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Overview

Every receptionist is configured from her own editor. Open AI Receptionist in the sidebar (under Inbound Calls), choose a receptionist from the AI Receptionists list, and switch to the Settings tab. The editor has three tabs — Overview, Settings and Calls — with Test and Save buttons in the header. An Unsaved Changes badge appears as soon as you edit anything, and Test saves pending edits first, so a test call always uses your latest configuration. This page covers the two Settings cards that define who your receptionist is and what she can do:
  • Your receptionist — name, voice, greeting and further instructions
  • What [Name] can do — the tool toggles: booking, message taking and transfers
The other cards have their own pages: Your phone number is covered in Receptionist Number & Call Forwarding, and What [Name] knows plus Post-Call Summary in Receptionist Knowledge & Post-Call Summaries.

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Name, voice, greeting and instructions

The Your receptionist card — “Give your assistant a name, a voice, a first greeting and further instructions” — defines the persona. The Overview tab shows Needs setup — “Add a voice and a greeting in Settings so she can start answering.” — until every step of the setup checklist is complete, and Ready once they all are. Writing a greeting and instructions together tick off the “Write greeting and instructions” step; see AI Receptionist Overview & Quickstart for the full checklist.

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The voice picker

The Voice dropdown shows one row per voice: a play button, the voice’s name, a gender icon, country flag(s) for the accent, and a blue HQ badge on high-quality voices. Playing a sample neither selects the voice nor closes the dropdown, so you can audition several before committing — only one sample plays at a time, and clicking again stops it. A play button beside the closed picker auditions the currently selected voice. All voices speak English, across Australian, American, British and Indian-accented options. To browse the full catalogue with Accent, Gender, Age and Tone filters, use the Voice library on the Voices page — it is browse-and-audition only; the selection itself happens here.

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What [Name] can do — tool toggles

The What [Name] can do card lists three tools, each with a switch. Tools give your receptionist the ability to take actions on a call; anything switched off is simply never offered to callers.

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Book appointments

The toggle is disabled until a calendar integration is connected — the row reads “Connect a calendar integration to enable booking.” Once one is connected, the receptionist automatically uses your connected booking tool. Clicking anywhere on the row (outside the switch) opens the tool configuration panel — the same panel the full script editor uses — where you can pick exactly which booking tool the receptionist should use and adjust its input and output mappings. See Calendar Tools for the settings each calendar integration offers.

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Take a message

No configuration needed. When a caller wants to leave a message, the receptionist captures their name, best contact phone number and the reason for their call one item at a time, confirms the phone number back to them, and lets them know someone will be in touch shortly. The captured details appear in the call’s transcript and summary — turn on Post-Call Summary to have that summary sent to you by Email or SMS after the call ends (see Receptionist Knowledge & Post-Call Summaries).

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Transfer to a human

Switching this on reveals the transfer routes editor with one empty route ready to fill in. As the helper text puts it: “Each route is its own warm transfer — the assistant dials that route’s number whenever its conditions match.”

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Transfer routes

Each route has three fields. Add transfer route adds another; the remove button appears once you have more than one.

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How routes map to Warm Handoff

Behind the scenes, each route becomes a step using the same Warm Handoff tool available in the full script editor. The mapping is automatic:
  • Phone number → the dial destination
  • Route name → the agent name announced to the caller
  • Transfer when… → the routing condition that sends the caller down this route
  • A standard merge message — “Thanks for holding — you’re now connected.” — is spoken once the human joins
During the transfer the caller is placed on hold while the receptionist dials your team member and privately briefs them on the call so far, then merges the two together — see Transferring Calls for the full runtime story. If you want finer control — a custom failure message, extra briefing detail, a wait-for-answer confirmation — open the receptionist in the full script editor and configure the transfer step directly; every setting is described on the Warm Handoff page.

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When no transfer is set up

A transfer only counts as configured when the toggle is on and at least one route has a phone number. Otherwise, callers who ask for a person are offered a call back instead: the receptionist explains that no one is available right now, offers to arrange a call back, and confirms the best contact number and any preferred time.

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How it all becomes a call

Your receptionist is, under the hood, an inbound call script built from a fixed set of named steps. Knowing the shape helps you read her call transcripts — and matters if you open her in the full script editor (next section).

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Editing in the full script editor — the safe round-trip

Receptionists also appear on the Call Scripts page, where opening one launches the full script editor — flows, steps, conditions and all. You can use both editors on the same receptionist, because saving from the receptionist editor merges rather than rebuilds: Preserved exactly as the full editor left them:
  • Any steps you add with your own names, plus stages and flow variables
  • Routing you add on the Reception Hub to your own steps — those steps stay reachable after a receptionist save
  • The wording of Greeting, Reception Hub and Wrap Up — the first two round-trip into the receptionist editor’s Greeting and Instructions fields, and the Wrap Up wording (personalised with your business name when the receptionist is generated with AI) survives saves even though the receptionist editor has no field for it
  • The booking step’s tool choice and its input/output mappings
  • Script settings edited in the full editor — for example Max Call Duration (seconds), which starts at 600 for a receptionist, and Key Terms
Rebuilt from your receptionist settings on every save:
  • The steps with the reserved names above — Greeting, Reception Hub, Book appointment, Take a message, Offer Callback, Wrap Up, and any step named Transfer: … — along with their routing conditions
  • The wording of Take a message and Offer Callback, which reset to their standard prompts
  • Each transfer step’s destination and announcement, regenerated from its route
Two practical rules follow. Keep the reserved step names: renaming a managed step turns it into an ordinary custom step, and the receptionist editor will recreate the managed step alongside it on the next save. And don’t hand-edit the wording of Take a message or Offer Callback in the full editor if you still save from the receptionist editor — those edits won’t survive. Managed steps keep their identity between saves, so custom routing that points at them stays valid. If someone else changes the receptionist while you have her open, saving shows “This receptionist was changed since you opened it. Reload to get the latest version before saving.” — reload and reapply your edits.

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Next Steps