Put a receptionist to work
Outcomes
The receptionist is the first hire in every AI workforce: it answers, captures, and books while nobody is watching the inbox or the phone. This step is the decisions that make the hire work; the chat guide and the voice guide carry the full setup mechanics whenever you are ready to click through them.
Hire for yourself first
Partners who sell AI Employees well run one themselves first. The Chat Receptionist is already included in your plan, your own site is where you can experiment freely, and a receptionist working on your site becomes your best demo: "let me show you how it is doing for us" opens more client conversations than any pitch deck. Yours lives in Partner Center, under AI, because it serves your business; every client's lives in their Business App.
Open AI in Partner Center, open your Chat Receptionist, and give it a name, the way you would name a member of staff. Then follow the chat guide to put it on your site this week.
Chat, voice, or both
The decision is the client's channels, not the technology. A business whose leads arrive through the website wants the Chat Receptionist: it greets visitors, answers from knowledge, and captures every conversation. A business that lives on the phone and misses calls after hours wants the Voice Receptionist: a dedicated number, a chosen voice and greeting, and booking while the line would have rung out. Many businesses want both, and they share one brain: the same knowledge, purpose, and capabilities serve both channels.
Two gates to check before you promise anything: the Chat Receptionist is included from the Starter plan; the Voice Receptionist and social channels unlock at Professional and above.
SMS: register the business before it needs it
For a US business to send SMS, carriers require registration first (A2P 10DLC). The business completes it in Business App → Administration → Conversations Settings, progress can be saved partway, and one registration covers both review requests and AI conversations. Calls and web chat work right away; SMS begins once registration is approved, so start it during onboarding rather than the week a campaign launches. This guide covers US SMS registration.
The ten-question audit
Before a receptionist meets anyone, interview it the way you would interview a new hire. The Try it button in AI → AI Workforce opens a test page where you can chat with it directly, before any widget is installed.
Open the test page in an incognito window (each test starts a clean session) and ask the ten questions a prospect is most likely to ask, prices included. Repeat the audit after every knowledge change. Every answer you sharpen now is a lead you keep later.
Where the leads land
Every conversation lands in Conversations, and captured visitors become contacts, so the receptionist feeds the CRM rather than a silo. Check the Anonymous Visitors tab for chats where no contact details were captured, and set up notifications so a person sees new leads quickly; this guide covers lead capture notifications. For a client, all of this happens in their Business App, with Conversations AI active on their account.
Knowledge Check
Three quick questions on channel choice, plan gates, SMS timing, and the audit.