The problem
Staff working on accounts are pulled away all day by calls asking where to send records, when the office is open or what a sole trader return costs. If a practice gets 40 of those routine calls a week and each takes 4 minutes, that's about 172 calls and 11.5 hours a month of interruptions.
What the AI does
Aircall's AI Voice Agent answers calls, with or without an Aircall phone system. It answers questions from knowledge sources you give it, routes callers by what they need, books meetings and transfers callers to a person with the conversation details. Give it your office hours, how to send records, your published fee guide and general deadlines from GOV.UK. Anything about a client's own tax, accounts or HMRC letters goes to a person or becomes a call-back request.
A worked example
A five-person practice in Leicester gets about 150 calls a week, of which about 40 are routine. It routes those through Aircall's AI Voice Agent, at about 2 minutes of agent time each, and keeps a person on the line for clients asking about their own affairs.
Before
About 172 routine calls a month at 4 minutes of staff time each: 11.5 hours
After
About 172 routine calls a month handled by the agent; staff only pick up transfers and call-backs
What it's worth
About $458£344€409A$660C$647 a month in staff time, against about $169£127€151A$244C$239 to $173£130€155A$250C$244 for the AI Voice Agent. That is 172 routine calls a month (40 a week x 4.3) at 4 minutes, 688 minutes or about 11.5 hours, at an assumed $40£30€36A$58C$56 an hour. At about 2 minutes each the agent uses 344 minutes: $169£127€151A$244C$239 at $0.49£0.37€0.44A$0.71C$0.70 a minute pay as you go, or the 500-minute bundle at $173£130€155A$250C$244.
How to set it up
- List the routine questions reception actually gets for two weeks, and write a plain answer for each.
- Set up the AI Voice Agent with those answers, your fee guide and office hours, and check with Aircall how to route calls from your current phones.
- Tell it to transfer or take a call-back for anything about a client's own tax, accounts, HMRC letters or deadlines.
- Ring it with 20 test calls, including awkward ones, and fix any answer that strays into advice.
- Read the call records weekly for the first month and add answers it was missing.
What goes wrong
- It must not answer questions about a client's own affairs. A wrong answer about a deadline or a tax bill is the practice's problem, so keep it to general information.
- Callers' details are personal data under UK GDPR. Add the AI answering to your privacy notice and make sure callers know they are speaking to an AI.
- Minutes add up in January. At $0.49£0.37€0.44A$0.71C$0.70 a minute, a month of 1,000 agent minutes costs about $492£370€440A$710C$696 so check the bundles before the busy season.
- Some clients hang up on an automated voice. Check the call log for short calls and ring them back.