How the Voice AI handles booking calls

Summary

When someone rings to get work booked in, the AI does the legwork. It works out what the job is and how long it takes, asks how soon they need it, checks your real diary, and offers them actual dates. What it does not do is write the appointment. The time the caller picked comes to you, and a member of your team confirms it.

That last part is deliberate for now. The AI opening your diary and committing a slot without anyone seeing it is a different feature, and it is not built yet.

Prerequisites

• Voice AI is configured and live.
• Your bays and business hours are set up under Settings > Scheduler. Without them the AI has nothing to search.
• Your services carry a duration. The AI sizes the slot from the service, so a service with no duration cannot be offered.
• Each service’s required bay type matches at least one real bay. See Managing bays.

Steps

What the caller hears

1. The AI works out what the job is, and from that how long it needs. An MOT and a full service are not the same size of slot.
2. It asks how soon they need it: urgent, some time this week, or flexible. If the caller has already made that obvious, it does not ask again.
3. It checks the diary across the whole search window, not just the next day or two.
4. It offers morning or afternoon, and says which of the two it can actually do.
5. The caller picks a half of the day, and the AI gives them real dates in it, soonest first if they said it was urgent.
6. If none of those work, it asks about the other half of the day. After two goes it stops guessing and hands the call to your team.

A caller who says “whenever you can fit me in” gets straight to dates. A caller who says “it has to be before Friday” gets told plainly if nothing fits, and then the earliest date that does.

What you get

1. The call summary carries what the caller wanted and the time they picked.
2. If the AI could not find them anything, the call lands in the escalation queue instead.
3. A member of your team puts the appointment in and confirms it with the customer.
4. Bookings taken this way are not written into the diary by the AI, so nothing appears in the scheduler until someone adds it.

Taking payment

The AI does not take payment or send a payment link during the call. Payment links are sent by staff from the work order or the invoice. See Taking payments online.

If you want customers paying at the point of booking, that is the online booking page and widget, which does take a deposit and does write the appointment.

Expected Outcome

• Callers get real dates rather than “someone will ring you back”.
• You get the slot they chose, in writing, ready to confirm.
• The diary is never written to by the AI, so nothing appears that a person has not seen.

Notes

• Morning and afternoon are worked out from your own opening hours, per day, not from a fixed midday. A Saturday running 9am to 1pm splits differently from a weekday running 8am to 6pm.
• The search covers the whole window. An earlier version only looked at the next couple of days, which is why it could sound like the garage only ever had mornings free.
• The AI never invents a slot. Everything it offers has been checked against the live diary, the service duration and the bays that can do that job.

Troubleshooting

Problem: The AI tells callers there is nothing available when the diary looks empty. Cause: Most often the service’s required bay type does not match any bay you have. If nothing can do the job, nothing can be offered, and the diary being empty makes no difference. Fix: Check the service against your bays in Settings > Scheduler. See Managing bays.

Problem: The AI only ever seems to offer mornings. Cause: This was the old behaviour, which looked at the next couple of days and stopped. Fix: It now searches the full window. If it is still happening, your afternoons are genuinely booked or your afternoon bay cannot do that service.

Problem: A caller agreed a time but nothing is in the scheduler. Cause: Working as designed. The AI does not write appointments. Fix: The time is in the call summary. Add the appointment and confirm it with the customer.

Problem: A customer says the AI told them they were booked in. Cause: The AI is scripted to offer rather than confirm, but a caller can hear an offer as a confirmation. Fix: Confirm or move the slot as soon as you pick the summary up. If this comes up often, tell us, because the wording is tunable.

Problem: The AI did not offer a time at all and just took a message. Cause: Either it ran out of re-asks, or the AI is in message-taker mode because credits are exhausted. Fix: Check the balance on Settings > Billing. See AI is not responding or has reduced capability.