A physical therapy practice in Brookline had used a virtual receptionist service for three years, a team of remote staff who answered in the practice's name and emailed a message for every call. The practice manager's morning started with those emails, twenty or thirty of them, each one a patient who wanted to book, move, or cancel an appointment and who now had to be called back, often twice, before the schedule for the day could be settled.
The businesses in this article are illustrative examples, not named StartAutomate clients.
Key takeaways
- A virtual receptionist is usually a remote person answering your calls and taking messages, sometimes with limited access to your calendar.
- An AI receptionist is software that answers the call and completes the task in your systems, such as booking, rescheduling, or looking up an order.
- A person is still the better choice when callers need warmth, judgment, or a conversation you could never script.
What a virtual receptionist service does
Virtual receptionist services employ receptionists who answer calls for many businesses at once. They use your company name, follow a script you provide, and pass on messages by email, text, or a web portal. Some services will book into a shared calendar, although many limit this because every business sets theirs up differently.
The people are often very good at the job. What the service cannot easily do is work inside your own systems, because an operator answering calls for sixty businesses cannot learn sixty scheduling tools.
What an AI receptionist does differently
An AI receptionist is connected directly to the software your business already runs. At the Brookline practice that was WebPT, so the agent could find the patient, see which therapist they were seeing, check the real open times, move the appointment, and send a confirmation text while the patient was still on the phone.
The practice manager's morning inbox went from thirty messages to a handful, and those were calls the agent had been told to pass on, like a question about a referral or a patient who wanted to talk about a bill.
Cost and billing models
Virtual receptionist services commonly charge a monthly fee that covers a set number of minutes or calls, with overage charges beyond that. Busy months cost more, and every call that turns into a callback adds staff time on your side that never shows up on the invoice.
AI receptionists are more often priced as a setup fee plus a monthly amount based on volume. The per-call cost tends to be lower at volume, and the larger saving is usually the callback time, which is harder to put a number on but easy to feel on a Monday morning.
Choosing a human receptionist instead
Some businesses should keep a human voice on the phone. A funeral home, a practice whose callers are often elderly and hard of hearing, or a firm whose clients expect to be recognized by name might reasonably decide that software answering the phone is the wrong impression to give.
We tell businesses this on the first call when it applies. Plenty of practices end up using both, with the AI handling bookings and a human service catching calls the agent transfers, and a few keep that setup for good.
Switching from a virtual receptionist
Most businesses switch in stages. We start by giving the AI the calls that are clearly routine, usually booking and rescheduling, while the existing service keeps everything else, and we move more over as the call summaries show the agent handling them well.
The Brookline practice ran both for six weeks before cancelling the old service, mostly because the practice manager wanted to hear enough recordings to be sure, which is the right instinct.
Common questions
What is the difference between a virtual receptionist and an AI receptionist?
A virtual receptionist is usually a remote human who answers your calls and passes on messages. An AI receptionist is software that answers calls and completes tasks such as booking or rescheduling directly in your systems.
Is an AI receptionist cheaper than a virtual receptionist?
At moderate or high call volumes it is usually cheaper per call, and it removes much of the callback work. At very low volumes the cost difference is small.
Can I use both?
Yes. A common setup has the AI answer first and transfer certain calls to your virtual receptionist service, which lets you compare both on real calls before deciding.