AI text receptionist

The AI text receptionist automatically replies to texts sent to your business number. The AI receptionist answers questions about your services, gives price estimates from your own pricing rules, collects job details, and creates a booking request for you to confirm, while always telling customers it is an automated assistant.

What does the AI text receptionist do?

The AI text receptionist replies to customer texts on your business number, including replies to missed-call text-backs. In a typical conversation, the AI receptionist:

• Answers questions using only your business information: your business name, services, online booking link, contact email, phone hours, and any extra instructions you add.
• Gives price estimates calculated from the pricing rules on your services, always labelled as an estimate with the final price confirmed by your business.
• Asks for the job details it needs (at most two questions per message).
• Creates a booking request once it has the customer's name, service address, job details, and preferred time, then tells the customer your team will confirm.
• Hands the conversation to you when the customer asks for a person, is upset, asks something it can't answer, or needs a service you don't list.

AI receptionist replies are short plain-text messages. The AI receptionist signs only its first reply in a conversation, as "— [your business name] assistant". In your inbox, AI replies are marked with an AI label.

Which plan includes the AI text receptionist?

The AI text receptionist is included with the Pro plan. On other plans, the AI text receptionist card in Settings → Phone & Text shows "Included with the Pro plan" and a See plans button that opens Settings → Billing.

The AI receptionist also needs an active business number, because it replies from that number. The on/off switch is disabled until your workspace has a business number.

If your Interdatum payment becomes past due, the AI receptionist keeps working during the grace period and stops when the grace period ends. If your workspace leaves Pro while the AI receptionist is switched on, the AI receptionist stops replying, and a note in the conversation explains that the AI receptionist is included with the Pro plan.

How do I turn on the AI text receptionist?

1. Go to Settings → Phone & Text and find the AI text receptionist card.
2. Switch on AI receptionist replies to texts. The switch saves immediately.
3. Under When should it reply?, choose Always or Only outside business hours, then click Save. Business hours come from your call-forwarding schedule, so the "Only outside business hours" option appears only after you set forwarding hours in the Call Forwarding section of the same page.
4. Optionally, add Extra instructions (up to 600 characters), such as "We don't service commercial buildings. We cover Kelowna and West Kelowna only.", then click Save. The AI receptionist follows your instructions unless they conflict with its safety rules.

Only workspace owners and admins can change AI receptionist settings. Before going live, try the AI receptionist with Test it (see "How do I test the AI text receptionist?").

How does the AI text receptionist give prices?

The AI text receptionist can quote only services you've set up with pricing rules. To quote, the AI receptionist asks the customer the questions your service needs (for example, a size or option from your intake questions) and calculates the price with your own pricing rules.

Every price the AI receptionist sends is framed as an estimate, with the final price confirmed by your business. If a service has no automatic pricing, the AI receptionist tells the customer your business will quote it.

The AI receptionist never invents prices. Interdatum checks every dollar amount in a reply before it's sent: if an amount didn't come from your pricing rules, the reply is replaced with "I can't confirm pricing for that by text, but [your business] can give you an estimate. Want me to set up a request so they can follow up?"

How does the AI text receptionist create booking requests?

Before creating a booking request, the AI text receptionist collects the customer's name, the service address, the job details, and a preferred time. The AI receptionist then creates a request with the status "estimate needed" in a new job file, and tells the customer your team will confirm the timing and price. The AI receptionist never confirms an appointment time itself.

When a booking request is created:

• You receive the usual new estimate request notification.
• A note in the text conversation says "AI created a booking request (estimate needed) from this conversation."
• The booking notes record the preferred time, the job details, and any estimate quoted by text.
• If the customer was a "New lead" contact, their name, email, and address are filled in from the conversation. Existing client details are never overwritten.

The AI receptionist creates at most one booking request per customer per 24 hours. The customer doesn't get a separate booking confirmation text, because the AI receptionist already confirmed in the conversation.

What does the AI text receptionist do in an emergency?

The AI text receptionist watches every incoming text for signs of danger: a gas smell or leak, carbon monoxide, fire or smoke, sparking or exposed wiring, flooding or a burst pipe, and no heat when a baby, elderly person, someone sick, or freezing conditions are mentioned.

When the AI receptionist detects an emergency, it does not use AI to write the reply. Instead, it immediately sends fixed safety guidance, for example telling the customer to leave the building and call 911 or their gas utility's emergency line from outside, or to get everyone out and call 911 if there's fire or smoke. The reply ends with "We've alerted [your business] right away."

At the same time, the AI receptionist:

• Sends you an urgent alert by email and by text to your Admin Notification SMS Number, even if routine SMS notifications are off.
• Hands the conversation off to you and pauses itself on that conversation.

Emergency safety guidance is sent even when the AI receptionist is paused on a conversation, outside its reply hours, or past its daily reply limit.

How does the AI text receptionist hand a conversation off to me?

The AI text receptionist hands a conversation to you when:

• The customer asks for a person, for example "can I talk to a real person" or "call me back". The AI receptionist replies "No problem — I've passed this to the team at [your business] and someone will get back to you shortly."
• The customer is upset, asks something the AI receptionist can't answer from your information, or wants a service you don't list.
• There's an emergency.
• The conversation reaches 8 AI replies.
• The AI receptionist tells the customer your team will follow up.

When the AI receptionist hands off a conversation:

• The AI receptionist is paused on that conversation for 7 days.
• A note in the conversation says the AI handed off to you, and why.
• You get an alert with the customer's name and number. Alerts go to your Admin Notification Email (or your contact email). Routine alerts are also texted to your Admin Notification SMS Number when System SMS Notifications is on; urgent alerts are always texted.
• The conversation shows a Handoff badge in the Phone widget, and appears near the top of Needs attention on your dashboard until someone on your team replies.

If the AI service has a temporary error, you get an alert asking you to reply manually, but the AI receptionist is not paused.

What won't the AI text receptionist do?

The AI text receptionist has safety rules written into its instructions and enforced by Interdatum before any reply is sent:

• Never claims to be human. If a customer asks whether they're talking to a bot, the reply always says it's your business's automated text assistant.
• Never invents prices, availability, appointment times, policies, warranties, or services. Prices come only from your pricing rules.
• Never confirms a time. The AI receptionist says your team will confirm.
• Never promises a follow-up without handing off. If the AI receptionist says the team will follow up, the conversation is handed to you.

Limits that keep the AI receptionist in check:

• At most 8 AI replies per conversation, then the conversation is handed to you.
• The AI receptionist pauses for 24 hours on a conversation whenever you or a teammate replies manually.
• One AI reply per customer message. If a customer sends several texts in quick succession, the AI receptionist waits a few seconds and answers them together in one reply.
• A daily cap on AI replies per workspace (shown on the settings card; 100 by default).

Does the AI text receptionist respect STOP and opt-outs?

Yes. The AI text receptionist never replies to:

• Keyword messages. A text starting with STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, or QUIT opts the customer out of texts from your business number. START, YES, or UNSTOP opts them back in. HELP and INFO are also treated as keywords, not questions.
• Anyone who has opted out of texts from your business number.
• Short codes and service numbers.
• Your own team's numbers, including team members' phones, your call-forwarding number, and your admin notification number.

If you text your business number from your own phone, the AI receptionist won't reply, and a note explains "this number belongs to a team member". Use Test it instead.

Why didn't the AI text receptionist reply?

When the AI text receptionist skips a reply that you might have expected, it adds an internal note to the conversation (visible only to your team, at most once per day for each reason). The notes explain the most common reasons:

• The text came from a team member's number.
• The AI receptionist is included with the Pro plan, and your workspace isn't on Pro.
• The AI receptionist is set to answer only outside business hours, and the text arrived during business hours.
• Today's AI reply limit was reached.
• The AI receptionist is paused on this conversation after a staff reply or handoff.

The AI receptionist also stays silent when it's switched off, when the customer has opted out, when the text is a keyword like STOP, or when someone on your team already replied after the customer's message.

How do I test the AI text receptionist?

Use Test it on the AI text receptionist card in Settings → Phone & Text to try the AI receptionist before customers see it. Test it is a dry run: no texts are sent, nothing is booked, and you aren't alerted.

1. Type a message as if you were a customer, for example "My furnace stopped working, how much for a repair?"
2. Press Enter or click the send button. The AI receptionist's reply appears with an AI label.
3. Keep replying to test a full conversation, including quotes and booking requests.
4. Click Reset to start a new test conversation.

Under each reply, Test it shows the outcome, each tool the AI receptionist used (such as looking up services, quoting, or creating a booking request) with its details, whether the conversation would be handed off to you (and if it's urgent), and any safety checks that were applied.

Only owners and admins can use Test it, and each workspace can run up to 50 tests per day.

How do I turn off the AI text receptionist?

To turn off the AI text receptionist for everyone, go to Settings → Phone & Text → AI text receptionist and switch off AI receptionist replies to texts. Customer texts then wait for your team to reply in the inbox.

To stop the AI receptionist on a single conversation, simply reply to the customer yourself. Any manual reply pauses the AI receptionist on that conversation for 24 hours. Conversations the AI receptionist handed off to you stay paused for 7 days.