Getting Started with an AI Receptionist: Choose, Set Up and Test in 7 Steps

Most AI projects go wrong because they start too broad. What works is the opposite: one channel, one clear purpose, real data and a week of tuning. Here are the seven steps we use ourselves when a new business gets started.

Step 1: Pick one task

Start with what hurts most. For most businesses that is missed calls after hours or when the line is busy. Wait with outbound calls and webshop integration until the first task is running.

Step 2: Write the knowledge document

The AI only knows what you tell it. Write on one page:

• Services with duration and price (or what the price depends on).
• Opening hours, address, parking.
• The ten questions customers ask most — with your answers.
• What the AI must not answer or promise.
• When to transfer, and to whom. See the transfer rules.

Step 3: Write the greeting

Short, friendly and honest: "You are speaking with [business]'s digital assistant. This call is recorded. How can I help?" That meets the requirement to disclose that it is an AI and that the call is recorded. See GDPR and the AI Act.

Step 4: Connect the calendar

Connect Google Calendar, Outlook or your industry system, and set the duration per service and any buffer. Test that the AI only sees free slots.

Step 5: Call in yourself — ten times

Before customers do, call yourself and have colleagues call:

1. An ordinary booking.
2. A reschedule and a cancellation.
3. The three most common questions.
4. A question the AI has no answer to.
5. An urgent case.
6. An angry customer.
7. A customer who wants to talk to a person.
8. A colleague with a different dialect.

Step 6: Forward — gradually

Start with forwarding after hours or when busy. You keep your number, and your team still answers when they can. Expand when you are confident.

Step 7: Read the transcripts in the first week

The most important step. Read every conversation in the first days and ask: Did it understand the request? Did it answer correctly? Did it transfer when it should? Fix the knowledge document every time you find a gap. After a week most gaps are closed.

How do you choose a solution?

Before step 1 you need to choose a provider. Use the nine requirements in AI phone answering: what to require, listen to a real Danish AI voice, and compare prices in what does an AI receptionist cost?. At Aibooking.dk you can do it all yourself in a free trial, or buy setup, where we take steps 2–6 with you in an onboarding meeting.