An AI receptionist for client booking: how it works and where its limits are

What an AI receptionist is

An AI receptionist is an assistant in the chat on your website or booking page that answers clients and books them in. Unlike a chatbot with buttons, it understands questions the way people write them: “anything on Saturday afternoon?”, “how much is colouring for long hair?”, “can I bring my child?”.

It doesn’t replace the CRM; it works on top of it, taking services, prices and free times from it and booking the client into the same calendar your receptionist uses.

What it does

• It answers questions. About services, prices, durations, the address, opening hours, payment and how to prepare for a visit.
• It finds a time. It offers only times that are really free by the schedule and the service’s duration.
• It books. Once the client has confirmed the service, day and time, the booking appears in the calendar.
• It tells you. The owner or receptionist sees the new booking at once, in Telegram for example.
• It never takes a break. At night, at weekends and at rush hour, when the phone won’t stop ringing.

Where its answers come from

The key question for any AI assistant is how it knows what it says. A good AI receptionist answers only from your business’s data: the price list, the schedule and the facts you have entered (payment, parking, how to prepare for a treatment). It doesn’t look answers up on the internet and doesn’t fill gaps by guessing.

If the answer isn’t in the data, the assistant says so and hands the conversation to a person. That matters more than it seems: a made-up price or a discount that doesn’t exist costs a business more than a missed message.

Where its limits are

Every industry has things the assistant must not do, however hard a client asks. A few examples:

• Dentistry. It books appointments but makes no diagnoses and recommends no treatment. With acute pain it advises calling the clinic straight away.
• Car service. It doesn’t diagnose cars remotely and names no repair prices outside the price list: the mechanic names the final cost after diagnostics. If it’s unsafe to drive, it advises not to.
• Tattoo studio. It promises nothing about healing and leaves the tattoo’s price to the artist, after the sketch.
• Psychologist. It makes no diagnoses, gives no advice and doesn’t ask what the problem is; it only books. If someone writes about a threat to life, it gives the emergency numbers.

For all of them: the assistant talks only about your business, services and booking, and politely declines unrelated questions.

How to prepare an AI receptionist

1. A price list with durations. Every service with its real duration and price; if a service comes in different lengths, several variants.
2. The schedule. Who works when, which services they do, days off and holidays.
3. Facts about the business. The address and how to find you, parking, payment, what to bring, how to prepare, the cancellation policy.
4. Limits. What the assistant doesn’t say and when it calls a person.
5. A test. Take 10–15 real questions from your Direct or Viber and ask the assistant. Where an answer is off, add the missing fact to the data.

What to check when you choose one

• whether the assistant answers only from your data, and what it does when there is no answer;
• whether it books only after the client has confirmed the service, day and time;
• whether it can book two clients for the same time;
• whether you can set limits for your industry;
• where bookings go: into one calendar with all the others, or somewhere separate;
• where the client’s name and phone are stored and who can see them.

A name and a phone number are personal data, so your website needs a privacy policy, and only the people whose work needs it should have access to the client base.

What it costs

In Plugix CRM the AI receptionist is part of the bundle: the CRM with AI costs from €129 a month. On its own the AI assistant costs from €129 a month: that is 1,500 credits, and one conversation with a client is 1 credit. It can talk by voice with the Voice add-on, €79 a month for 300 minutes. All Plugix prices · how online booking works.

Will it replace your receptionist?

Not completely, and it shouldn’t. An AI receptionist takes the routine questions and booking: “how much is it”, “anything free on Saturday”, “where are you”. A person is needed where things are out of the ordinary: a complaint, a complicated case, a change to a treatment plan, a client who wants to talk to the stylist in person.

In practice the assistant takes the routine and the night-time messages off your receptionist, who can then look after the clients already in the room.

Questions

Sources

1. Plugix: prices for the CRM, the AI assistant, credits and voice plugix.ai/pricing
2. Plugix: how online booking works and the AI receptionist’s rules plugix.ai/online-booking
3. The Law of Ukraine “On Personal Data Protection”, No. 2297-VI zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/2297-17