AI Receptionist Configuration Checklist

Before Ava answers a single live call, walk this AI receptionist setup checklist end to end. The point is simple: the phone should sound like your shop, sort a trapped car from a next-morning tune-up, and hand you a clean summary every time. Miss one setting and you'll hear about it — a booked window that clashes with your route, a caller who got the wrong price range, an emergency that sat in an inbox till 8 AM.

This is a done-for-you setup, live in under 24 hours. But the settings below are yours to confirm. Print it, check each box, and don't sign off on go-live until every line is done.

Hours, coverage, and the basics

Get the frame right first. Everything else hangs on it.

[ ] Business name, spelled and pronounced the way you say it out loud.
[ ] Service area — the ZIPs and cities you actually run, plus the ones you refuse.
[ ] Business hours vs. after-hours (the split that changes the greeting and the triage).
[ ] 24/7 answering confirmed on — nights, weekends, holidays.
[ ] Existing shop number forwarded to Ava (conditional or all-calls — see your carrier steps in the call forwarding setup guide).
[ ] Caller ID / whisper so you know it's a lead before you pick up a transfer.
[ ] Time zone set correctly (matters for summary timestamps and booking windows).

Greetings and voice

The first four seconds decide whether a caller stays or dials your competitor.

[ ] Daytime greeting recorded and approved.
[ ] After-hours greeting approved (calmer, emergency-aware).
[ ] Storm or surge greeting on standby for the weeks you'll need it.
[ ] Company tagline or promise, if you use one, worded exactly right.
[ ] Spanish-language handling set to your preference (capture, phrase bank, or callback).

Steal openings from the greeting library instead of writing them cold — it's got daypart and storm-mode versions ready to drop in.

Triage thresholds

This is where the money is. Define what a real emergency is for your shop, in plain terms.

[ ] Emergency definition set: car trapped, door off track blocking the only exit, broken spring on a door that won't move.
[ ] Non-emergency examples set: noisy opener, slow door, cosmetic dents, "sometime this week."
[ ] Dispatch trigger — what pushes a call to on-call right now vs. a morning callback.
[ ] Safety warning script confirmed ("don't touch the door, don't try to force it").
[ ] Overnight cutoff — the hour after which only true emergencies wake someone.

On-call and escalation

Ava answers. A human still turns the wrench. Make the handoff bulletproof.

[ ] Primary on-call contact (name, cell, text or call preference).
[ ] Backup contact if the first doesn't answer in X minutes.
[ ] Escalation window — how long before it rolls to backup.
[ ] Weekend / holiday rotation reflected in the contacts (swap this weekly, not once).
[ ] "Do not disturb unless true emergency" rule honored for the owner's cell.

Pricing and answers

Callers ask "how much?" first. Decide how Ava frames it — honestly, without quoting a firm number sight unseen.

[ ] Price-range framing for common jobs (spring repair, opener install, tune-up).
[ ] Diagnostic or trip-fee stance ("we quote on site" vs. a flat visit fee).
[ ] Warranty call handling — how to route callbacks vs. new billable work.
[ ] Top FAQ answers loaded (springs, openers, timing, brands you carry).
[ ] Off-limits topics flagged — anything you want a human to handle, not the AI.

Load your answers from the FAQ call bank so Ava's spoken responses match how you'd actually say them.

Booking and scheduling

A captured lead you can't schedule cleanly is half a lead.

[ ] Service window length set (2-hour, half-day — whatever your board runs on).
[ ] Booking pushed into the schedule your dispatcher actually watches.
[ ] Days and windows you never book (Sundays, holidays, your one day off).
[ ] Address and cross-street capture required on every booking.
[ ] Same-day vs. next-day rules for when the board is full.

Summaries and notifications

The whole reason you'll sleep better: nothing gets lost.

[ ] SMS summary to the owner after every call — number confirmed and tested.
[ ] Email summary format approved (name, phone, address, issue, urgency).
[ ] Who else gets the summary — dispatcher, backup, office manager.
[ ] Emergency summaries flagged so they don't blend into the routine ones.
[ ] Missed-detail rule: if a caller won't give an address, the summary says so plainly.

Test-call sign-off

Don't go live on faith. Call your own shop and try to break it.

[ ] Daytime routine call — booked correctly, summary landed.
[ ] After-hours emergency call — triaged as urgent, on-call notified.
[ ] After-hours non-emergency — queued for morning, no one woken.
[ ] Price-shopper call — range framed, lead still captured.
[ ] Spanish-language call — handled to your setting.
[ ] Bad-address call — flagged clearly in the summary.
[ ] Every summary checked for accuracy against what you actually said on the call.

Run the whole test-call block twice: once as a calm customer, once as a panicked one at 2 AM. If both come out clean, you're ready.

What this means for your shop

Forty settings sounds like a lot. It takes an afternoon, and you do most of it once. After that, Ava runs the phones the way your best CSR would on their best day — same hello every time, same triage logic, same clean handoff. The setup work above is what separates "the AI answered" from "the AI booked the job and I never touched the phone."

If you want the bigger picture on how an AI receptionist fits a garage door shop's day, read the pillar on an AI answering service for garage door companies, then come back and finish these boxes.

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