Built to do the things other “AI receptionists” hand back to you
Most products in this space either take a message, play a menu, or hand out a booking link. ParlioTec was designed from the start to complete the job on the call — with your team, your rules and your tools.
Side by side
| Capability | ParlioTec | Answering service | Phone system / IVR | Chatbot-only AI | Booking-link tools |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Answers 24/7 in a natural British voice | ✓ | Business hours / cost per minute | Menus only | — | — |
| Books into Google / Outlook by your rules (length, grid, travel gap) | ✓ | Takes a message | — | ◐ | Fixed slots |
| Tenant-created service types with their own durations | ✓ | — | — | — | ◐ |
| Pooled availability across a team of engineers + auto-assignment | ✓ | — | — | — | ◐ |
| Books into your scheduling tool (ServiceM8, webhook) | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Day/week schedule board with a lane per engineer | ✓ | — | — | — | ◐ |
| Warm transfer with a spoken briefing to your staff | ✓ | ◐ | Cold only | — | — |
| Emergency handling: on-call engineer or out-of-hours booking | ✓ | ◐ | — | — | — |
| Calendar events carry the full job brief + link to the recording | ✓ | — | — | — | ◐ |
| SMS, WhatsApp and web chat from the same assistant | ✓ | — | — | ◐ | — |
| Compliant AI call-backs with the resolution in hand | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Natural-language analytics + AI business advisor | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Transcript & recording search to the exact moment | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Live listen / whisper / take-over from the dashboard | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Grounded in-app help: ask how to do anything, jump to the setting | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| UK data handling, consent, redaction, retention, audit | ✓ | ◐ | ◐ | ◐ | ◐ |
✓ included · ◐ partial or add-on · — not offered. Categories describe typical products in each class, not any named vendor; check individual providers for their current features.
Twelve things you will struggle to find elsewhere
Booking rules the tenant owns
Slot length, on-the-hour or half-past grid, business hours with finish-by-close, travel gap, notice period, horizon and an emergency exception — set in the dashboard, enforced on every call. Booking-link tools give you fixed slots; message-taking AI doesn't book at all.
Service types you define
Create “Boiler service – 90 min”, “Repair – 60 min”, “Quote – 30 min”. The assistant asks which, books that length and puts the service in the calendar title.
A real team, not one diary
Engineers with skills, areas, shifts and their own calendar. Pooled availability means the caller hears the earliest slot anyone suitable has; assignment is least-loaded, round-robin, nearest or preferred. The Schedule board shows every lane.
Your scheduling tool as the source of truth
Switch the backend to ServiceM8 or a signed webhook into your own system: availability comes from it, jobs are created in it, and the calendar isn't touched.
Calendar events an engineer can act on
Title “Service – Name”, phone, address (as the location), what the caller described, caller ID and a link straight to the recording and transcript.
Warm transfers that actually brief the human
Your staff hear who's calling and why before the caller is bridged; departments have descriptions that steer routing; the human leg can be recorded and measured.
Booking-first when it sounds urgent
“No hot water” is an appointment, not an emergency. Unless the tenant marks it so, the assistant offers the earliest slot — and asks before sending anyone to the on-call engineer.
One assistant across voice, text and web
The same knowledge and rules answer the phone, SMS, WhatsApp and the website widget — with in-page voice, so a visitor can talk without dialling.
Analytics you can talk to
Ask in English, get a chart. Then the AI Advisor turns patterns into recommendations you can apply with one click, and a weekly digest lands in the owner's inbox.
Quality you can prove
Every call QA-scored, every conversation searchable to the second, regression tests run before you publish a change, and a simulator to try callers against a draft.
Help that knows your screens
“Can I block anonymous callers?” → “Yes — Assistant Studio → Call screening → tick Reject withheld…” with a chip that opens that exact section.
UK-first, owner-controlled
Consent, redaction, retention, GDPR export/delete, audit, 2FA, approvals. Platform owners set plan caps and entitlements per tenant; agencies white-label the lot.
Don't take our word for it — talk to the demo assistant and ask it to book a boiler service on a specific morning.
Stop losing the calls you paid to get.
Set up in an afternoon. Free trial on every plan, no card needed. Keep your number, your calendar and your team's way of working.