Teddy's AI receptionist answers calls you'd otherwise miss — after hours, when you're with a pet, on the other line, or just out of the shop. It talks to callers in a natural voice, figures out what they need, collects the right info, and drops a neatly categorized record into your Calls page. You decide what to do with each call when you have a minute.
This article is a tour of how it actually works — from the moment a call comes in to the record you see in Teddy afterward.
The AI receptionist is a voice agent that picks up phone calls on your behalf. In one call, it can:
Greet the caller by your business name
Figure out why they're calling (book an appointment, ask about pricing, check on their pet, etc.)
Answer common questions about your services, pricing, hours, and location
Collect the caller's name, pet info, and what they're hoping to book
Log the whole conversation — recording, transcript, and an AI-written summary — on your Calls page
Trigger an automatic follow-up text (the After Call Text) right after the call ends
What it does not do: book the appointment directly onto your calendar, or even post a booking request into Pipeline. The AI doesn't write anything to your schedule — it only records the information from the call on the Calls page. The way a caller ends up as a booking is through the After Call Text that Teddy sends them right after the call wraps up. If you've added your online booking link to that text message template, the caller taps it, completes the booking on your portal, and that request shows up in Pipeline → Online Booking Requests for you to approve. The AI is a front desk, not a scheduler — the booking link in your follow-up text is what converts a call into a booking.
The AI doesn't make things up — it answers from the business information you've already set up inside Teddy. Specifically:
Business Name, Address, Phone, Hours from Settings → Business
Services, prices, and descriptions from Settings → Service
Staff members from Settings → Staff
Online booking URL from Settings → Online Booking — this is the link the AI texts callers who want to book
Your client list from Clients & Pets — used to recognize returning callers by phone number
The practical takeaway: the AI is only as accurate as your settings. If your service prices are out of date, it will quote out-of-date prices. If your hours are wrong, it will give wrong hours. Before you hook up the AI receptionist, make sure your Business, Service, and Online Booking settings are all current.
A typical call goes something like this:
Greeting. The AI answers with your business name and asks how it can help.
New or returning check. Early in the call, the AI asks the caller whether they're an existing client or a new client. This determines how the rest of the call goes — for new clients, it collects full pet + owner details; for existing clients, it focuses on what they need this time.
Intent detection. It listens to the caller's reason for calling and decides which category the call falls into — booking, pricing question, general inquiry, or something out of scope.
Information gathering. It asks for the caller's name and — if there's a pet involved — the pet's name, type, and breed, plus whatever else is relevant to the reason for the call.
Resolution. Depending on intent:
Booking requests → it captures everything needed for a booking and tells the caller you'll follow up
Service/pricing questions → it answers from your Service catalog
General questions → it answers from your Business info (hours, address, etc.)
Out-of-scope requests (e.g., services you don't offer) → it politely explains and offers to pass the message along
Direct-to-human → if the caller insists on speaking to a person, the AI logs it as such so you know to call back
Wrap-up. It confirms what it's done, thanks the caller, and ends the call.
Logging. The call record appears on your Calls page within a minute or so, with a category label, AI summary, recording, and full transcript.
After Call Text. If you have the After Call Text auto message turned on, the caller gets a follow-up text right away. This is where your online booking link lives — the caller taps it, finishes booking themselves, and that request lands in your Pipeline.
The AI is trained to gather the information that makes a callback or follow-up productive. Typical questions include:
Caller's name
Phone number — usually captured automatically from caller ID
Pet's name
Pet type (dog, cat, etc.) and breed
What service they're looking for (bath, full groom, tidy trim, etc.)
Rough timing — what day or week they'd like to come in
Whether they've visited before — helps the AI match them against your existing client list
Any special notes — behavior concerns, vet requirements, etc.
You'll see all of this in the View Details modal on the call card, under the Pet Info section and in the AI Summary.
Simple: it just asks. Early in the call, the AI asks the caller directly whether they're an existing client or a new client. There's no phone-number lookup or fancy matching logic — the caller tells the AI, and the AI branches the rest of the conversation based on what they say.
Existing client → the AI keeps the call focused on what they need this time (rebooking, a question, a status update). It doesn't re-collect their whole history.
New client → the AI collects the full rundown: caller's name, pet's name, pet type, breed, and everything else needed for you to follow up properly.
This is why it matters that the AI only answers missed calls. If an existing client calls and you pick up, they get you — the person they already know — instead of a voice agent asking them to re-explain who they are. The AI is a backstop for when you genuinely can't get to the phone, not a first-line filter in front of your existing relationships. For a returning client, "let it ring to the AI" is usually the wrong move; for a brand-new caller after hours, it's exactly the right one.
Every call the AI handles creates a permanent record in Teddy. For each call, you get:
A call card on the Calls page with category, duration, caller info, and a short AI summary
A full recording of the audio, playable in the Call Details modal
A time-stamped transcript of the whole conversation, alternating between "AGENT" (the AI) and the caller's phone number
An AI summary — a paragraph-length plain-English description of what the call was about and what was resolved
Category tags — one or more of: Scheduling & Availability, Service & Pricing Inquiries, Out-of-Scope Services, Direct-to-Human Requests, Other
Client linkage — if the caller matched an existing client, the call appears in that client's history
Nothing from a call is posted externally or shared with third parties — it lives inside your Teddy account, viewable only by you and anyone you've added as staff.
Connecting the AI receptionist is a call-forwarding setup, not a phone-number port. You keep your existing business number; the AI just answers when you can't.
The high-level steps:
Get your Teddy AI number. Teddy provisions a dedicated phone number for your AI receptionist when you enable the feature. If you don't see it, reach out to Alex directly — this is usually set up during onboarding.
Forward your business line to that number. On most phones and most carriers, you dial a short code (often *72 followed by the forwarding number to turn it on, and *73 to turn it off — but this varies by carrier). Check your carrier's documentation for the exact code.
Set up conditional forwarding, not unconditional. You want calls forwarded only when you don't answer — not every call. Carriers usually call this "Forward When Busy / No Answer / Unreachable." This way your phone rings first, and the AI only picks up if you miss it.
Make a test call. Call your business number from a different phone, let it ring, and confirm the AI answers. Then hang up and verify the call appears on your Calls page within a minute.
If you're on a VoIP system (Google Voice, RingCentral, Grasshopper, etc.), the forwarding setup is done in that provider's admin panel instead of on your physical phone. Most providers let you set business hours and fallback rules, so you can have calls go to you first and to the AI after three rings or outside business hours.
If you ever want to stop routing calls to the AI — whether temporarily (you're in the shop all day) or permanently — you disable the forwarding on your end.
On a mobile phone, dial the carrier's "disable forwarding" code. On most US carriers that's *73. Some carriers also let you toggle forwarding in the phone's Settings → Phone → Call Forwarding menu.
On a VoIP system, go to your provider's admin panel and turn off the forwarding rule that points to the Teddy AI number.
On the Teddy side, the AI number stays provisioned — you're not deleting it, just not sending calls to it. You can turn forwarding back on anytime without re-setup.
If you want the AI permanently removed from your account, contact Alex to deprovision the number.
This is worth saying on its own: the AI only picks up calls you don't answer. It's not a replacement for picking up the phone — it's a safety net for the calls you can't get to.
The way it works:
A client calls your business number
Your phone rings
If you answer, the AI never gets involved — it's a normal human conversation and nothing is logged on the Calls page (calls you answer yourself show up as "Incoming" with a Received label, not as AI calls)
If you don't answer (you're busy, phone is on silent, you're with a pet), the call forwards to the AI number and the AI picks up
This design is intentional, and it ties back to the "current vs new customer" point above: existing clients should reach you first whenever possible. They already know you, they have context you don't have to re-collect, and the relationship is better preserved by a quick "hey, can I call you back in 10?" from you than by a voice agent asking them to identify themselves. The AI exists to catch the calls you'd otherwise lose — not to insert itself between you and the people who already trust you.
Every call on the Calls page with a category label is a call you would have missed. That's literally how the "time saved" stat at the top of the page gets calculated — it's the cumulative duration of all the calls the AI handled instead of sending to voicemail.
Tip: Spend 10 minutes in your first week listening back to 3–5 recordings. You'll quickly hear how the AI handles your specific callers — which questions it nails, where it sounds off, and whether your service descriptions need to be clearer. Small tweaks to your Service catalog and Business info go a long way toward making the AI sound like it really knows your shop.
