How it works
We set it up, you keep your number, and nothing books without you.
There is no app for your customers to install and no new phone system to learn. This is what setup looks like.
Step 1
We set it up with you
There is no self-serve signup wizard. We take your services, prices, hours, policies, and notification contacts, build the receptionist, and run test calls with you before a single real call is forwarded.
Changes after that go through a draft you publish, so you see what changed before callers do. You can roll back to the previous version at any point.
Step 2
You keep your number
Keep the number that’s on your truck, your yard sign, and your website. You forward it to the line we give you. Forwarding is a standard carrier feature, and we’ll walk through it for yours.
Un-forward it and you’re back to your old setup in minutes. That’s also our worst-case rollback plan, and it doesn’t touch any of your data.
Step 3
Every call ends in your queue
- Call comes inAnswered on your line
- Request savedOnly after our system confirms it
- Your queueOn your phone or laptop
- You approve or denyOr let it expire
- On your scheduleWhere you can see your units
The receptionist tells the caller the owner will confirm. Nothing is final until you act.
Your dashboard
- Queue
- Requests waiting on you. Approve or deny.
- Schedule
- Your units by day. Deliver, pick up, extend, cancel, or add your own bookings.
- Catalog
- Sizes, units, services, and prices.
- Calls
- A transcript and summary of every call.
- Customers
- Every number that has called you, with their history.
- Business Info
- The facts the receptionist answers from.
- Settings
- Name, hours, time zone, request expiry, and who gets notified.
- Agent Config
- Publish changes to the receptionist, or roll back if needed.
One login can switch between several businesses, if you run more than one.
How you find out about a call
New requests appear in your queue within seconds of being saved, with a count on the sidebar. That part works today.
Text and email alerts are built and waiting on carrier registration, including escalation to a second person if the first doesn’t respond within 15 minutes. We’ll tell you when they’re live, and we won’t ask you to rely on them before then.
What happens when something breaks
Things go wrong. What matters is what the receptionist tells the caller when they do.
- If our system can’t be reached mid-call, the receptionist is built to keep talking, take the caller’s name and number, and promise only a callback, never that something was saved.
- After every call, we check what was saved. If a caller left a number but nothing was recorded for them, a callback request is created so they hear from you instead of silence.
- If the whole platform were down, un-forwarding your number restores your old setup in minutes.
What we keep, and who can see it
- From your callers: their phone number, the name and address they give, the job details they describe, and a transcript and short summary of the call.
- From you: your business settings, prices, hours, policies, and notification contacts.
- Each business is isolated. The receptionist holds a credential that can only act for your business, and we re-test that isolation automatically on every change we ship.
- Every booking change, setting change, and notification attempt is logged with who did it.
- Calendar math runs in your time zone, including daylight-saving changes.
- Every call opens with “This call may be recorded.” See our call recording notice.
Pricing
We haven’t published prices yet. We’d rather say that than post a number we would have to change.
Plans will be monthly, with a set number of call minutes included and a per-minute rate beyond that. It is not a per-call fee, and it is not “unlimited.” Pilot businesses get pilot terms and are invoiced directly; there’s no card on file to start.
Ask us and we’ll tell you what we’d charge you, based on how many calls you get.
Limited pilot spots
We’re onboarding a small number of businesses
Switchboard is new, and we take on pilot customers one at a time, so every call gets reviewed and every rough edge gets fixed with you. If you run a service business and you’re missing calls, we’d like to talk.