Hire a receptionist, use an answering service or an AI receptionist?
By Joey van Vliet, founderUpdated 5 min read
The short answer
Hire a receptionist if you need someone who welcomes visitors and holds conversations that call for judgement. Outsource the phone to an answering service if you want a person to pick up every time, even when it's busy. An AI receptionist fits if many callers have a fixed question, want to book an appointment or want a call back. Callers with a complaint or a difficult story go to a person.
About this guide: written by Your Tech Club. We don't name other companies and we don't quote amounts we can't back up. How we do it ourselves is set out separately under How Your Tech Club works. Want to know how we build a phone assistant? See AI phone assistant development.
What does a receptionist or telephonist do?
A telephonist answers the phone, handles questions and puts calls through. A receptionist often does the same and also welcomes visitors at the front desk. A secretary or executive assistant mainly works for one or a few people: diary, email and meetings.
- Picking up and speaking to the caller.
- Answering questions with a fixed answer: opening hours, the address, the status of an appointment.
- Recording appointments and call-back requests.
- Putting calls through to the right colleague.
- Welcoming visitors and taking in post or parcels.
Only someone who is physically there can do that last one. The rest can also be done remotely, by an answering service or by AI.
Hiring, an answering service or an AI receptionist: what's the difference?
Hiring a receptionist means someone on your team, permanent or through an agency. A telephone answering service picks up your phone remotely, with staff who serve several businesses. An AI receptionist is software that answers, handles questions from your own sources and records an appointment or call-back request.
- Getting started
- Receptionist
- Someone learns your organisation, your colleagues and the usual questions
- Answering service
- The service gets a script and your key information
- AI receptionist
- Set up on your knowledge base, calendar and phone system, and tested with real calls
- Availability
- Receptionist
- Working hours, breaks, holidays and sick days
- Answering service
- As agreed in the contract
- AI receptionist
- Can answer outside office hours and when it's busy, as you set it up
- What the caller hears
- Receptionist
- A colleague who knows your organisation
- Answering service
- A person answering on your behalf
- AI receptionist
- Hears straight away that they're speaking to an AI assistant
- Visitors at the front desk
- Receptionist
- Yes
- Answering service
- No
- AI receptionist
- No
- Appointments and call-backs
- Receptionist
- Yes, in your own calendar
- Answering service
- Depends on what you agree with the service
- AI receptionist
- Yes, recorded in your calendar or CRM
- What stays with a person
- Receptionist
- Everything
- Answering service
- Whatever the service doesn't know still comes back to you
- AI receptionist
- Emotional conversations, complaints, advice and emergencies
When is hiring a receptionist the best choice?
- Visitors, suppliers or parcels arrive at the front desk every day.
- Callers often want advice that differs from call to call.
- You want callers to hear the same familiar voice every time.
- The role is broader than the phone: post, meeting rooms and the office as well.
When is outsourcing the phone to an answering service the best choice?
- You want a person to pick up every time, even when it's busy or over lunch.
- You have few fixed questions, but callers you don't want to miss.
- You need a temporary solution, for example during an office move or while a vacancy is open.
- You don't want to connect anything to your calendar or systems.
What does an AI receptionist take over, and what not?
We call this AI employee the Phone Assistant. It answers when your team can't, says straight away that it's an AI assistant, answers questions with a fixed answer and records an appointment or call-back request. If it doesn't know the answer, it says so.
- AI employee: Answer the callOutside office hours, when it's busy or after a few rings.
- AI employee: Recognise the questionOpening hours, an appointment, an order, or something for a colleague.
- AI employee: Answer from your own sourcesOnly what's in your knowledge base, calendar or system.
- AI employee: Record an appointment or call-backRepeated back to check, and added to your calendar or CRM.
- Person: Transferred callA colleague takes over, with a short summary.
- Person: Complaint, advice or bad newsAlways with a person.
If you're looking for a secretary for diary, email and meetings, also look at the Executive Assistant. It schedules meetings, pre-sorts email and follows up on action points. You decide what gets decided and sent, and you keep confidential matters out of its reach.
What does a receptionist, answering service or AI receptionist cost?
What a receptionist costs depends on the hours, the collective agreement and whether you hire someone permanently or through an agency. An answering service charges per month, per call or per minute. We don't quote amounts here: they vary too much per situation for an honest average.
First work out how much time your team spends on the phone now, including the interruptions.
How do you start?
- Keep track for a week of who calls, about what and when. Missed calls too.
- Decide which questions have a fixed answer and which need a colleague.
- Choose what happens for each type of caller: answer, transfer, a call-back request or an appointment.
- Start with the times when nobody picks up now, such as after five, and only expand once it runs well.
How Your Tech Club helps
This part is about us. The points above apply to any partner, including us: feel free to hold us to them.
We build phone assistants: AI that answers the phone, handles questions, books appointments and puts calls through. We connect it to your phone system, your calendar and your CRM, and agree together which callers always go to a person.
If you don't know where to start yet, it starts with the AI Opportunity Audit. In five working days we map where manual work is holding back your growth and what it costs. If a receptionist or answering service suits you better, the report says so.
- ISO 9001 and ISO 27001, certified by Kiwa
- 500 projects delivered
- 4.8 from 127 reviews
- 90% returning clients
- Office on Duivendrechtsekade in Amsterdam
- Founded by Joey van Vliet and Yassine Seghrouchni
Frequently asked questions
What does it cost to hire a receptionist?
That depends on the hours, the collective agreement and whether you hire someone permanently or through an agency or answering service. Ask for quotes based on your own call volume and opening hours, and first work out what the phone costs you now with our manual work calculator.
What's the difference between an answering service and an AI receptionist?
With an answering service, a person picks up on behalf of your business. An AI receptionist is software that answers, handles questions with a fixed answer from your own sources and records appointments or call-back requests. It says at the start that it's an AI assistant.
Does the caller hear that they're talking to AI?
Yes. With us, the caller hears straight away that they're speaking to an AI assistant.
Can an AI receptionist transfer calls?
Yes, to the right colleague if they're available. Otherwise it records a call-back request, with a short summary in Teams or email.
Can AI replace a secretary?
Not entirely, and for confidential work you wouldn't want it to. An AI executive assistant can take over the recurring part: scheduling meetings, pre-sorting email, gathering meeting papers and following up on action points. You decide what gets decided and sent.
What happens in an emergency?
Calls involving immediate danger belong with a person or the emergency services. Up front we agree how the assistant recognises such calls and who it passes them to.
