What an AI receptionist is
An AI receptionist is software that answers a business's phone and talks with the caller: it listens, asks the questions a receptionist would ask, writes down the answers, and acts on rules the business set, such as which jobs it may book and whom to call about an emergency. It is not a phone menu ("press 1 for service") and it is not a recording. The caller speaks in sentences and is answered in sentences, at any hour, with no hold.
Pickwick is an AI receptionist built for home-service businesses: HVAC, plumbing, electrical, garage door, roofing and appliance repair shops sign up on the site, and other businesses come in through a guided setup. It is built around one rule most receptionists of either kind do not have: by default it books nothing until the owner taps yes.
What it does on a call
- Picks up at once and says, first, that it is automated and that the call is recorded, in English or in Spanish once the caller has chosen.
- Listens for what the caller needs: a repair, a quote, a question, a complaint, an emergency. A caller who names gas, carbon monoxide, smoke or sparking hears a fixed 911 line before anything else.
- Takes the details: name, callback number, address, the problem in the caller's words, and reads the number and address back.
- Sorts it: urgent to the people you list, the same minute; routine into the first open window from your hours; a question answered from what you told it, or taken for a callback when you did not.
- Asks you. The job is penciled in and waits in the dashboard app, which notifies your phone; one tap confirms it. You can let routine jobs book themselves per shop, and anything that sounds like an emergency still goes to a person.
The whole call, with the real wording, is on how it works; each trade has its own page: HVAC, Plumbing, Electrical, Garage doors, Roofing, Appliance repair.
What it costs
Pickwick is priced by the minute, like most answering services: $149 a month for 600 minutes (about 200 three-minute calls), then $0.49 a minute; $349 for 1,000 minutes; $749 for 2,500. No setup fee, month to month, Spanish included, and the first 14 days on your own number are free with no card. The numbers are on the pricing page, and the billing models of the market are compared in what an answering service costs.
What it refuses to do
- No pretending. It says it is automated in its first sentence and never claims to be a person.
- No invented prices or times. Your fee in your words, or a callback; an arrival window only from your hours and bookings.
- No repair advice beyond checking a thermostat or resetting a tripped breaker.
- No selling past a hazard. A caller who names gas, carbon monoxide, smoke or sparking hears a fixed 911 line before anything else.
Who it is for, and who it is not for
It is for a shop whose calls go to voicemail after hours or while everyone is on a job, and whose owner wants the morning to start with a list of penciled-in work rather than a list of missed calls. It is for a shop with Spanish-speaking callers. It is not for a business whose callers will only talk to a person, or whose calls are long sales conversations that need judgement; for those a live receptionist service fits better, and AI receptionist vs answering service is where that case is made. It is not for healthcare practices for now, and it is not an emergency service.
How to judge one, including this one
Seven questions, from what an after-hours answering service should do: what the caller hears first; what happens when a caller says "gas"; whether it quotes your fee only in your words; who gets paged and what happens if they do not answer; what the morning looks like; what a minute costs after the included ones; whether you can forward only after hours and switch back yourself. Then the only test that counts: forward your line for two weeks and read the calls.