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Guide
Software that answers the calls, the DMs, the chat and the texts, knows your prices and policies, and writes the appointment into the calendar your team already keeps — without anybody stopping what they are doing.
Software that picks up when a client makes contact, answers the question they actually asked, and writes the appointment into your calendar — on the phone, in Instagram DMs, in website chat and over text. It is not a phone tree and not a chat widget that collects a name and promises a call back. The test of one is whether a client who rings at the wrong moment ends the conversation with a booked appointment instead of a voicemail.
Hotels, clinics, dental practices and gyms all use “AI front desk” for the same basic idea, and the mechanism really does generalise: answer, know the answer, book, follow up are the same four jobs anywhere there is a diary and a phone. What does not generalise is everything that makes the answer correct. A salon’s menu has durations that change with hair length, prices that change with the stylist, and a missed slot measured in a chair sitting empty for three hours. We build only for salons, spas and barbershops — a narrower claim than the phrase usually carries, and the reason the assistant can quote your prices instead of offering to take a message.
Four phrases that get used interchangeably and should not be. A phone tree routes: it asks the caller to classify themselves, then puts them somewhere, usually a voicemail box. An answering service takes a message for someone to action later. An AI receptionist holds the conversation and writes the appointment, which is the part that changes the outcome. “AI front desk” is the widest of the four — the receptionist’s job done on every channel a client might use rather than the phone alone, which is the gap a phone-only service leaves behind. One test sorts all four: does the client hang up with an appointment, or with a promise.
It answers, it knows the answer, it books, and it follows up. Most salons lose bookings not because they lack a booking page but because there is nobody free to do those four things when a client makes contact. Where that line sits between software and a person is worth reading before you decide which of the four you are actually buying.
Phone, Instagram DMs, website chat and SMS all reach the same assistant, which knows your services, prices, staff, hours and policies because we load them during onboarding. The phone is the one that gets the attention because it makes a noise; the others queue silently. One salon’s Instagram inbox carried several times its call volume over a shorter window, and a queue nobody hears is far easier to leave alone than a ringing handset.
It reads live availability from Square, Vagaro, Fresha, Mindbody or our own calendar, holds the right amount of time for the service, and writes the appointment where your team already looks. You keep the system you have, which matters more than it sounds: the records that do not survive a migration are the expensive ones — saved cards, prepaid balances, appointment-level notes.
Not in the evening. We went through the inbound call logs across eleven salons and volume clustered in the middle of the working day — the window in which every chair is full and nobody is free to pick up. The shape of that week is here, and the arithmetic on what the unanswered ones cost is on the calculator. A front desk that only covers after hours solves a problem most salons do not have.
Confirmation at the point of booking, a reminder before the appointment, a Google review request after a good visit, and a rebooking nudge timed to that client’s own rhythm — which, for most returning clients, falls inside sixty days.
Anything unusual, upset or clinical goes to a person. On a call it transfers; on other channels it flags the thread and texts you. You pick the hour after which every call rings you directly.
$300 a month for the base service — the platform, a website we build and maintain, and your first channel. Additional channels are $75 a month. No commission, no contract, free for the first month.
Questions
Software that answers your salon’s calls, DMs, chats and texts, knows your services, prices, hours and policies, and books into the calendar your team already uses. The distinction that matters is booking: a system that answers but cannot write an appointment is an answering service with better manners.
Mostly scope. A receptionist is the phone. A front desk is every channel a client might use to reach you — calls, Instagram DMs, website chat and texts — answered by the same assistant, working from the same service menu and the same calendar. If the phone is the only channel you care about, the two are the same purchase. There is a longer explainer on what the receptionist side does, in the order it happens.
The idea is not: clinics, gyms, dental practices and hotels use the phrase for the same mechanism, and the four jobs are identical anywhere there is a diary. Ours is built only for salons, spas and barbershops, because what makes an answer correct is the service menu, the durations, the per-stylist pricing and the policies — and those are specific to the industry rather than configurable.
A phone menu asks the caller to sort themselves into a category and then routes them, usually to a voicemail box nobody reaches. There is no “press 1” here. The caller says what they want in their own words, the assistant asks the one clarifying question it needs, and it books. The difference you can measure is whether the call ends with an appointment or with a message.
It covers the hours you do not have one — evenings, Sundays, and the moments the desk is busy with someone in person. Salons with a receptionist tend to use it as overflow rather than a replacement.
It reads and writes live availability in Square, Vagaro, Fresha and Mindbody, or in our own calendar if you would rather move. Nothing about how your team checks the day changes, and you keep your existing phone number.
Keep it. The assistant works alongside it, answering the people who call or message instead of booking online — which, for most salons, is still the majority.
It says so and hands over rather than guessing. A caller is transferred to a person; a DM or text thread is flagged and we text you. Anything clinical, distressed or unusual goes to a human by default.
Some notice, most do not, and it does not claim to be a person when asked directly. You set the greeting, the tone and the name during onboarding.
About half an hour of your time. We load your service list, prices, staff, hours and policies, connect your calendar and forward your number — and the first month is free, so the question of whether it earns its keep gets answered before you pay for it.
Free for a month, on whatever booking system you already run. Set up in under 30 minutes, with your services and staff loaded for you.
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Free for one month
Tell us where to reach you and we will have your assistant answering within 30 minutes. No card needed.