The ten things worth asking any AI receptionist supplier, what a straight answer sounds like, and how KaiVox answers each one — including where we are the weaker choice.
Buying an AI receptionist is easy to get wrong, because almost every supplier demos the same thing: one clean call, in English, booked perfectly. That call tells you nothing about the Tuesday morning when four people ring at once, or the caller who asks something the AI was never told.
These are the ten questions worth asking. For each one there is the reason it matters, and what a straight answer sounds like. Ask them of us too — our answers are at the bottom, including the parts where we come off worse.
An AI receptionist is not a phone menu and not a chatbot with a voice. It is software that answers your number, holds a conversation, and writes the result into something you can act on — a booking in a calendar, a lead in a list, a message to your team. If a supplier cannot show you the result of the call as well as the call itself, you are being shown a demo, not a product.
This is the question almost nobody asks, and it is the one that bites. Most AI receptionists have a limit on how many calls they can hold at once, and that limit is usually set by the phone line, not the AI. Ask for the number. Ask what the second caller hears when the limit is reached — silence, a busy tone, a ring that never ends, or a polite hold with music. Ask what happens if they hang up.
A straight answer sounds like: “Two at once on your plan. The third hears hold music and a message, and if they hang up they appear in your missed calls.” A vague answer about “unlimited capacity” usually means nobody has tested it.
This is also the clearest difference between an AI receptionist and a room full of agents, who can simply pick up more lines at once. The three options are set side by side in AI receptionist vs call centre vs answering service.
Every AI will eventually be asked something it has no information about. The dangerous ones guess. Ask to hear a recording of the AI being asked something off-script. You want to hear it say it does not know and offer to take a message or put the caller through — not invent a price, a timing or a policy.
A straight answer sounds like: “It says it is not sure, offers to have someone call back, and logs the question so you can add the answer.”
There is a wide gap between the languages a voice model supports and the languages a supplier has genuinely tested on real Indian phone lines, with background noise, accents and code-switching mid-sentence. A list of twenty languages on a website is a list from a vendor's datasheet. Ask which ones have been tested on real calls, and ask to hear one.
A straight answer sounds like: a smaller number than the datasheet, with a reason.
Ask three things: what the monthly price includes, what happens when you go past it, and how a part-minute is counted. A 40-second call billed as a full minute is normal in Indian telephony, but you should be told, not surprised. Also ask whether the quoted price includes GST.
A straight answer sounds like: “X minutes included, ₹Y per minute after that, every call rounded up to the next whole minute, plus 18% GST.”
Then hold that monthly figure against what the same cover costs as a salary, which is the arithmetic in what a receptionist really costs in India.
This one decides how trapped you are. Some suppliers give you a number that belongs to their account; if you leave, the number goes with them, and your printed boards, cards and Google listing are suddenly wrong. Ask who the number is registered to, whether you can keep it, and whether you can instead forward your existing number so nothing on your signage changes.
A straight answer sounds like: a clear statement of who holds the number, and a forwarding option so your own number stays yours.
Without a transcript you cannot check whether the AI is any good, settle a dispute with a customer, or find out why a caller did not book. Ask whether you get a written record of every call, how long it is kept, and whether you can search it.
A straight answer sounds like: “Every call, with a transcript, a summary and whether the caller sounded happy — in your dashboard, not on request.”
Callers notice. Pretending otherwise damages trust more than the AI ever could, and recording a call without saying so is its own problem. Ask what the opening line says, whether recording is disclosed, and whether you can edit that wording.
A straight answer sounds like: a disclosure you can read out loud, that you control.
The single most important escape hatch. Ask what words trigger a handover, whether the AI can detect an angry or distressed caller by itself, what happens outside your working hours, and what happens when nobody picks up the transfer. For a clinic, ask specifically how an emergency is handled.
A straight answer sounds like: “Any request to speak to a person, plus automatic escalation when it hears distress; outside hours it takes a message and flags it.”
Ask how long before it answers its first real call, what you have to supply (hours, services, staff, prices, the answers to your twenty most common questions), and who types it in. Ask how you change a price afterwards — if the answer involves emailing the supplier, be careful.
A straight answer sounds like: a short list of what they need from you, a date, and a screen you can edit yourself.
Ask it last and listen hard. A supplier who cannot name a single weakness has either not used their own product or is not going to tell you the truth about anything else on this list. Every AI receptionist is bad at something: long sensitive conversations, walk-ins, judgement calls, anything needing a human to decide.
A straight answer sounds like: three specific things it should not be used for.
Hear one before you decide. Reading about a voice tells you very little. Ring +91 79714 13939 and ask our own AI the awkward questions — what it costs, what it cannot do, how fast a number is issued. It is the same software a business gets, answering for us.
Prefer to watch instead? The walkthrough is on the demo page.
| Question | Our answer |
|---|---|
| 1. Calls at once | One on Starter, two on Professional and Business. Callers past the limit are held with music and told we will ring back; if they hang up they land in missed calls. |
| 2. When it does not know | It says so and offers a callback or a person. What it could not answer is logged, so you can add it to the knowledge base. |
| 3. Languages | Eleven are supported. Three — English, Hindi and Gujarati — have been tested on real calls. The rest we would not claim for you yet. |
| 4. Billing | ₹2,999 / 500 minutes, ₹6,999 / 1,500, ₹13,999 / 3,500, all + 18% GST. Past the included minutes it is ₹7 per minute. Every call is rounded up to the next whole minute. |
| 5. The number | Assigned from our pool once your setup is complete, or you forward your existing number and keep it. Either way you can see which number is yours. |
| 6. Transcripts | Every call: full transcript, AI summary, outcome and caller sentiment, in your dashboard. |
| 7. Disclosure | The AI says it is an AI and that the call may be recorded. You can edit the wording in Voice Settings. |
| 8. Reaching a human | Any request to speak to someone transfers. Emergencies and angry callers escalate on their own. Outside your hours it takes a message and flags it. |
| 9. Setup | We do it with you: hours, services, staff, prices and your common questions. After that every one of those is a screen you edit yourself. |
| 10. What we are bad at | See the section below — it is a real list, not a modest one. |
“High quality” is the cheapest claim in software, so here is what it means in practice for us.
Question ten, turned on ourselves.
Ring +91 79714 13939 and put them to the AI directly, look at the plans with GST shown, or tell us about your business and we will answer them in writing.
Put an AI receptionist on your business line this week.
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