Questions people ask before they build one
Answered straight, including the ones with an awkward answer. If yours is not here, ask it on the form and we will answer it the same way.
What it is
The words in this category are a mess, so it is worth starting with what is actually being sold.
What is a voice assistant for business?
A voice assistant for business answers your business phone in a real conversation, using what you have told it about your own business. It takes bookings, answers questions from your documents, recognises regular callers by their number and puts people through when your rules say to.
It is not the assistant on your phone. That one knows the weather. This one knows your prices, your diary and who is on call tonight, and it does not know anything else.
What is the difference between a voice assistant and an AI voice agent?
Nothing, in practice. They are two names for the same thing. Voice assistant is the older phrase and the one most people search for. AI voice agent is what the industry says. If you are comparing suppliers, compare what the thing does rather than which of the two words they used.
How is a voice assistant different from an IVR phone menu?
A phone menu sorts callers into queues and then makes them wait. A voice assistant finishes the job. The caller says what they want in their own words, in one go, and hangs up with a time booked or an answer, without pressing anything or picking from a list.
The tell is what happens when a caller says something the menu did not anticipate. A menu sends them back to the top. This asks a question.
Can a voice assistant answer my business phone 24/7?
Yes, and the useful part is that it knows when you are shut. Trading hours sit on the phone number, so at nine at night it answers as an after hours line rather than pretending the office is open. What it does out of hours is your rule: book, take a message, or ring whoever is on.
How it sounds and how it behaves
The objections that come up on every first call, in the order they usually come up.
Will callers know they are talking to an AI?
Most people work it out within a few seconds, and it says so plainly if they ask. It is not built to pass as a person. In practice the callers who mind are the ones kept waiting or asked to repeat themselves, which is exactly the part it is good at.
Can I get a voice assistant with a New Zealand accent?
Yes. You pick the voice before it goes live and you can swap it afterwards. New Zealand and Australian voices are both available, and so is the wording, so it says rego and callout rather than the American versions of those words.
Accent is one of the top three objections in both markets, so it is worth hearing the voice before you commit rather than reading about it.
What happens if it cannot answer a question?
It says it does not know, takes the question down and passes it to you. It is not allowed to invent an answer, and that rule is locked in when the assistant is built rather than being a polite request in its wording. When a question keeps coming up you add the answer to its documents.
Can it transfer a call to a real person?
Yes, to the right person on the right phone, by your rules. It says one sentence of context first so your person is not starting cold. If nobody picks up it takes the message rather than dropping the caller, and tells them when somebody will ring back.
What it does with the rest of the business
A call that ends in a note somebody has to type up has not saved anybody anything. The full list of systems is on what it connects to.
Can it book appointments into my diary?
Yes, into the real diary. It checks what is genuinely free, offers only those times, and writes the booking in while the caller is still on the phone. Google Calendar and Calendly are ready now, and several industry booking systems have connections of their own.
Does it work with Xero, Fergus or Tradify?
Xero is ready. Fergus and Tradify can both connect. Fergus can look a customer up, read the diary and create the job. Tradify is one way only, by email, because Tradify has no public interface for lookups or bookings. Anyone claiming Tradify diary booking is guessing.
Does it answer texts as well as calls?
Yes. Texts to the business number are answered by the same assistant, from the same documents and the same rules, so a texted question and a spoken question do not get two different answers. Picture messages are received and filed, not sent.
Does it do outbound calls as well as inbound?
Yes. It can ring people back, run follow up calls and work through a list, with the outcome of each call recorded. Outbound is a separate build from the line that answers your phone, because the wording and the rules for ringing somebody are not the same as the rules for answering them.
Money, data and getting started
Two of these have answers that are less tidy than we would like, which is why they are written out rather than skipped.
How much does a custom voice assistant cost?
The business monthly plan is NZ$129 for the first three months, then NZ$199. It includes 200 minutes, 50 texts and three calls at once.
Pay as you go is NZ$10 a month for the number plus NZ$1 a minute. A custom API connection starts at NZ$499 and is quoted to the system. There is no setup fee for the standard build and no lock-in.
Where is my call data stored?
Calls to +64 numbers are answered and held in New Zealand data centres. Calls to +61 numbers are answered and held in Australia. Recordings, transcripts and outcomes sit with the call. You can ask for them, and you can ask for them to be deleted.
Is it legal to record calls handled by an AI in New Zealand?
We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. In practice, recording business calls in New Zealand is normal, and the Privacy Act 2020 expects you to be open about it, to collect only what you need and to keep it safe.
The assistant can tell callers the call is recorded, and most businesses have it do exactly that. If your industry has its own rules on top, take your own advice on them.
How long does it take to build one?
The account opens instantly and the assistant is built, trained and tested within 24 hours. Connecting a booking system or a job management system can add a day or two, depending on the system. You hear it working before you point a real number at it.
Do you work in Australia as well?
Yes. Australian businesses get +61 numbers answered in Australian data centres, Australian voices and wording, and the correct local time on each number. One system is Australia only: Square Appointments, a connection, because Square has no New Zealand seller market.
Ask the one that is not on this page
Put it in the form and we will answer it the same way, including when the answer is that we cannot do it.