AI phone agents for small teams

An AI phone agent that books the next job while you finish this one

AutoVator is an AI phone agent for small business. It sits on your business line, answers from the rules you wrote, books the visit in your calendar, looks the caller up in your apps and rings the right person on your crew when a human should take it. You can read every AI call afterward.

  • 25 agent templates
  • Books into Google Calendar
  • Read every AI call
For example

One week in September, four calls

Dave fixes garage doors around Quincy with two techs. For years his cell rang while he was up on a ladder, and he’d call back an hour later to hear “we already booked someone.” Here’s his Monday now that an AI agent answers the line, plus three other Massachusetts businesses the same week.

Dave and the others are composites, not customers.

  1. Mon 6:20 amA garage door company in Quincy

    The garage door won’t open

    “The door’s stuck halfway and my car’s in there. Can someone come before eight?”A homeowner, before work

    The call comes in on the company’s local number and goes straight to the AI agent. It finds her in the customers base on Airtable by her phone number. There’s a 7:15 opening on the techs’ Google Calendar, so it books it and reads the time and address back. Dave gets the transcript by email.

    The 7:15 is booked and the address is in the base before Dave’s coffee is ready.

  2. Tue, Sep 1 · 8:00 amA moving company in Brighton

    Moving day in Allston

    “We’re moving out of a third-floor walk-up today. Is the crew still coming at nine?”A customer, mid-packing

    It’s September 1, Boston’s moving day. Six people call in the same ten minutes, and they wait in the call queue with hold music while the three people in the office take them in turn. Anyone still waiting after two minutes goes to the AI agent. It reads the job from the bookings sheet in Google Sheets and gives the crew’s arrival window.

    Nobody sits on hold for twenty minutes on the busiest day of the year.

  3. Wed 12:30 pmAn auto repair shop in Worcester

    12:30, and Mike wants his Civic back

    “It’s Mike, the gray Civic. Can I grab it after five?”A customer, on his lunch break

    Both service advisors are at the counter. The agent finds Mike’s open job by his number in the shop’s own MySQL database, says it’s ready after four and writes his pickup time on the job. He asks about a line on the estimate, so it rings the service desk ring group. Nobody grabs it, and the no-answer rule hands him back to the agent, which notes the question for a callback.

    The advisors stay at the counter, and the estimate question still reaches a person.

  4. Sat 2:00 pmA real estate team in Somerville

    Open-house weekend

    “I saw the two-bedroom on Highland Ave. Is Sunday morning possible?”A buyer, calling from the listing

    Everyone’s out at showings. The agent answers from the listing page on the team’s WordPress site, asks the screening questions the team wrote and books a Sunday 10:30 showing on the listing agent’s Google Calendar. The buyer lands in the team’s CRM as a new lead, and on Monday the team reads the weekend’s transcripts.

    Sunday’s showings are on the calendar before anyone’s back at the office.

Not fixing doors, moving boxes, repairing cars or selling houses? How an AI phone agent for small business fits other trades

How it works

How one call moves through AutoVator

The agent sits in the middle. Calls come in from your number, it checks what it needs, and it hands off to a person or leaves a record behind.

Calls come in

Your business number, in any of 14 countries: local, toll-free or mobile. Put a short press-1 menu, a queue or an after-hours message in front of the agent if you like.

The agent

Your AI receptionist, briefed by you in everyday English and talking in one of seven voices. The whole route, from number to phone, shows on one map.

Open times in AutoVator Calendar or Google Calendar. The caller’s record in a Google Sheet, HubSpot, Airtable, MySQL, Supabase, NocoDB or the built-in CRM, and your own pages on WordPress. Only the fields you allowed.

To a person

Asked for dispatch or Luis? It puts the caller through to that desk phone or softphone, or to a ring group. Nobody picks up? Your backup route takes it.

  • 101dispatch
  • 102Luis
  • 103the estimator

After the call

Jobs land on the calendar, and the calls that need you still reach you.

Setup

About 30 minutes to your first test call

The guide in the app walks you through it in seven steps. Here’s the short version.

  1. Verify and pick a number

    Phone regulators ask us to know who’s behind each number, so you verify first. Then search for a business number by state, city or area code.

  2. Start the agent from a template

    25 agent templates to start from, and 15 call flow templates that set up a whole route at once. Then choose a voice, write a greeting and change whatever doesn’t fit.

  3. Give it a calendar and the records it may read

    AutoVator Calendar or Google Calendar, plus a Google Sheet, HubSpot, your own database or the built-in CRM. Read-only is a fine place to start.

  4. Add your crew’s phones

    A softphone app on a cell or a desk phone in the office. The first five are free. Name each one the way callers ask for it: dispatch, Luis, the estimator.

  5. Call it from your cell

    Ask a question, book something, ask for a person. Then have a friend try it; people who don’t know the script find the gaps fastest.

You set it up once. After that, the job is reading a few transcripts a week and adding a rule when the agent hesitates.

Calling

The calling side of AutoVator

When the agent puts someone through, there has to be a phone on the other end. When six people call at once, there has to be a line for them to wait in. Those parts live in the same account as the agent.

FAQ

Before you sign up

Didn’t see your question? Write to the team

What will the agent say when it picks up?

The greeting you wrote (300 characters at most), spoken in the voice you picked out of seven. For a garage door company it might be “Thanks for calling. I’m the AI assistant. What’s going on with your door?” After that it goes by your instructions, which say what to ask and who it may put through. It won’t touch a tool or a transfer those instructions don’t name. How the AI receptionist is briefed.

How long until it's answering real calls?

About 30 minutes, going by the guide in the app. It has seven steps, from verifying your account to reading your first transcripts. Leave time for a few test calls from your cell before the number goes on your truck or your website.

Will it double-book my calendar?

No. It only offers a time that’s open and fits your booking rules. Say jobs are 90 minutes long and you want half an hour of drive time between them: with a job already at 11:30, it won’t offer 10:00. Your hours, start times, minimum notice and how far ahead people can book are checked the same way. How the agent books appointments.

A caller insists on a human. Then what?

It puts them through, as long as your instructions say when it should. Every phone it may ring carries the other names your callers use, so “Can I talk to the estimator?” rings the estimator, on a desk phone or the softphone app on his cell. If he doesn’t pick up, that phone’s no-answer setting sends the call on, back to the agent for a message if you like. How call transfer works.

Can it look up a customer in HubSpot or my spreadsheet?

Yes. Take a Google Sheet of customers with a phone column: you connect it, tell the tool to search by that column and tick the columns it may read or change. HubSpot, Airtable, MySQL, Supabase, NocoDB and WordPress connect the same way, and every tool gets its own rights (read, update, create, remove). What the agent can do in each app.

Does it come with a CRM, or do I keep the one I have?

Keep what works. If your jobs live in HubSpot or a Google Sheet, stay put: the agent looks people up and takes notes in either one. If they live on sticky notes, there’s a CRM in the account. Bring last year’s spreadsheet or start from one of six templates, and the agent fills in the record while the customer’s still talking. On the same call it can send an approved WhatsApp confirmation. The CRM · WhatsApp campaigns.

Can it make outbound calls to my leads?

Yes, once they’ve said it’s OK. Each lead first gets one WhatsApp message in your business name asking whether your AI assistant may call. A YES is saved as evidence and, by default, stays good for 12 months. The call then goes out inside the lead’s own calling hours (8 am to 8 pm local time, out of the box). NO or STOP means no call. You’ll need business verification first. How AI call consent works.

Do my people need new phones?

No. Your techs can take calls on the cells they already carry, through a softphone app, and a SIP desk phone at the front counter works too. Each one has its own three-digit extension. Five phones are included free, and each extra one is charged to your balance every 30 days. Softphones and desk phones.

Can I get a number with a local area code?

Yes. Search by state, city or area code (617 for Boston, 978 for Lowell), or look for digits you like with “contains” and “ends with”. You can buy numbers in 14 countries, the US and Canada included, though not every country offers local, toll-free and mobile. You verify who you are before buying one. Business phone numbers.

Does it speak Spanish?

No, only English. What you can do is record a short menu in front of it: “para español, oprima dos” sends Spanish speakers to a person on your crew. Greetings and hold messages are your own recordings, so they can be in Spanish too. How the auto attendant works.

What do I pay to start?

There’s no charge to open the account. After that it runs on prepaid credit: you top up, and calls, numbers, extra calendars and extra phones are paid from it. A new number shows its setup fee and first month before you confirm. SIP phones are free up to five, and so are your first calendars. We don’t post prices here, so ask us what your setup would cost.

Who can see my customers' data?

The agent reaches only the tables and fields you picked for each tool, with the rights you ticked, and a caller never hears about anyone else’s appointments. App passwords, tokens and secrets are stored encrypted. CRM fields you mark are encrypted too (AES-256-GCM, with a data key per account). And every AI call’s transcript lists each lookup or change the agent made, so you can check.

Give the phone to your new teammate

Open a free account and follow the guide in the app. It takes about 30 minutes, and before you’re done you’ll call your new number from your own cell. Stuck on a step? Email us and a person writes back within one business day.