Your AI Receptionist helps you handle calls, texts, and draft follow-up emails automatically, so you never miss a client, even when you’re away.
This guide walks you through what your AI Receptionist does, how to activate it, and how to customize it to fit your workflow.
🧭 What your AI Receptionist does
Your AI Receptionist acts as a smart assistant that:
Answers missed calls and collects important details
Sends and replies to text messages when you’re busy
Drafts follow-up emails you can review and send later
Schedules appointments by gathering caller preferences, checking calendar availability, and sending confirmation emails.
You can personalize what your AI Receptionist says, how it sounds, and what information it collects, directly from the Beside app.
👁️ AI Receptionist vs Beside Voicemail
Both the AI Receptionist and your Beside Voicemail help manage missed calls, but they work differently and can complement each other.
The AI Receptionist learns from your Knowledge and Preferred Name, so it can respond naturally and in line with your tone for selected callers. It holds real-time, smart conversations and can ask questions or collect details.
Beside Voicemail acts as a fallback when the AI Receptionist is turned off or unavailable. It plays your pre-recorded greeting (default or custom) and records an audio message after the beep.
⚙️ How to activate your AI Receptionist
Open the Beside app on your phone.
Go to the Settings tab.
Tap on AI Receptionist*
*If you're on a Business plan with multiple lines, first tap the inbox (phone line) you want to edit.
Navigate between the 📞 Calls, 💬 Texts, 📧 Emails tabs, then choose what you want your AI to handle by toggling ON:
Answer missed calls
Reply to texts
Draft emails
That’s it! Your AI is now live and ready to handle incoming calls, messages or emails according to your settings.
💡 Tip: You can always deactivate any channel temporarily, just toggle Deactivate at the bottom of each tab.
➡️ Now you are ready to