Compare
A brain, or an answering service.
An answering service takes the call and takes a message. A brain answers the question, in your words, and hands the conversation to your team when someone is ready.
| Compared on | Answering service | A brain |
|---|---|---|
| What the visitor experiences | Talking to someone reading a script | A conversation with your best person's brain, spoken or typed |
| How the conversation goes | A message taken, a few questions answered | It listens, asks what it needs to, and answers the way your best person would |
| Answers questions | Some | Yes, from what you've approved |
| Where answers come from | A script and the operator's judgment | Only the sources approved with you |
| When a question is outside its remit | Takes a message | Says so, and the question reaches your team with the conversation |
| After hours | Yes, by shift | Yes, at any hour |
| What your team receives | A message | The whole conversation: what they asked, what they were told, what still needs a person |
| Best for | Phone-first businesses that need triage | Important questions your best people answer every week |
Categories, not product reviews. Features vary by product and change over time.
What it does well
Phone-first businesses that need a person to pick up and triage, especially in emergencies.
Using both
Keep the service for calls that need a person at once. The brain answers the questions that don't, at any hour, and your team receives the whole conversation.
When it is enough on its own
If most of your inquiries arrive by phone and need triage more than answers.
When a brain fits
- The same important questions reach your best people every week, often outside working hours.
- A slow or wrong answer costs you the person asking.
- The answers change with your business, and you want to govern them.
Tell us who needs to reach you, and what it should answer first.
Four fields to start. A person reads it, and you hear back within two business days.