How the AI Receptionist works

The AI Receptionist replies to clients who message your salon on live chat, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Telegram, BlueBridge or email. It answers questions about your salon and can book, reschedule and cancel appointments right in the chat. Every conversation lands in your inbox under Conversations, so your team can read along and step in at any time.

What happens when a client sends a message

1. It waits a moment. The AI Receptionist waits about 3 seconds after a client's message (half a second on live chat). If the client sends several messages in a row, it reads them together and sends one reply.
2. It works out what the client wants. Each message is sorted into one of these intents: a greeting, a goodbye, a general question, a booking request (book, reschedule or cancel), a request for a person, an off-topic message, or a question about who built the AI Receptionist.
3. It looks up your real data. Services, prices, team members, locations and free times come straight from your settings at the moment of the reply.
4. It replies. The reply is short, plain text and written in the client's language. If the language isn't clear, it uses your salon's language.

Voice messages are transcribed so the AI Receptionist can understand them. Automatic replies from the client's side, such as out-of-office messages, are detected and ignored.

What the AI Receptionist can answer

For general questions, the AI Receptionist can use:

• Your services and prices. Services marked private are left out. When a price depends on the team member or location, it quotes a starting price, such as $45+.
• Your locations and team members.
• Your opening hours from company settings, and your rules for canceling and rescheduling.
• The payment methods you accept.
• Your knowledge base, for things like parking, products or gift cards.
• Appointments the client booked in this same conversation.

The AI Receptionist may only state what this data says. If something isn't listed, it doesn't invent it. If it can't help, it can mark the conversation Needs Attention for your team.

How booking in chat works

The AI Receptionist follows the same booking steps and contact fields as your booking website. It asks for one thing at a time, in your step order: location, service, team member, day and time, contact details, then payment.

• Times are always real. It first offers days with openings in the next 7 days, or the next 14 days if the first week is full. Once the client picks a day, it lists the free times for that day.
• Contact details follow your booking contact fields. It asks for a first and last name, plus email and phone as your settings require, and any required custom questions.
• Payment. If you accept payment at the salon, the AI Receptionist picks that option. Otherwise it helps the client choose a method. If the client pays online, it sends a payment link.
• Confirmation. With Require Confirmation on, the AI Receptionist shows a summary with the price and waits for a yes before it books.

The new appointment gets the same status a website booking would get, so your approval and payment rules still apply.

The AI Receptionist can reschedule or cancel only appointments booked in the same conversation. If you don't allow online rescheduling or canceling, it tells the client and hands the conversation to your team.

When it hands off to your team

The AI Receptionist sets the conversation to Needs Attention and stops replying when:

• the client asks to talk to a person
• the client sends a second off-topic message in a row
• the client wants to reschedule or cancel but your booking policies don't allow it online
• it can't answer a general question, for example a complaint or a refund request

While a conversation needs attention, the AI Receptionist stays silent, even if the client keeps writing. See Take over a conversation from the AI Receptionist to hand it back.

Memory

The AI Receptionist keeps a short private memory for each conversation. After a booking, it saves what the client booked. It also notes preferences the client mentions, such as a usual service or preferred time. Next time the client says something like "the usual", it knows what they mean. This memory isn't shown in the inbox. Details your team needs, like an allergy, go into the appointment notes instead.

Follow-up messages (nudges)

The AI Receptionist can send a short follow-up message on its own:

• Idle nudge. The client stopped replying after the AI Receptionist's last message. It's sent once, after the delay you choose, and only if nobody has written since.
• Payment received. The client paid for an appointment the AI Receptionist booked.
• Status update. You approved or declined a booking request the AI Receptionist made.

You can turn each type on or off in AI Receptionist settings.

Credits and limits

Replies written by the AI use credits from your plan. The cost depends on the length of the reply and on your Message Quality setting. Follow-up nudges and suggested replies use credits too. Keyword replies don't use credits, and neither does a message the AI Receptionist skips.

Before each reply, Softalon checks that you have enough credits for an average message. If you don't, the AI Receptionist doesn't reply, and the inbox shows a note that it did not reply due to insufficient credits.

To protect your credits from spam, the AI Receptionist also stops replying for a while when one client sends more than 5 messages in a minute, 20 in an hour or 50 in a day. A salon-wide limit of 50 messages a minute, 200 an hour and 1,000 a day also applies. The inbox notes when a reply was skipped for this reason.

How it introduces itself

If a client asks who they're talking to, it says it's your salon's AI booking assistant, powered by Softalon. If you've removed Softalon branding, it leaves Softalon out. It never names the underlying AI model.