How can we help?

OctoReception is an AI receptionist for your business phone. It answers your calls in a natural voice, holds a real conversation, and does what a front desk does — answers questions about your services, takes messages, and books appointments — around the clock. Your customers just call the same number they already know.

Setup is a quick five-step wizard. First you enter your business name and a few basics. Next Alice reads your website and learns your services, hours and prices automatically. You confirm the details that were picked up, then choose a name, personality and voice. Finally you make a free browser test call to hear your receptionist answer as your business before you pay anything.

Before you ever pay, you can call your receptionist right in your browser to hear how it sounds and answers. It uses your microphone, so your browser will ask for permission the first time — click Allow. You get three free test calls; if the button does nothing, check that you granted mic access and try Chrome or Safari.

You pick the name on the Personality step of the setup wizard, right where you choose the voice. The default is Alice, but any name that fits your brand works. You can rename your receptionist any time later under Settings → Your receptionist.

OctoReception works by call forwarding, so your business number stays yours — there is nothing to port and nothing for your customers to relearn. We give you a dedicated receptionist number, then you set your phone to forward calls to it. With conditional forwarding, calls only reach your receptionist when you do not pick up, your line is busy, or your phone is off — you can still answer yourself whenever you want.

We automatically detect your carrier and show you the exact short code to dial — you just tap it into your phone like a call and hang up. On most mobile carriers it is a GSM code (the **61* / **62* / **67* family for no-answer, unreachable and busy, or **21* to forward every call); Verizon uses star codes like *71 and *72. It takes about 30 seconds and there is nothing to install.

Right after you enter the code, we run a live self-test. From your own cell, call your business number and let it ring — your receptionist should pick up, and we confirm it on screen the moment the call is answered. If it picks up, you are live; if not, the code did not take.

First re-run the verification self-test by calling your own business number. If your receptionist still does not answer, the most common causes are a mis-detected carrier or a landline: our codes are for mobile lines, so business landlines and VoIP numbers are forwarded from your carrier's account portal instead. Re-dialing the exact code we show fixes most cases — if it still will not stick, email us at support@octoaiverse.com and we will sort it out with you.

There are three plans and every one includes talk minutes each month: Starter 75 min, Pro 300 min, Business 800 min per month — $34.95/$89/$199 CAD or $24.95/$65/$145 USD. Pick the plan that matches how many calls you expect — you can move up or down any time.

Your line never stops answering. Any minutes beyond your plan are billed at $0.45 CAD / $0.35 USD per minute (whichever currency you subscribed in), so you never miss a call because of a limit. If you want a hard ceiling, set an optional monthly spending cap under Settings → Value & spending and calls switch to voicemail once overage passes it.

Go to Settings → Billing to switch plans or cancel. Cancelling takes effect at the end of your current billing period, so your receptionist keeps running through the time you have already paid for. There is no lock-in — you can cancel whenever you like.

If OctoReception is not right for you, you are covered by our 7-day money-back guarantee — no questions asked. Full details are on our refund policy page at /legal/refunds. Just email us within the first week and we will take care of it.

The moment a call ends, you get a text and an email with a summary — you are never out of the loop. Add your cell number under Settings → Alerts to turn on text messages, and email alerts go to your account address. Alerts are instant after every call. Texts include a generous monthly allowance scaled to your plan; if you ever reach it, texts pause until your next cycle while email alerts continue without any limit.

Every call is captured for you in the Calls tab of your dashboard. You get a short written summary, the full transcript, and the recording, so you can see exactly what was said and follow up. Nothing slips through — even calls you never picked up are there.

When a caller wants to book, the details are captured and the request drops into your dashboard. The confirmation opens with the service, day and time the caller asked for already filled in, so confirming is usually one tap — and the caller is texted automatically. You keep the final say on every slot. Prefer hands-off? Turn on instant booking instead.

Turn on instant booking under Receptionist → Rules and your receptionist books confirmed appointments during the call. Every offered time is checked against your business hours, one-off closures, your team members' schedules, existing appointments and any connected calendar — so a caller can never be double-booked. The caller receives a text confirmation, the appointment lands on your calendar, and you get a text and email heads-up. When a time cannot be booked, it falls back to taking a booking request for you to confirm.

Under Integrations, connect your Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook Calendar in a couple of clicks. Once connected, every appointment your receptionist books or you confirm is mirrored onto your calendar automatically, and your calendar's busy times are respected before any time is offered to a caller. You can disconnect any time from the same page — that immediately deletes our access.

Under Receptionist → Rules, enable Urgent calls and enter your on-call number. When a caller has an emergency or asks for a human, your receptionist connects them live to that number instead of taking a message — and you get an URGENT-flagged text and email as a record. Built for clinics and on-call teams. Callers describing a life-threatening emergency are always told to hang up and call 911 first, whether or not transfer is on.

For medical, dental and veterinary businesses, enable refill requests under Receptionist → Rules. Callers asking to refill a prescription get a dedicated flow: your receptionist records the patient's name, the medication as stated, and their pharmacy — nothing more, never a health card or insurance number — and it arrives in your dashboard as a structured card with a text and email alert.

Mid-procedure or slammed at the desk? Tap Set busy on your dashboard Home and pick how long. Your receptionist tells callers honestly that the team is tied up, still takes their message or booking request, and texts them the time they can expect a callback. When the window passes, everything returns to normal on its own.

Your receptionist speaks English, French and Spanish and greets each caller in the language they use, at no extra cost. Change the language under Settings → Business info; the change applies within seconds as the script is re-created in the new language.

Open Settings → Your receptionist to pick a different voice or edit the opening greeting. You can preview voices and choose the one that fits your brand. Changes take effect on the next call.

The browser test call needs your microphone, so make sure you clicked Allow when your browser asked for mic permission. If nothing happens, try Chrome or Safari, which we support best. Remember you get three free test calls — once those are used up the button stops; email us if you need another look.

That almost always means call forwarding is not active on your line. Re-dial the carrier forwarding code we show you in setup, then run the self-test by calling your own business number to confirm the call gets picked up. If your voicemail keeps grabbing the call first, contact us and we will check the code for your carrier.

Go to the /login page and use "Forgot password" to reset your password by email. You can also sign in with Google if that is how you created your account. Still stuck? Email support@octoaiverse.com and we will get you back in.