FAQ
Questions, answered
Everything people ask before putting Estric AI on the front desk. For plan details and a full comparison table, see pricing.
What is an AI front desk?
An AI front desk is software that runs the customer-facing side of a service business: answering phone calls, replying to messages, booking appointments, capturing leads, and taking payments, without a person at a desk. Where a single-purpose chatbot handles one channel, an AI front desk covers every channel a customer might use, including the business phone line, WhatsApp, and web chat, and connects them all to the business’s real information: its services, prices, hours, policies, and calendar. That connection is what lets it finish jobs rather than take messages. A caller asking about a Thursday appointment gets Thursday checked, a time offered, the slot booked, and a confirmation sent while they are still on the line. Estric AI is an AI front desk built for service businesses such as trades, salons, and clinics, priced from $39 per month plus GST, with every conversation visible in one dashboard.
What is an AI receptionist?
An AI receptionist is software that answers a business’s phone calls with a natural voice, around the clock. It greets callers, answers questions from the business’s own information, books appointments, and captures the caller’s details, all on the number the business already uses, connected by simple call forwarding. Unlike voicemail or a message-taking service, it resolves the call on the spot: the customer hangs up with a booking confirmed, not a promise of a callback. It never sleeps, never puts anyone on hold, and answers the 7pm call that voicemail would have lost, and every call is transcribed in the dashboard so the owner can read exactly what was said. In Estric AI, the receptionist is one role in a larger AI front desk team that also covers WhatsApp and web chat, sharing one memory across every channel.
How is an AI receptionist different from an answering service?
An answering service is a call centre that answers as your business and takes a message, which you still have to act on. The operator does not know your prices, your service area, or your calendar, so every call ends with a callback promise, and the customer often books with whoever answers their question first. An AI receptionist is connected to your actual business information, so it can answer real questions, check availability, book the appointment, and send a confirmation during the call, which means the job is finished when the customer hangs up. It also answers instantly at any hour rather than joining a hold queue, handles simultaneous calls without a busy signal, and costs a flat monthly fee instead of per-minute rates that climb with call volume. With Estric AI, every one of those calls is transcribed and visible in one dashboard.
Can the AI book appointments?
Yes. Booking is a core job of the front desk. During a call or chat, Estric AI checks availability against your real services, staff, and hours, offers times, books the slot, and confirms the booking back to the customer while they are still in the conversation, so nothing is left to a callback. Bookings land in your dashboard with the customer’s details attached, and SMS confirmations help reduce no-shows. It works the same way on phone, WhatsApp, and web chat, and because every role shares one memory, a customer who booked by phone is recognised when they later message on WhatsApp. For businesses that take deposits, Estric AI can also hold the slot and send a payment link, confirming the booking automatically once the customer pays.
What languages does it speak?
Estric AI detects the language a customer writes or speaks in and replies in that language, across every channel, phone calls included. There is nothing to configure for this to work. If you prefer tighter control, you can restrict replies to a set of languages you choose and the AI will stick to those. On voice calls it matches the spoken language too, so a caller who starts in Vietnamese, Greek, or Mandarin gets answered in kind, with the conversation transcribed in your dashboard. If a thread comes in a language you do not read, Growth and Scale plans put a Translate button on it that renders the whole conversation in English.
What happens when the AI can’t answer?
When a conversation needs a human, the AI escalates instead of guessing. It tells the customer someone will follow up, captures their name and contact details, and flags the conversation in your dashboard with a full transcript, so you step in with context rather than making a cold callback. That rule holds everywhere: the AI only answers from the knowledge you have given it, so a question about something you never taught it becomes a captured lead instead of an invented answer. You can also jump into any conversation yourself at any time and take over mid-thread. Because every call and chat is transcribed, you can audit exactly what your front desk said, see which questions it could not handle, and tighten its knowledge base wherever it came up short, so the same gap does not appear twice.
Do I keep my existing phone number?
Yes. On plans with voice answering, you point your existing business number at Estric AI using call forwarding, and customers keep dialling the number they already know. Nothing about your number changes, and you can switch forwarding off at any time. If you do not have a business number yet, Estric AI can buy you a local number in one click, wired to your AI and included in your plan.
Is there a setup cost?
No. Zero setup fees, no implementation package, no onboarding invoice. Many AI receptionist providers charge a setup cost and take days or weeks of onboarding before your first answered call; Estric AI is self-serve and starts working the day you sign up. You pay the plan price and nothing else.
How long does setup take?
Most businesses are live in about ten minutes, without anyone having to set it up for you. You connect your channels, then train the AI once by adding your services, hours, prices, and policies. Estric AI can also read your website during onboarding and draft that knowledge for you. Updates apply instantly: change a price once and every channel answers with the new price from the next conversation. No code is required, and the only phone-system change is call forwarding. You stay in control of your knowledge, and our team is here whenever you want help.
Which plan should I start with?
Most businesses pick Starter: 3x the call time of Solo, 2.5x the chats, plus CRM sync and webhooks, for 2.5x the price. Shop sync is coming soon. Solo is the light option for a quiet phone: chat cover with 100 call minutes.
How does the free trial work?
Sign up and skip payment to start a free 14-day trial, no card needed. It begins at sign-up and covers WhatsApp and web chat, capped at 50 AI messages total across those channels (up to 10 per conversation), plus 10 minutes of phone answering if you connect a number you already own. An Estric AI-provided number and payment links stay off until you subscribe. After 14 days the service switches off unless you subscribe. Subscribing to a plan skips the trial and activates everything immediately, billed today. One trial per customer.
Can I test the AI before customers reach it?
Testing credits are a one-off allowance for trying your own agent from the dashboard before it goes live, separate from the plan allowance you pay for, so a rehearsal never costs you customer minutes. Solo and Starter start with 5 minutes of calls and 100 chats; Growth and Scale start with 20 minutes. The amount is set by the plan you start on and is granted once for the life of the account. Test bookings are kept out of your real inbox. Find it under Test your AI in the dashboard.
How does annual billing work?
Annual plans are billed once a year at ten months’ price, so you get two months free compared with paying monthly. Monthly plans are full price with no lock-in either way.
What counts as a voice minute?
Time Estric AI spends on live phone calls for your business. A three-minute booking call uses three minutes, so 300 minutes is roughly 100 answered calls. Chat conversations don’t use voice minutes.
What is a conversation?
One thread with one customer, a phone call or a message exchange, counted once per month no matter how many messages fly back and forth.
I have more than one location. Which plan do I need?
Scale. It lets you add up to 10 locations under one account: each gets its own phone and WhatsApp numbers, hours, timezone, services, and staff, and the AI answers as the right branch automatically. One dashboard, one bill, every conversation in one place. Need more than 10? Talk to us about Enterprise.
Which shops can I connect?
Product catalog sync is coming soon: Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and Magento, on Starter and up. Shopify and WooCommerce will connect in a click with no keys to copy; the rest take one pasted token. Signed webhooks to Zapier, Make, and n8n are live today on Starter and up; native workflow connectors are on the way.
What is the difference between a one-way and a two-way integration?
A one-way integration sends data in a single direction: Estric AI pushes every booking, lead, escalation, and ticket out to your tool, and nothing comes back. A two-way integration also reads: the AI can look up live data in your system during a conversation, answer with it, and write the outcome back. One-way signed webhooks are live today. Two-way shop and CRM connectors are coming soon.
Can you build a custom integration for the software I use?
Yes. If your system has a documented API, or can send and receive webhooks, we can connect it one-way or two-way, including job management, practice, and booking software that never appears on a logo wall. Scoping is free: send us the software name and what you want to happen, and you get a timeline and a fixed quote before any work starts.
What happens if I go over my plan?
We warn you well before you hit the limit, and you can move up a plan at any time. We don’t silently bill overage.
Can I change, downgrade, or cancel plans?
Yes: upgrade, downgrade, or cancel from the billing page anytime. Changes apply from your next billing period, so you always get what you’ve paid for.
Still have a question?
Compare every plan on the pricing page, or send us a message and a human replies within one business day.