Set Up Your AI Receptionist

The AI receptionist answers your clients by text, email, web chat and phone. Everything about it is on one page, and you can set it up from a computer or from your phone.

Where the settings liveCopy a link to this section

• On the web: open Automation & AI → AI Assistant.
• In the Perceny app: open the More tab, then Automation & AI → AI Assistant. The screen is native: the switches, the checklist and the test conversation work like the rest of the app.

Both show the same settings and save to the same place, so a change made on your phone is there on the dashboard, and the other way round. The row is shown to managers who hold the Allow Features Configuration permission and can open the inbox.

Switch it onCopy a link to this section

Turn on Answer Messages Automatically. The helper under it says what each reply costs in credits. The switch needs the Two-Way Messaging add-on; without it, the assistant can only be switched off. Switching it on also turns on Answer Phone Calls, unless you already chose otherwise for your phone.

In the app, changes are kept on the screen until you press Save at the bottom. Leave with unsaved changes and the app asks before it discards them.

Check and test your setupCopy a link to this section

Under Check & Test Your Setup:

• The Setup Checklist lists what the assistant relies on (services, staff, time zone, business hours, checkout, a number to text from, and a phone to hand callers to). Each line is marked Ready, Check or Missing, says why, and has a Fix This link to the page where you fix it. In the app, the sending number opens the native Numbers screen; the rest open the dashboard page inside the app. Anything the assistant will not offer until a line is fixed is listed underneath, with the line it needs.
• Try It lets you have the conversation a client would: type a question, press Ask, read the answer and keep going. Nothing is sent and no credits are spent. When the answer would have booked, moved or cancelled something, or texted a link, it says so under the reply, and that none of it happened. Start Over clears the conversation.

The everyday settingsCopy a link to this section

Each group folds open:

• Where & When to Answer: the channels (web chat, email, SMS), the daily reply cap for web chat, whether it answers always or only outside business hours, and how long it waits for your team first.
• Phone Calls: Record Phone Calls, Answer Phone Calls, what happens to a call outside your hours, the pace and delivery of the voice, Short Acknowledgements While Listening, and Follow Up on Unanswered AI Calls.
• Personality & Name: its name, its tone (with a preview), the greeting it picks up the phone with and whether that greeting offers to book.
• Knowledge & Tasks: what it may do (book, move appointments, take waitlist requests and so on), whether it remembers clients, your instructions, and how clients book.
• Hand-offs & Follow-ups: how long it stays quiet after your team takes a conversation over, Follow Up On Unfinished Bookings and Offer One Add-On When Booking.
• Automatic Calls & Texts: confirmation calls, waitlist offers, missed-call texts and callbacks, and deposit-hold reminders. See Automatic confirmation calls and callbacks.
• Activity & Improvements: the Monday digest. See Your receptionist's weekly digest.

What stays on the webCopy a link to this section

The app's More Settings on the Web row opens the full dashboard page for the rest: the phone voice and custom voices (Choose your receptionist's voice), pronunciations, Q&A notes and their suggestions, the questions it could not answer, who calls are transferred to (Transfer a call to a team member), quiet hours for its own calls, the activity report, AI models and MCP servers.