# AI phone assistant for service businesses

Source: https://terminio.ai/en/branchen/service-businesses/ai-phone-assistant

AI phone assistant for service businesses: answers while you're at the machine or out with a customer, checks free slots and books. German number, 200 minutes included.

Answers while you're at the machine or out with a customer, checks free slots and writes the booking in.

An AI phone assistant for service businesses answers calls while you're at the machine or out with a customer: it asks which service, checks free slots live and books straight into your calendar. At terminio.ai it is part of Pro Voice, with a German phone number and 200 call minutes, no setup fee, set up in about ten minutes.

## One call. And you stay on the job.

- Booked online, booked by phone: one calendar. Many customers would rather book in the evening through your link: fitting, key cut or bike service, a time, no account. Whoever would rather call gets the assistant. Both sit in the same calendar a minute later, for you and anyone who helps out.
- Prices on the phone. Payment at booking. If someone asks for a price, the assistant tells them, if you allow it, or says it depends on the work. If a service has a price, customers booking online can pay it right away through Stripe; anyone who would rather pay on site books without payment.
- Picks up when both hands are busy. At the machine, out with a customer, after hours: the assistant answers with your business name, around the clock, in German. It books, moves and cancels appointments straight in your calendar. Anything else it takes as a callback request, with name and number.
- Booked by phone, confirmed on WhatsApp. An appointment the assistant books runs like every online booking: WhatsApp confirmation straight away, a reminder before the appointment, from your number, in your words. The caller writes nothing down, and Thursday's fitting actually happens.
- It knows who is free when. The assistant looks live into your calendar: your hours, everyone else's hours, twenty minutes for a fitting, thirty for a dress. If a regular asks for the person they know, it tries to book exactly her. The system prevents the same slot from being given out twice.
- Every call in the app. After every call the summary sits in the app: outcome, duration, call-back request. Callbacks land in their own list. The web app shows the same picture everywhere; apps for iPhone and Android and a smartwatch app are coming soon.

## Common questions

**What happens when the phone rings and I'm at the machine?** You don't pick up, and after the ring the AI phone assistant takes over. It answers with your business name, asks what it's about, checks free slots and writes the appointment in. You read the summary in the app once your hands are free again.

**I'm self-employed with no front desk. Isn't this too big for me?** No, that's where it fits. The AI phone assistant for service businesses is the front desk a small business doesn't otherwise have. If you work alone, every call you can't take is lost. The assistant takes it, books or notes a callback. You decide when it steps in: always, only when you don't pick up, or outside opening hours.

**How does it know what I offer and how long it takes?** It knows your services with duration and price, just as you set them up: fitting twenty minutes, trouser hem fifteen, bike service, puppy course, pick-up. It understands the request, only asks for what's still missing, and only offers times that are actually free in the calendar.

**Do I need a new number for the AI phone assistant?** No. You get a German phone number from terminio, your existing one stays on the shop door, the website and Google. You only set up call forwarding, for instance for when you don't pick up. On the Pro Voice plan the number is included, with 200 call minutes a month.

**What does it do with questions it can't answer?** If someone asks whether the jacket can be collected on Saturday or whether you have a particular bike part in stock, it passes the call to you. If you can't be reached, it takes name, number and request. That lands in the app under your callbacks, with a push notification, so you call back once the customer has gone.

**Does it answer in the evening and at weekends too?** Yes. The AI phone assistant for small service businesses has no opening hours. Evenings, Sundays, public holidays: it knows the shop is closed, doesn't refer callers to you and still books the fitting for Tuesday. German with an accent is no problem, and with a strong dialect it politely asks the caller to repeat.

**What does an AI phone assistant cost?** On the market, between roughly 30 € and several hundred euros a month, depending on whether billing is per minute, per call or a flat rate, and whether the phone number costs extra. At terminio.ai the AI phone assistant for service businesses is included in Pro Voice: 129.99 € a month, German number and 200 call minutes included, every further minute 0.25 €. No setup fee, cancel monthly.

**Is there a free AI phone assistant?** A permanently free one hardly exists, because the phone number and the call minutes cost the provider money. What does exist is a free start: at terminio.ai you begin on Free without payment details, with a booking page, a calendar and the app. The AI phone assistant for service businesses comes with Pro Voice, with no setup fee and no minimum term, cancel monthly.

**What can an AI phone assistant do?** It answers while you're at the machine or out with a customer, greets callers with the name of your business and deals with the request: it asks which service, checks free slots in your calendar, books, moves and cancels. It knows how long an appointment takes and only offers gaps that fit. Anything it shouldn't handle it forwards to you or takes down as a callback with name, number and reason. After every call there is a summary in the app.


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terminio.ai is online appointment booking for small businesses with WhatsApp reminders and an AI phone assistant, from €0 a month. Database in the EU (Frankfurt); some service providers, for example for telephony and voice AI, also in the USA under standard contractual clauses. Provider: terminio.ai UG (haftungsbeschränkt), Richard-Goldberg-Str. 15B, 02779 Großschönau, Germany, commercial register Amtsgericht Dresden HRB 48484, represented by Antonia Müller. Contact: legal@terminio.ai. [Legal notice](https://terminio.ai/legal/imprint) · [Privacy](https://terminio.ai/legal/privacy)
