Smith.ai AI Receptionist Review: Pricing, Features & UX

What are your options when your call center is experiencing long wait times, burnt out agents, frustrated customers, and a lack of insights?

Smith.ai's AI Receptionist is a cutting edge AI-powered tool that addresses all of these issues and more. It gives companies the chance to create their own personalized virtual agent which will answer calls, talking to customers in natural language. Not only that, it sends texts, answers frequently asked questions, and routes calls to the best available human support in a snap. Smith.ai provides flexibility that other solutions may not counter so easily.

Read on as we'll take a deep dive into what Smith.ai's AI Receptionist is, what benefits it offers, pricing, set up, and who should invest in it.

• Overview
• Pricing and Plans
• Key Features
• UX and Performance
• Setup and Deployment
• Pros and Cons
• Who Should Use It
• Alternatives
• Final Verdict

What is Smith.ai AI Receptionist?

Smith.ai's AI Receptionist is a standalone virtual receptionist solution that answers calls and common questions, routes calls to the best-fit department or agent, and can even send SMS messages when needed. It fuses innovations like artificial intelligence and natural language processing to parse through caller intent and generate conversationally engaging output. It mimics human receptionists while handling multiple calls at a time.

As an AI receptionist, it serves as an undeniably powerful tool for high volume call centers that face challenges like reducing hold times and cutting down strain on human agents.

Pricing and Plans

Smith.ai's AI Receptionist plans start at $95 per month and include a set allotment of prepaid calls. Smith.ai also offers a 14-day risk-free trial of the feature with a full money-back guarantee.

For businesses that prefer a more human touch with live North America-based receptionists handling calls, Virtual Receptionist plans start at $292.50 monthly per user. All plans include free spam blocking and lead qualification as standard features.

Key Features of Smith.ai Receptionist

Smith.ai AI Receptionist aims to emulate and achieve all a human agent can do, and it can do it even faster with more consistency and no signs of tiring down. Here are some of the standout features included with Smith.ai's solution.

24/7 Call Coverage

Smith.ai answers every call, without exception, at any time. Whether it's 2 in the morning on a Sunday or during your peak season business hours, the AI is armed and prepped to take on your callers professionally and collect any necessary data. You can claw back missed opportunities and guarantee no potential customer falls through the cracks due to volume or poor timing.

Smart and Tested Lead Qualification

The system asks strategic questions to pick apart and understand the caller’s needs to determine if they're a qualified prospect. By the time a lead reaches your sales team, Smith.ai has already gathered essential information and context, dramatically reducing the back-and-forth typically needed to qualify opportunities. This pre-qualification accelerates your sales cycle and helps teams prioritize high-value prospects.

Automated Appointment Scheduling

Smith.ai integrates with calendar systems to check real-time availability and book appointments without human intervention. The AI can handle rescheduling, confirmations, and automated reminders that reduce no-shows. For service-based businesses, this feature alone can reclaim countless hours lost to manual scheduling back-and-forths.

CRM Synchronization and Integrations

Call data flows automatically to HubSpot, Salesforce, Clio, and thousands of other platforms through Zapier. No manual data entry adds back time in your team’s day because less time on administrative work means more time actually serving customers. Information stays current across all your business tools in real-time to ensure you’re up-to-date on what customers actually want.

Spam and Robocall Protection

Smith.ai automatically blocks over 20 million known spam numbers using a variety of detection methods, protecting both your team and your customers from unwanted interruptions. The advanced filtering happens before calls reach your business, reducing distractions and improving focus.

Human Escalation When Needed

Complex questions, upset customers, or specialized requests are handed off smoothly to live North America-based agents. The AI provides context so your team member understands the full situation without the caller having to start over. This hybrid approach keeps costs down while ensuring quality service.

User Experience and Performance

Smith.ai AI Receptionist users find the overall experience to have a low learning curve thanks to its user-friendly interface. It knows how humans move and speak which aids it in its emulation and resolution goals.

Call Quality and Accuracy

Smith.ai offers high call quality and performance backed by reliable infrastructure and advanced technology. The accuracy of the Receptionist's answers varies based on how much information and data it has access to. The more data that it is trained on, the more accurate it will be. That being said, AI Receptionists may struggle to answer more complex questions from callers.

Conversational Flow and NLP Capabilities

Smith.ai's NLP capabilities are advanced, with the ability to understand context and respond appropriately. The AI Receptionist also speeds up and slows down at appropriate times in order to mimic a natural language cadence.

Customization and Training Options

Smith.ai’s Receptionist offers many customization options, such as custom routing rules and custom content to be provided to customers in reminders, confirmations, greetings, etc. Companies can also choose a voice and persona for the Smith.ai AI Receptionist, and can control what knowledge this AI Receptionist has access to. The service includes dedicated onboarding support to ensure the AI is properly trained for your business needs.

Monitoring and Analytics

Smith.ai captures and records all conversations with transcripts and analytics so that its effectiveness can be closely monitored. Ultimately, these recordings will help it improve over time as it gathers more data. Administrators can even speed up this process by monitoring transcripts and adding guidelines and rules to target specific parameters and requirements as needed.

Setup and Deployment

Setting up Smith.ai's AI Receptionist does not require any code and is generally quite fast. The service includes a dedicated onboarding process where the Smith.ai team tailors the solution to your specific business needs. You'll receive a dedicated phone number or can port your existing business number at no charge.

To set up the tool, you start by working with the Smith.ai onboarding team to configure your AI persona and voice, then you provide information about your business and the types of calls you receive. After that you configure custom routing rules and FAQ pairs, then the system is ready to start answering calls.

Pros and Cons

Smith.ai's AI Receptionist has many advanced features and is very reliable, but it's also an ongoing service cost and may not be necessary for every business. Here are some pros and cons you should know.

Who Should Use Smith.ai AI Receptionist

If you're a company that knows it'll receive a high volume of calls each day, you will more than likely benefit from Smith.ai's AI Receptionist's features and use cases. It is particularly a boon for service teams who struggle with long wait times.

We also found the following groups amenable to its benefits:

• Healthcare industry: Teams in the healthcare industry can use Smith.ai AI Receptionist to automate appointment scheduling, send appointment reminders, and answer common patient questions
• Law offices: Legal professionals can use Smith.ai AI Receptionist to answer common questions and gather information from potential clients so no one falls into the cracks
• Real estate and property management: Agents and property managers can schedule showings, qualify leads, and handle tenant inquiries without staff involvement
• Small businesses and startups: Companies without dedicated reception staff can finally offer professional phone coverage without hiring full-time employees
• High volume call centers: Smith.ai can be used in high volume call centers to screen calls and route them to the right agent while providing powerful insights

How It Compares Against Competitors

Below, we discuss our other top choices for AI receptionists, it’s key to note that while Smith.ai is formidable, it is hardly the only choice in a growing number of solutions tailored to different needs and business goals:

Final Verdict

Smith.ai's AI Receptionist is a cutting edge tool that offers a lot of potential, particularly for businesses that want hybrid automation with human backup. That said, it does come at a cost. Calls transferred to live agents do lead to additional charges beyond your base plan. You'll also need to be mindful that success means proper setup and configuration.

But if you do stick with it, we found it may lead to higher productivity, happier customers, more conversions, and lower wait times. All the while, you get the flexibility to escalate to real humans when it matters most.