AI Receptionist Launch Checklist: Test Calls First
By CodexierPublished 6 min read
An AI receptionist rarely fails because the technology is weak. It fails because nobody called it twenty times, in twenty different ways, before real customers did. This checklist is built around that test-call week: what the system needs to know before day one, which calls to make, what to listen for, and the criteria that decide whether you go live or wait another week.
Information the AI needs before day one
An AI receptionist answers from what it has been given. If your price list lives in someone's head, or your cancellation rule differs between staff members, the AI will expose the inconsistency on its first busy day. Collect the facts in one document and have the person who answers the phone today read it and correct it.
- Services with duration and a price or price range, written the way customers ask for them
- Opening hours, holidays and the dates you are closed around Christmas and midsummer
- Address, entrance, parking and public transport directions
- Booking rules: lead time, cancellation window, deposits, no-show policy
- Who takes which errand when a human is needed, with names and numbers
Twenty test calls to make
Split the calls across the people who know your customers best. Each caller writes down what they asked and what happened. Twenty is a floor, not a target: a salon with many services needs more than a workshop with three.
| Type of call | Examples | What a pass looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Simple booking (5) | A haircut Tuesday afternoon; the first free time next week | Correct slot, correct duration, SMS confirmation arrives |
| Change or cancel (3) | Move my time; cancel tomorrow's appointment | Finds the booking, applies your cancellation rule |
| Facts (4) | Do you have parking? What does a service cost? Are you open on Saturdays? | Answer matches your document word for word |
| Out of scope (3) | A complaint; a supplier sales call; a question about an invoice | Takes a message or transfers, never improvises |
| Hard conditions (5) | Speaking from a car; strong dialect; mixing Swedish and English; interrupting | Asks again politely, does not guess |
Record which caller made which call, so you can repeat a failed call after fixing it.
What to listen for
Listen to the recordings or transcripts, not just the outcome. A booking that landed correctly after an awkward, repetitive conversation is still a problem, because real customers hang up where testers persist.
- Does it confirm the key details back before booking: day, time, service and name?
- Does it say what it does not know instead of inventing an answer?
- How long is the pause before it replies, and does it talk over the caller?
- Does it pronounce your company name, street and staff names correctly?
- Is the tone right for your business: brisk for a workshop, calmer for a clinic?
- When it transfers, does the human get a summary, or does the customer repeat everything?
Forwarding, hours and fallbacks
Most operators in Sweden let you forward calls on no answer, on busy or always. Decide which one you want, and in which hours. Many businesses start with forwarding only after hours and on busy, which keeps staff answering when they can and lets the AI catch the rest.
- Set the forwarding in your operator's portal or switchboard, and write down how to undo it
- Test forwarding from outside the company, not from a phone on the same account
- Decide what happens if the AI service is unreachable: a voicemail you actually check, or a colleague's mobile
- Tell staff which calls will now arrive as SMS summaries or transfers, and who reads them
If you record calls, the caller must be told, and the data must be covered by a processing agreement. Our guide on call recording and GDPR goes through that part in detail.
Go or no-go criteria
Decide the criteria before the test week, so nobody argues from gut feeling afterwards. A simple rule works: go live when the last round of test calls has no wrong bookings and no invented facts, and every out-of-scope call was handed over correctly. Awkward phrasing can be tuned after launch; wrong information cannot.
| Finding | Decision |
|---|---|
| A wrong booking or a double booking | Delay. Fix the calendar rules and rerun all booking calls |
| An invented price, rule or opening hour | Delay. Add the fact or add a 'never answer' rule |
| Transfers fail or summaries are empty | Delay. This is your safety net |
| Slightly stiff wording, long pauses | Go live, tune in week one |
| Rare dialect misunderstood, but it asks again | Go live, monitor |
When you do not need an AI receptionist at all
If you get a handful of calls a day and someone is almost always free to answer, an AI receptionist adds a system to maintain without saving much. The same applies if nearly every call is a complex conversation, such as a quote for a renovation or a medical question. In those cases a better voicemail and a fast call-back routine may be the honest answer, and we will tell you that on a call.
If your calls are frequent and repetitive, the AI receptionist service starts from 7 990 kr in setup plus a monthly fee, and the setup includes this test week. The full pricing is on our pricing page. Not sure yet? Book a short call and describe your calls.
Frequently asked questions
How long should the test period be?
Plan for about a week between the first test call and go-live. That leaves time to make the calls, fix the gaps and rerun the failures. Rushing it to two days usually means the first real customers do the testing for you.
Can we go live only after hours first?
Yes, and it is often the safest start. Forward calls only outside opening hours for a couple of weeks, read the transcripts, then extend to busy and no-answer forwarding during the day.
What if the AI misunderstands a customer after launch?
It should ask again or hand over. If it guesses instead, that is a configuration issue to fix: add the missing fact or a rule that sends that type of question to a human, then test that exact call again.
Want a second opinion before you go live?
In fifteen minutes we go through your call types and tell you whether your business is ready for an AI receptionist, and what the test week should cover.
Book a free 15-minute call