The first month with an AI receptionist is mostly about knowledge, not setup. Setup takes minutes. The month goes on reading what callers asked, spotting what the agent didn't know, and adjusting where calls go when someone needs a person.
With ModPhone, a realistic first month looks like this.
Day one: build it, test it, decide how calls reach it
You start with your website. ModPhone reads it, usually in 30 to 90 seconds, and turns it into a list of facts you can review and edit. Talk to the agent in your browser before you pick a number, and ask it what your customers ask. The trial allows 10 browser demo calls a day.
Then get a number. The free trial includes one phone number, 100 voice minutes and 100 texts, with no charge unless you choose a plan. Call the number from your cell and listen to the greeting. You can be live on a real number in about 10 minutes.
The real decision on day one is how calls reach the agent:
- Forward only the calls you miss. Conditional forwarding sends busy, unanswered and unreachable calls to the agent, and you keep answering the rest. This is the gentlest start.
- Forward everything. Ask your carrier for unconditional ("always") forwarding, and the agent answers first.
- Publish the new number. Put it on your website and Google Business Profile, for example as an after-hours or texting line.
For conditional forwarding on a mobile line, you dial a code from the phone being forwarded. On Verizon it is *71 followed by your 10-digit ModPhone number (*73 turns it off). AT&T uses *004*NUMBER*11#, and T-Mobile and most other mobile carriers use **004*NUMBER#. Landlines and office phone systems vary the most, so check with your provider. The ModPhone dashboard shows these codes with your number already filled in.
Before real callers: set up transfers
Decide where calls go when someone needs a person, before the first real caller asks:
- A primary transfer number, for "can I talk to someone?"
- Departments, named the way callers say them, if different people handle different things.
- Waterfall routing, if you want several people rung in order until one accepts.
- The callback offer, so a transfer nobody picks up becomes a callback request instead of a dead end.
Tell your team two things. Transferred calls show your ModPhone number as the caller ID, so save it in their phones. And with waterfall routing or the callback offer on, whoever picks up hears "You have a caller on your business line. Press 1 to accept." The most common early problem is someone hearing that recording and hanging up.
Week one: read every summary
After each call, ModPhone writes a summary: what happened, the caller's sentiment, the topics, any action items and whether the call was resolved. Add yourself as an alert recipient to get it by email, and turn on the daily digest for a morning roundup.
Read all of them in the first week, and open the transcript for anything that looks off. Sort what you see:
- Calls it handled on its own.
- Calls where it said it didn't have the information.
- Calls that ended in a transfer, and whether each one needed to.
To hear it in action, the live transcript window shows a call line by line while it is happening. It is watch-only.
The Needs attention list at the top of Conversations collects calls a person should follow up on, each tagged with a reason: callback requested, follow-up promised, unresolved question, upset caller, needs confirmation or quote pending. Clear it every day.
Weeks one and two: fill the gaps
When the agent can't find an answer in your knowledge or on the websites you've added, it tells the caller it doesn't have that information instead of guessing. Each of those calls is a fact waiting to be added.
Typical gaps look like this:
- A tax firm: "Can I drop off documents on Saturday?" The website only lists weekday hours.
- An auto shop: "Do you do alignments?" The services list was an image, which the website scan can't read.
- A school: "What should my kid wear for field day?" The answer is in a PDF newsletter nobody uploaded.
Fix them on the Knowledge tab: add a custom fact, upload the document, or edit a fact that came off the website wrong. Changes apply from the next call. Write facts the way you would say them out loud, one fact per sentence, and include what you don't do. "We don't service diesel engines" saves a pointless transfer.
Watch for contradictions. If an old price list and your website disagree, the agent may use either one, so delete the old one.
Temporary information, such as holiday hours or a closure, goes in Supplemental Company Information, which takes priority over everything else the agent knows. Take it out when it expires.
Weeks two and three: tune transfers and rules
By now the transferred calls show a pattern. Some transfers were needed. Others were questions the agent could have answered with one more fact, or callers who asked for "someone" out of habit.
Adjust with rules in Core Instructions, one per line:
- "Collect the caller's name and the reason for the call before offering a transfer."
- "Do not quote prices. Offer to have someone call back with a quote."
- "If a caller describes an emergency, offer to transfer them straight away."
If a caller asked for a department and got the main line, the department name probably doesn't match how callers say it, so rename it. If transfers keep landing in someone's personal voicemail, turn on waterfall routing or the callback offer. Both add the press-1 screening, and voicemail can't press 1.
Keyword alerts help here too. Add words like "cancel", "refund" or "complaint", and anyone set to receive keyword alerts gets an email after any call where one of them was said.
Weeks three and four: add what comes next
Once the phone answers are right, the rest builds on the same knowledge:
- Connect Google Calendar or Outlook, set up appointment types and booking hours, and the agent books during calls and texts the caller a confirmation.
- Numbers you get inside ModPhone already take texts, so add an alert recipient for incoming messages.
- Web chat and email come next, on the plans that include them.
This is also the time to revisit forwarding. If you started with missed calls only and the summaries look good, you might send it more.
The trial runs 30 days from when you verify your email, and ModPhone emails you before it ends. Choosing a plan keeps your number. If you don't choose one, the number is held for 7 days after the trial ends. Plans and allowances are on the pricing page.
What stays the same
Your staff still take the calls that need judgment, and someone still works the Needs attention list. What changes is that fewer routine questions interrupt them, calls after 5 p.m. get answered, and each call arrives with a summary instead of a voicemail to decode. For a clear-eyed list of where the agent will fall short, read what an AI receptionist can and can't do.
Common questions
Do I have to change my business phone number?
No. You can forward your existing line to your ModPhone number, either just the calls you miss or all of them, and callers keep dialing the number they know.
How long does it take to get an AI receptionist answering calls?
You can try the demo in about 30 seconds and be live on a real number in about 10 minutes. Getting the answers right takes longer: plan on reading summaries and adding missing facts through the first couple of weeks.
What happens when the agent doesn't know an answer?
It tells the caller it doesn't have that information rather than guessing, and it only looks things up on websites you've added. The call shows up in your summaries, and unanswered questions are flagged in the Needs attention list so you can add the fact.
How do I fix a wrong answer?
Open the Knowledge tab, find the fact on the website entry or document it came from, and edit or delete it. Check that no other fact says something different. The next call uses the corrected version.
Can I stop if it isn't working for us?
Yes. Dial your carrier's undo code and calls go back to ringing you. The trial costs nothing unless you choose a plan, and paid plans have no setup fees, can be cancelled anytime and come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
This week
Make the forwarding decision and set up your transfer numbers first, then call your own line and ask the five questions you hear most. Start the free trial when you are ready to put it on a real number.