Twelve questions to ask any AI receptionist vendor.
Ask them and you can tell a serious vendor from an impressive demo. Four of the twelve are uncomfortable for us, and we publish no figure we cannot evidence. Use them on us as well.
From £150 a month including VAT
£125 plus VAT for 500 minutes, about 140 to 200 calls. New customers get the first three months free with a 12-month commitment.Note 1: new customer offer terms
What should I ask an AI receptionist vendor before buying?
Ask twelve things: where data is hosted and under whose contract, who is personally accountable for safety, exactly what happens on escalation, whether it writes into your systems or only emails a summary, what it does when it does not understand, whether pricing rises with call volume, who owns the transcripts, what the fallback is if the service fails, how it is tested before go-live, whether it will claim to be human, what happens at the end of the contract, and which named customers will speak to you. Any vendor who is vague on hosting, escalation or pricing should be treated with suspicion.
What a good answer looks like.
| Question | A good answer | A warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| Where is the data hosted | Named processing region, written into the contract | We use industry standard cloud |
| Who is accountable for safety | A named person and a documented safety case | Our AI is very accurate |
| What happens on escalation | Defined triggers, named route, transcript attached | It transfers if needed |
| Does it write into our systems | Named integrations and a demo of the write | It emails you a summary |
| What if it does not understand | Escalates on a defined rule | It handles almost everything |
| Is the price published | A starting price, what it includes and what costs extra, in writing | No figure until a sales call |
| Who owns the transcripts | You do, exportable at any time | Held in our platform |
| What is the failure fallback | Calls divert to your team automatically | We have high uptime |
| How is it tested pre-launch | Scripted test calls signed off by you | Continuous improvement |
| Will it claim to be human | No, it identifies itself | Callers cannot tell the difference |
| What happens at contract end | Data export and clean divert back | Not discussed |
| Will a named customer speak to us | Yes, with a reference call | Anonymous testimonials only |
The four we find uncomfortable
Named customer references, because Prime Assist is in trials, and our published proof is worked scenarios rather than logos. Certification status, because we claim only a clinical safety case under DCB0129, the DSPT (submitted), the DTAC (completed), Cyber Essentials certification and our ICO registration, with no other certification such as ISO 27001, and we say so plainly. Set-up time, because a regulated deployment takes longer than a service you can switch on tomorrow. And breadth, because a vendor built for one narrow vertical may fit that vertical faster than we will.
Why hosting and residency are not a technicality
A voice agent hears names, addresses, health information, financial detail and sometimes distress. If a vendor cannot tell you which region that audio and transcript sit in, and show you the contractual commitment rather than a marketing page, they are asking you to accept a risk that is legally yours and not theirs.
Escalation is the whole product
Any vendor can demonstrate a call that goes well. The question is what happens on the call that goes badly: the ambiguous request, the caller in distress, the question outside remit. A serious product has written triggers, a named human route, and a record. An unserious one improvises and hopes.
Judge on completed tasks, not on demo quality
Voice quality has largely converged. What has not converged is whether the thing actually completes work in your systems and whether it knows when to stop. Ask to see it write a booking into a real diary during the demo, not a slide describing that it can.
The short verdict
Score every vendor, us included, on hosting, accountability, escalation, integration and pricing model. If we lose on your criteria, we would rather you buy the right thing. Come back when your requirements change.
Questions about choosing a vendor.
Ask us something elseWho are Prime Assist competitors?
The category includes general-purpose voice AI platforms, per-minute human answering services and healthcare-specific reception tools. We deliberately do not publish a competitor comparison table with named vendors, because their capabilities and pricing change monthly and a stale comparison misleads buyers. Use the twelve questions on this page instead.
Why does a clinical safety case matter if I am not in healthcare?
Because writing one forces documented escalation, a named accountable person and a hazard log. Those are the three things most likely to be missing in a voice AI product, and the three things you will care about the first time a call goes wrong.
Is a vertical-specific product better than a general one?
A product configured for your sector will usually outperform a generic one on vocabulary, rules and integrations. Ask how much of that configuration exists today versus how much would be built for you.
Should I run a pilot?
Yes. Pilot on one line or one call type with a defined success measure, and insist on scripted test calls signed off by your team before it takes a real caller.
How do I compare pricing honestly?
Model your busiest month, not your average one, and include internal time spent actioning messages. Cost per completed task is the only number that compares across all four options. Our guide to AI receptionist costs in the UK sets the billing models side by side.
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 1: new customer offer terms
Let AI answer the phone, so your team can answer the person in front of them.
Ask us all twelve questions. We will answer them in writing, including the ones where our answer is not yet strong.
Free proof of concept on one call type before you sign, and new customers get the first three months free with a 12-month commitment.
HEAR IT FIRST
Call +44 20 3747 7785 and put Prime Assist through its paces before you book anything.
Notes
- 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 1, mention 1Back to text (2), note 1, mention 2