Choosing an AI receptionist for a contractor, and what it shouldn't do

Say you run a plumbing company in Newark with two trucks. This is a made-up example. At 9:47 on a Thursday night a woman calls about a leaking water heater. Both trucks are done for the day, your phone is in the kitchen, and the call goes to voicemail. She doesn’t leave a message. She calls the next plumber on the list, who picks up.

An AI receptionist is built for that call. This post explains what one does, what it should never do, and the questions to ask before you send your phone calls to anyone’s software.

What is an AI receptionist, and how is it different from voicemail or an answering service?

The categories get blurred, so here is how I’d separate them. This is a general description of the three, not a claim about any one product.

	Voicemail	Live answering service	AI receptionist
Who answers	A recording	A person at a call center	Software that talks
Takes a message	Caller must leave one	Yes	Yes
Asks your questions	No	Usually, from a script you give	Yes, from questions you set
Books a time	No	Sometimes	Sometimes, if connected to your calendar
Works at 3 a.m.	Yes	Depends on the service	Yes

The table can’t show what matters most: how well it handles a real, messy call. That’s what the questions below are for.

What should it do?

For a contractor, the job is narrow:

• Answer calls you can’t, in your business name, and say it’s an AI assistant.
• Ask the questions you’d ask: what’s the job, where is it, how soon, what’s the best callback number.
• Answer simple questions it has been given: your hours, your services, your service area.
• Book a time if it is connected to your calendar, or take the request if not.
• Text or email you a short summary right after the call.
• Hand off to a person when the caller asks, or when the call is an emergency and you’ve given it a number.

What shouldn’t it do?

Write these down before you sign anything. They are my recommendations for a contracting business, not rules from a regulator.

• Quote a price unless you gave it written ranges and told it to use them.
• Promise an arrival time.
• Give safety advice beyond telling the caller to hang up and call 911 or the utility for a gas smell, fire or injury.
• Pretend to be a person. If a caller asks whether it’s an AI, it should say yes.
• Make sales calls or send marketing texts. Answering and selling are different jobs, and the rules differ.

What do the rules say?

I’m not a lawyer, and this isn’t legal advice. Three things are worth knowing.

Recording. Many AI receptionists record and transcribe calls. California’s Penal Code section 632.7 covers recording communications involving cellular and cordless phones “without the consent of all of the parties.” A first violation can bring a fine of up to $2,500, jail, or both. The practical step is simple: the greeting should say the call is recorded, before the caller says anything private. Ask a lawyer how the law applies to your business.

AI voices. In February 2024 the FCC announced a ruling that calls made with AI-generated voices are “artificial” under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The FCC’s headline calls this making them illegal in robocalls. That’s about robocalls, which are calls a business places. Neither the FCC’s page nor the law firm summary I read addresses a business answering an inbound call with an AI, so I can’t tell you it’s covered or not covered. It is another reason to keep an AI receptionist to inbound calls only.

Texting. Many setups send a text back when you miss a call. Per Twilio, a messaging provider, business texts in the U.S. go through a registration process. Its documentation says a brand is registered “to verify who you are with US carriers,” and each messaging use case is a campaign. It says a campaign review can take up to 5 business days for standard use cases, and a manual brand review can take seven business days or more. So ask any vendor who handles the registration and how long it takes, because the text-back may not work on day one.

What should you ask before you buy?

1. Does it say it’s an AI, and does it say the call is recorded? In every greeting, with no way to turn it off.
2. How do calls reach it? The most common setup forwards calls to it when you don’t answer, so you keep your number. Ask your phone carrier or system provider how to forward only unanswered and busy calls.
3. What happens if it can’t help? Does it transfer to a person, take a message and flag it urgent, or just hang up?
4. What does it do with an angry caller or an emergency? Ask to hear it.
5. Where do recordings and transcripts live, and who can see them?
6. Who sets it up, and who checks it afterward? Someone should listen to real calls every month and fix what it gets wrong.
7. What does it connect to? Google Calendar, your job software, your email.
8. What happens in an outage? There should be a fallback to voicemail or a text.
9. Can you leave? Your number should stay yours, and you should be able to turn it off with a single forwarding code.

How do you test one?

Before you trust it with real customers, call it yourself at least ten times with these scenarios:

• A normal job request in your service area
• A job outside your service area
• A caller asking for a price
• A caller asking “Am I talking to a robot?”
• A caller asking to speak to a person
• An angry caller
• A fake emergency, such as a burst pipe
• A salesperson pitching you

Score each: did it get the details right, did it stay in bounds, and was the summary text accurate and fast? Fix what fails before it goes live.

What to do about it this week

1. Count your missed calls for one week. Your phone’s call log is enough.
2. Note when they happen: after hours, mid-job, weekends.
3. Write down the five questions you’d want asked on every call.
4. Decide what the assistant must never do, using the list above.
5. Ask your phone carrier how to forward unanswered calls only.
6. Take the nine questions to any vendor you’re considering, and ask a lawyer to review the recording language.
7. Run the ten-call test before going live.

If you’d like to talk through how to handle your missed calls, get in touch with us. For the next-morning side of it, this post on ChatGPT for a contractor’s office has prompts for estimate follow-up.

Sources

1. California.Public.Law (secondary copy of the statute) · Oct 29, 2026Penal Code section 632.7
2. Federal Communications Commission · Oct 29, 2026FCC Makes AI-Generated Voices in Robocalls Illegal
3. Akin Gump (summary of the FCC ruling of February 8, 2024) · Oct 29, 2026FCC Issues Declaratory Ruling on AI-Generated Voice Robocalls
4. Twilio Docs · Oct 29, 2026A2P 10DLC onboarding