How it works
Six steps, from the first conversation to an AI receptionist that answers your phone at nine on a Sunday night. It is not a five-minute signup and it is not meant to be — someone listens to your real calls, writes your flows, and tests them before a customer ever hears it. This page is also the itemized version of the one-time build fee: everything below is work someone does for you.
Your side of it is small on purpose: one hour at kickoff, one hour gathering what you already have written down, thirty minutes on voice samples, and thirty minutes on test calls. About three hours, spread across the build. Everything else is on us.
The build, step by step
Kickoff
About an hour, at your counter if you are in the Chattanooga area, otherwise on the phone. We ask what you actually do, what you turn down, when you pick up and when you cannot, and what a good call sounds like versus a waste of your afternoon. We listen to your last few weeks of voicemails with you, because that is where the real script is. Your job: talk, and let us hear the messages.
Content intake
You send what you already have — services, hours, service area, the price ranges you are willing to quote over the phone, deposit and payment policy, who handles what. Send it however it comes. A photo of the price sheet taped to the wall is fine. We turn it into the knowledge base, write the call flows from your real calls, and hand you back a one-page draft of what the agent knows so you can cross out anything wrong. Your job: gather the folder, then read one page and correct it.
Voice and behavior
We pick candidate voices, set pacing and how it greets people, and write the guardrails — what it must never guess at, when it takes a message, when it hands a call off on Plus and Pro, and what it says when a caller asks if it is a person. It says it is an AI. We send you sample greetings in your own words. Your job: about thirty minutes picking the one that sounds like your business and flagging anything that sounds off.
Connect and test
We set up a local 423 number — ported from your carrier or new — and the forwarding rule you chose: every call, after hours only, or only the calls you do not pick up. We install the website chat widget on the same knowledge base, and on Plus and Pro connect your calendar and CRM. Then we run test calls against the flows, including the awkward ones. Your job: about thirty minutes calling it yourself and trying to break it. Forward us anything that goes sideways.
Go live
We switch forwarding on. Nothing changes on your end and there is nothing to install. From that moment every call is recorded, transcribed and summarized, the message is texted and emailed to you within minutes of the caller hanging up, and your login shows every call so you can listen back and read who called and why. Spam and robocalls are screened before they reach you and are never billed.
Optimize
Tuning at launch is included on every plan — the first couple of weeks always turn up a phrase to change. Plus adds a monthly review call where we listen to real calls together and retune it. Pro adds a quarterly rebuild: a full transcript audit and a script rewrite, not just tweaks, plus priority same-business-day support and a named account owner. Your job: forward the calls that bothered you.
What we need from you
All of it is either in your head already or written down somewhere. Nothing here needs a document to be produced from scratch.
- 01
The list of services you do, and the ones you get called about but do not do
- 02
Your hours, your service area, and how you want after-hours calls handled
- 03
Price ranges you are comfortable having quoted on the phone — and the ones you never want quoted
- 04
Deposit, payment and warranty policy in whatever words you normally use
- 05
Who a call should reach for what: sales, service, billing, emergency, the owner
- 06
Access to your voicemail, or whatever recent messages you have saved, so the flows come from real calls
- 07
Your existing FAQ page or a link to your site, if you have one
- 08
Calendar and CRM access, on Plus and Pro, so it can book and log leads
- 09
One person on your side who can answer a question and say yes
You do not need to write a script, choose a technology, install anything, or learn a dashboard before launch. If you want to change your number, you do not have to — see the questions below.
What your agent does on a call
Almost all of this happens on an inbound call: someone rings your number and the agent picks up. The one exception is on Pro, where it calls back people who hung up or got missed.
- 01
Answers every call at 9pm on a Sunday, and while you are already on the other line
- 02
Tells the caller it is an AI when asked, and never claims to be a person
- 03
Handles the call in English or Spanish — how it chooses between them is set during the build
- 04
Gives hours, directions, service area, and what you do and do not take on
- 05
Quotes only the price ranges you approved, in the words you approved
- 06
Screens spam and robocalls before they reach you, and those minutes are not billed to you
- 07
Takes a full message: name, number, address, what is wrong, and when they are free
- 08
Books straight into your calendar, on Plus and Pro
- 09
Warm transfers to a person on your team with a spoken hand-off, on Plus and Pro, so the caller does not repeat the whole story
- 10
Texts the caller your booking link, and on Plus and Pro sends an address, a quote link or a form while they are still on the phone
- 11
Stops and takes a message when the question runs past what it was taught, instead of guessing
- 12
Sends you the recording, the transcript and a plain summary of what the caller wanted
How long it really takes
Starter and Plus typically go live 7 to 10 business days from the day your intake material lands. Pro takes 10 to 15 business days from the day your intake material lands, because it includes building your website as well as the agent. Kickoff comes first, and intake is the step that stalls, so the sooner that folder lands the sooner the phone gets answered.
One honest caveat: porting an existing number runs on your old carrier’s schedule, not ours, and can add a few business days. A new 423 number does not have that wait. We do not sell a rush option. The only way to move faster is to skip test calls, and that is the last thing worth cutting.
What happens when it gets something wrong
It will get something wrong. Any agent will. The difference is whether you find out.
- Every call is recorded, transcribed and summarized, so a bad answer shows up in your inbox within minutes of the call instead of vanishing
- The agent is built to stop rather than improvise — outside the knowledge base it takes a message, or on Plus and Pro hands the call to you
- Forward the summary and we fix it at the source: a wording change in the prompt or a correction in the knowledge base. That is an edit, not a rebuild, and it applies to every call after it
- If it was the kind of mistake that should not have been possible, we add a guardrail so that answer cannot come out again
- Corrections during the build and at launch are included on every plan. After that, Plus includes a monthly review call and Pro a quarterly rebuild with priority same-business-day support and a named account owner; on Starter, small wording fixes are part of the service and a larger rework gets quoted before it starts
Hear it before you commit to any of this
Aiden answers our own phone. It is a live agent on a real number, not a recording and not a scripted demo, and it is trained on Ai Chattanooga itself — the plans, what is in each one, how minutes work, how the build goes. Call it, ask how long a build takes, ask what each plan costs, ask if it is an AI, then ask it to have a person call you back. Judge the process by the thing it produces.
Questions people ask before starting
Do I have to change my phone number?
No. We can port your existing number, or give you a new local 423 number and forward your current line to it. Either way you are not locked in: a number you ported in ports back out when you leave, and if we provisioned it, it transfers to whichever carrier you name.
Can it answer only after hours, or only the calls I miss?
Yes. The forwarding rule is set in step four and you can change it later. Common setups are every call, nights and weekends only, or only the calls you do not pick up.
What do I have to install?
Nothing. Call forwarding is a setting at your carrier and we walk you through it. The website chat widget is one snippet we add to your site. There is no app and no hardware.
What do I keep if we part ways?
You keep your recordings, your transcripts, your customer data and the material you gave us, and we export them on request. The agent configuration and prompts stay with us. Month to month, cancel with 30 days’ notice, and no auto-renewing term. Email info@aichattanooga.com or call — it is not a retention phone call you have to win.
Can I change plans later?
Yes. Moving up or down changes your monthly plan and your included minutes from the next billing cycle. If moving up adds build work — Pro includes your website — that is quoted before it starts, and nothing is charged without your say-so.
What counts as a minute?
Live talk time only, on calls the agent actually handles. Spam and robocalls it screens out do not count. You get a heads-up before you reach your cap, and your plan’s overage rate is printed on the pricing page, not buried in the invoice.
Start with a call, not a form
Aiden answers our own phone. Ask him how a build goes, how the minutes work, or whether he is an AI — then decide.