at 36p a minute including VAT (30p plus VAT) in every month, free months included. For new customers, switchers included, once per customer. A new customer is a practice or business that has not used Prime Assist in the 24 months before it signs. Switching? We do the switch, and a notice period of up to three months runs alongside your free months. Full terms on our pricing page. Back to text, note 2, mention 1Back to text (2), note 2, mention 2