AI phone answering for restaurants
Seven on a Friday, every table turning, and the phone has rung four times. Whoever is nearest either abandons a table to answer it or lets it ring, and either way it costs something.
Short answer. An AI phone answering system takes every call during service, asks for the name, the number, the party size, the date and the time, and sends the booking through while the caller is still on the line. It answers the same three questions all night without getting short, it answers in the language the caller speaks, and it answers multiple calls at once, so a rush is a set of conversations rather than a queue.
The calls that cost you the most are the ones nobody hears
A missed booking does not announce itself. Nobody rings back to tell you they ate somewhere else. The calls arrive in exactly the window when the room is fullest and the staff are least able to answer, which is why the phone is the one part of a busy service that quietly leaks money.
What it takes, and what it does not
It asks what you would ask. The name and a number, how many are coming, which night, roughly what time, and anything you need to know in advance such as a high chair, step free access or an allergy the kitchen should see before the table sits down. What it does not do is invent an answer. If somebody asks whether the kitchen can do a particular dish gluten free, it captures the question and gets it to a person rather than guessing on your behalf, because a guess about an allergen is not a small mistake.
The same three questions, all night
Are you open on Monday. Where can I park. Do you take dogs. Do you do a set menu at lunch. These are most of the calls and none of them need a person, but each one still pulls somebody off the floor. You write the answers once and they are given the same way every time, at eleven at night as patiently as at eleven in the morning.
A rush is not a queue
There is no engaged tone and nothing to hold. It answers multiple calls at once, so the Friday spike that used to be a stack of missed calls is a stack of bookings instead.
In the language the caller speaks
It answers in a wide range of languages and the enquiry still reaches you in yours, which matters more for restaurants than for most trades. A guest who cannot easily book in English will usually just book somewhere else, and you never find out.
Where the booking ends up
Every call becomes a structured record in your own Microsoft Dataverse, in your own Microsoft account, with each detail in its own field. That means it can be read on a phone, emailed to the pass, counted at the end of the month, and carried onward automatically into whatever you run your diary in. What you own at the end of it is your own booking data, not an extract from a system somebody else owns.
It does not replace the welcome
The point of it is not to take people out of the room. It is to stop the phone taking them out of the room. The greeting at the door, the recommendation, the regular who gets the corner table: none of that is a phone call, and none of it changes.
Hear it handle one. Ring 01905 918444. It is a live line, not a recording, and it takes about a minute.
From £99 + VAT a month. Free setup, cancel anytime. Or read where your call data lives and which languages it answers in.
Frequently asked
Can it take a table booking?
It takes everything the booking needs: the name, a number, the party size, the date, the time and anything the kitchen or the floor should know in advance. The booking lands in your own Microsoft Dataverse as a structured record, which is what lets it be carried on automatically into the diary system you already use.
What happens when several calls come in at once on a Friday night?
They are all answered. It takes multiple calls at once, so there is no queue and no engaged tone, and the Friday rush becomes a stack of bookings rather than a stack of missed calls.
Will it tell a caller whether a dish can be made gluten free?
No, and it will not guess. It captures the question and gets it to a person, because an allergen answer given wrongly is not a small mistake. It is honest with the caller about that rather than inventing something plausible.
Can it answer the same three questions all night?
Yes, and that is most of the calls: opening times, parking, dogs, whether there is a set menu. You write the answers once and they are given the same way at eleven at night as at eleven in the morning.
Does it work if we already use a booking platform?
Yes. It answers the phone and produces the booking as a structured record in your own Microsoft Dataverse, which Power Automate can then push into the system you already run, so the phone side changes and the diary you are used to does not have to.
Can it answer in other languages?
Yes, in a wide range of them, and the enquiry still reaches you in English. For a restaurant that is worth more than it first sounds, because a guest who cannot book easily usually just books elsewhere and never tells you.
Can we hear it before we commit?
Ring 01905 918444. It is a live line rather than a recording, it takes about a minute, and there is no form to fill in first.