COMPARE THE OPTIONS
Four ways to answer your phone. Here is the honest arithmetic.
Nobody buys an AI receptionist because they love AI. They buy it because the current way of answering the phone is failing in a specific, measurable way. These pages set out what each option is genuinely good at, including the two places where we would tell you not to buy from us.
What are the alternatives to an AI receptionist?
There are four practical ways to handle inbound calls: in-house reception staff, an outsourced human answering service, an IVR menu with voicemail, or an AI voice agent. In-house reception is best for complex, emotional and in-person work but cannot cover nights, weekends or simultaneous calls. Human answering services provide out-of-hours cover but usually take a message rather than completing the task, and charge per call or per minute. IVR and voicemail are cheap and scale infinitely but resolve nothing. An AI voice agent answers every call at once, completes routine tasks inside your own systems at a flat cost, and escalates the rest to a human. Most businesses end up with a combination rather than one option.
THE SPECIFICATION
Connectivity, speed, accuracy, cost.
The four things that decide this, set out as a specification rather than a sales pitch. Where a competitor wins, the row will say so once the figures are in.
Any
telephone system
If it can forward a call, we answer it. No new provider, no porting, no hardware.
ms
response latency
Below roughly a second a conversation stops feeling like a machine. Send me the measured figure.
%
task accuracy
Measured on your own scripted test calls before go-live, not on a vendor benchmark.
Flat
all-inclusive pricing
One capacity price with integrations and set-up included. Your busiest month costs the same as your quietest.
| CAPABILITY | Prime Assist AI voice infrastructure |
Voice AI vendor A
NAME
|
Voice AI vendor B
NAME
|
Traditional call centre Outsourced human agents |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CONNECTIVITY | ||||
| Works with your existing phone system Landline, PBX, SIP trunk or cloud | Any system that can forward a call | COMPETITOR A |
COMPETITOR B |
You divert your line to their centre |
| Hardware to buy or install | None | COMPETITOR A |
COMPETITOR B |
None |
| Number porting required to start | No, a divert is enough | COMPETITOR A |
COMPETITOR B |
No |
| Named integrations that read and write Diaries, CRM, clinical and job systems | 59 live and in progress | COMPETITOR A |
COMPETITOR B |
Rarely, message taking only |
| Time to go live | Days to weeks | COMPETITOR A |
COMPETITOR B |
Days |
| PERFORMANCE | ||||
| Response latency Milliseconds from caller finishing to reply |
OUR LATENCY: ms
|
COMPETITOR A |
COMPETITOR B |
Human, plus hold time |
| Task accuracy on your own call types Measured on your scripted test set |
OUR ACCURACY: %
|
COMPETITOR A |
COMPETITOR B |
AGENT ACCURACY: % |
| Calls answered at the same time | Unlimited | COMPETITOR A |
COMPETITOR B |
Limited to agents on shift |
| Hours covered | 24 / 7 / 365, bank holidays included | COMPETITOR A |
COMPETITOR B |
Contracted hours, premium out of hours |
| Audited to a clinical safety standard NHS DCB0129, named Clinical Safety Officer | Yes | COMPETITOR A |
COMPETITOR B |
Rarely |
| UK or EU data residency written into contract | Yes | COMPETITOR A |
COMPETITOR B |
VARIES BY PROVIDER |
| COMMERCIALS | ||||
| Pricing model | Flat capacity, all inclusive | Commonly per minute | Commonly per minute | Per call or per minute |
| Cost in your busiest month | Unchanged | Rises with volume | Rises with volume | Rises with volume |
| Integration and set-up fees | Included in the quote | COMPETITOR A |
COMPETITOR B |
Set-up plus per-agent briefing |
| Charged for calls it could not complete | No | COMPETITOR A |
COMPETITOR B |
Yes, the call is still billable |
| Indicative monthly cost, like for like Same call volume, same hours |
OUR PRICE: £/month
|
COMPETITOR A: £ |
COMPETITOR B: £ |
CALL CENTRE: £ |
Where the saving actually comes from
Not a lower hourly rate. Traditional call centres and answering services bill per call or per minute, so your bill peaks in the month your marketing works. We charge for capacity, once, with integrations and set-up included, so the cost of answering your thousandth call is nil.
Put your own numbers through the calculatorWhy some cells are blank
Where we have not independently measured or verified a figure, we leave it out rather than estimate it. That applies to our own latency and accuracy numbers exactly as it does to our competitors’, which is why you will not find either quoted here. See the full comparisons
The detailed comparisons
AI receptionist vs human answering service
Message taking versus task completion, and what per-minute pricing really costs at volume.
Read the comparisonAI receptionist vs hiring a receptionist
Where a person is irreplaceable, and where asking them to be a queue is the real waste.
Read the comparisonAI receptionist vs IVR and voicemail
Press one for frustration. Why menu trees measure well internally and fail callers.
Read the comparisonHow to choose between AI voice agents
Twelve questions to ask any vendor, including the ones we find uncomfortable.
Read the buyer guideWHEN NOT TO BUY FROM US
Two situations where we are the wrong answer.
Your calls are mostly emotional or consultative
Bereavement services, crisis support, complex sales that hinge on rapport. If almost every call needs judgement and empathy from the first second, an AI receptionist is a thin layer of value. Hire well instead.
You have no system to write into
If your diary is a paper book and your customer records are in someone head, most of the value evaporates. Fix that first, even with a free calendar, and then talk to us.
We would rather lose a sale than deploy into a business where this will not work. It is cheaper for both of us.
QUESTIONS
Questions buyers actually ask.
Ask us something elseIs an AI receptionist cheaper than a human answering service?
Usually at volume, because AI voice agents are priced on capacity rather than per call or per minute. A service charging per minute becomes more expensive exactly when your business gets busier. Compare on cost per completed task rather than cost per call.
Will an AI receptionist annoy my customers?
It depends entirely on whether it completes the task. Callers dislike menu trees and hold music. Being answered on the first ring by something that books the appointment and confirms by text rates far better than waiting nine minutes to speak to a person.
Should I use AI and humans together?
Almost always yes. The strongest configuration is AI on first answer for every call, with immediate escalation to your team for anything urgent, emotional or unusual. Your people stop being a queue.
How do I know if it will handle my calls?
Take a week of call reasons and sort them into routine, judgement-needed and emergency. The routine column is what an AI voice agent should take. If that column is under a fifth of your volume, be sceptical of any vendor promising transformation.
What should I ask a voice AI vendor?
Where the data is hosted, who is accountable for safety, what happens on escalation, whether it writes into your systems or just emails you, what happens when it does not understand, and whether pricing rises with call volume. Our buyer guide lists twelve.
START WHERE YOU ARE COMFORTABLE
Three ways to test us. Only one of them involves talking to a human.
Buying voice AI on a slide deck is how people end up with something that fails on the first awkward caller. So we made the product itself the easiest thing to try, and put the commitment in your hands rather than ours.
Hear it for yourself, right now
Ring the line and talk to Prime Assist the way one of your callers would. Ask it to book you in, then try to catch it out. No form, no email address, no follow-up call from us.
Call +44 20 3747 7785We do not capture your number. Nothing happens afterwards.
Put a number on your missed calls
Enter your call volume and average job or appointment value. You get the arithmetic on what the unanswered ones are costing you, with the methodology shown so you can challenge it.
Run my numbersEmail only if you want the full report sent over.
Watch it handle your calls
Bring the three calls that waste the most of your team’s day. We run them live, in your sector’s language, and tell you honestly which ones we would not take. Five fields to book.
Book a demoNo card, no sales sequence, one human reply.
Most people do all three, in that order, and it costs them about twenty minutes in total. We would rather you tested the product than read our claims about it.
- DCB0129 audited
- UK or EU hosted
- Cancel any time
Compare us against your current setup, not a slide.
Bring last week call log. We will tell you which calls we would take and which we would not.
HEAR IT FIRST
Call +44 20 3747 7785 and put Prime Assist through its paces before you book anything.