AI Front Desk for Small Business
You can't answer every call and run the business.
Frontly picks up 24/7, books the job, and captures the lead while you work.
HEAR IT FOR YOURSELF
Hear it book a customer now
Call our AI agent right now. It will handle a job inquiry, just like it would for your business. No signup required.
- Frontly
Thanks for calling. You have reached the front desk. How can I help?
- Caller
I found you online. Are you taking new customers?
- Frontly
We are. I can book a first visit, and the team will confirm the quote with you before any work starts.
- Caller
Can you do Friday? Mornings are better for me.
- Frontly
Friday at 9 in the morning is open. Can I take your name and the best number?
- Caller
Hana, and this number is fine.
- Frontly
Thanks Hana. Friday at 9, first visit, new customer. It is in the diary and the owner sees it the moment they check their phone.
- Name
- Hana
- Type
- First visit, new customer
- Time
- Friday, 9:00 AM
- Escalated
- No
Your script, your appointment types and your escalation rules are set during setup.
The short answer
What is Frontly for small business?
Frontly is an AI virtual receptionist and answering service for small businesses. It answers every call 24 hours a day in your business name, captures the job and the caller's details, and books the appointment during the call, landing everything in your Frontly dashboard so you never lose work to a missed call. Live in about an hour.
THE PROBLEM
The Best Job You Lost Was the One You Didn't Answer
21x
more likely to win the job if you respond to the inquiry within 5 minutes
Source: Harvard Business Review
On a job.
Plumbers, electricians, cleaners and local service businesses miss calls all day because they are doing the work they already have. Those callers don't leave voicemails. They call your competitor.
Instant
Frontly answers the moment the call comes in. Every job captured before the caller moves on.
HOW IT WORKS
Live in About an Hour. Built Around Your Business.
Connect Your Phone
Forward your existing business number or get a dedicated AI number. No hardware. Works with your existing cell phone or landline.
We Build Your Workflow
Our team configures Frontly around your service types, job intake process, and how you like to handle new callers, whether you run a plumbing business, a salon, or any local service.
Go Live
Frontly answers every call, captures job details, takes bookings, and escalates the urgent ones while you stay focused on the work in front of you.
Connect Your Phone
Forward your existing business number or get a dedicated AI number. No hardware. Works with your existing cell phone or landline.
We Build Your Workflow
Our team configures Frontly around your service types, job intake process, and how you like to handle new callers, whether you run a plumbing business, a salon, or any local service.
Go Live
Frontly answers every call, captures job details, takes bookings, and escalates the urgent ones while you stay focused on the work in front of you.
WHAT FRONTLY HANDLES
Every Customer Call, Handled
Frontly answers while you are busy on a job, and answers all of them at once when three people call in the same five minutes. Every job is captured in your Frontly dashboard, with nothing to integrate.
New customer calls
Answers in your business name, captures who is calling and what they need, and logs the lead in your Frontly dashboard so nothing slips while you are working.
Job and appointment booking
Checks your availability and books the job or appointment during the call, ready for you the moment you finish what you are doing.
Price and availability questions
Answers the questions you have given it answers to, such as call-out areas, lead times and what you do and do not take on, without interrupting you.
Existing-customer calls
Handles rebookings, status questions, and callback requests without pulling you off the job you are already on.
After-hours and overflow
Answers nights, weekends, and the calls you cannot when you are already busy, so every caller is captured instead of lost to voicemail.
Visual Workflow Builder
A Front Office Before You Can Justify Hiring One
We Build It For You
Our team maps the handful of calls that actually repeat in your business and scripts the AI to finish them, so you are not configuring anything yourself.
Start With Two Call Types
You do not need to automate everything. Pick the two calls that interrupt you most and get those off your plate first.
Sound Like a Real Business
Answered in your business name, on the first ring, with consistent answers. That alone changes how a new customer sizes you up.
You Still Get the Important Ones
You decide which calls reach your cell phone immediately and which wait for the end of the job.
Change It Yourself
Adjust hours, questions or what gets escalated as the business grows, without waiting on us.
Cross-Call Memory
Your AI Remembers Your Regulars
- Returning customers recognized the moment they call
- Previous jobs and orders recalled automatically
- No regular customer explaining who they are again
- Full history on every caller you have dealt with before
Frontly Dashboard
Everything That Came In While You Were Working
One Place, Not Five
Calls, bookings and questions land in your Frontly dashboard instead of being spread across voicemail, texts and a notepad in the van.
Full Transcript on Every Call
Exactly what the customer asked for, so you quote the right thing the first time.
Alerts for the Ones That Matter
Configure a text so a genuinely urgent or high-value call reaches you straight away.
Cross-call History at a Glance
Every previous call from that customer, in one place.
Check It Between Jobs
See the day at a glance without stopping what you are doing.
Outbound calling, and deploying Frontly into your own cloud, are enterprise capabilities scoped with our team. See enterprise
See all featuresWHAT USUALLY DECIDES IT
The three questions that come up every time
A real person, whenever the caller wants one
Every workflow can hand the call to you, or whoever is covering the phone that day. The transfer carries a spoken briefing, so your team picks up already knowing who is calling and why. The caller never has to explain themselves twice, which is usually the moment a good call turns into a complaint.
More than one language, on the same number
Frontly answers in more than one language on your existing number. A small business almost never has the headcount to keep a second language on the desk, so those callers have simply been going elsewhere.
A four-person physical therapy and massage clinic runs Frontly in English and Mandarin today. They had been trying to hire a receptionist fluent in both, at a wage the clinic could justify. Instead of hiring, they went live with Frontly connected to their practice software.
Flat monthly rate, with the meter switched off
No per-minute billing, no per-call fee, and no cap on how many questions the AI is allowed to answer. Your busiest month does not produce your largest invoice, and adding another topic to its knowledge does not add a line to the bill. See pricing for the current rates.
ANSWERING SERVICE OR AI
Is an answering service or an AI receptionist better for a small business?
An answering service charges per call to take a message. An AI receptionist charges a flat monthly rate to finish the job. For a small business the second one matters most in the month you get busy, because that is exactly when a per-call bill grows and a flat one does not.
Where a staffed answering service still wins
A human voice on every single call. Some businesses trade on that, and for them the premium is worth it. A good operator also improvises around the odd request in a way a configured workflow will not.
Where Frontly wins
Most small business calls are the same handful of questions plus a request to book something. Frontly handles those at any hour, answers ten at once if ten come in at once, and puts the job in your dashboard rather than in a message you read later.
Most businesses end up running one or the other rather than both. If you are weighing it up properly, the full cost and capability breakdown is in Frontly against a virtual receptionist.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
KEEP EXPLORING
Keep exploring Frontly for Small Business
Go deeper on the capabilities, comparisons, and guides that matter most.
24/7 inbound answering
How Frontly answers every call, qualifies the caller, and books the job in your dashboard.
How inbound worksYour call flow, your rules
What the agent asks, what it books on the spot, and what gets a human woken up. Built with you before you go live.
See the workflow builderAfter-hours answering
You cannot answer at night and neither can voicemail. See how after-hours calls are handled for you.
See after-hoursReady to Stop Missing Jobs?
Set up your AI front desk in about an hour and let it answer while you work.