InsertChat is an AI front desk for calls, website chat, email, SMS, and WhatsApp. One assistant answers customers from your business knowledge, books appointments in your calendar, captures contact details, and hands conversations to your team in one shared inbox. Your team decides what it may do and when a person steps in.
This tour shows how the pieces fit together: conversations, knowledge, appointments, actions, handoff, and the Today view your team starts each morning with.
What is an AI front desk?
An AI front desk is software that answers customer conversations on every channel a business uses, from one set of business knowledge, and works alongside the team in a shared workspace. It covers what a front desk person does on the phone and online: answering questions, booking visits, taking details, and passing on what needs a person.
The term overlaps with two others. Here is how they differ:
| AI front desk | AI receptionist | Website chatbot | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Channels | Phone, website chat, email, SMS, WhatsApp | Phone calls | Website chat |
| Knowledge | One knowledge base for every channel | Phone answers only | Chat answers only |
| Team workspace | Shared inbox, contacts, calendar, approvals | Often call logs or messages | Often a chat history |
| Typical use | Every customer conversation in one place | Answering missed and after-hours calls | Answering website visitors |
InsertChat’s AI receptionist is the phone channel of its AI front desk, and its website chat is the chat channel. The what is an AI receptionist guide covers the phone side in depth.
One place for customer conversations
Every conversation, whatever the channel, lands in the shared inbox with its history, so your team reviews messages, call transcripts, and requests that need attention in one list. A caller who texts the next day shows up on the same contact.
Open a conversation to see what has happened and continue the reply. Internal notes, categories, tags, and saved replies help teammates work together. Customer contacts keep the details and history your team needs for follow-up, and each call has a transcript and an AI summary.
Answers from your business knowledge
Your assistant answers from the sources you add: website pages, documents, FAQs, product information, and audio and video files in its knowledge base. Every channel uses the same knowledge, so an updated price or opening hour reaches calls, chat, and email at once.
Set the assistant’s customer-facing name, its tone (warm, professional, or formal), and how long its answers should be. It answers in the customer’s language, and it says when information is unavailable instead of guessing.
Test the answers before connecting customers. If an answer is incomplete, update the relevant source and check its processing status. Refresh the knowledge when your business changes. The knowledge guide covers what to write.
From a question to an appointment
Consider a homeowner asking whether you service their area and when they can book a visit:
- The assistant answers the service-area question from your knowledge.
- It collects the customer’s address, contact details, and request.
- With the relevant calendar actions enabled, it offers open times and books the one the customer confirms.
- The customer can get reminders by text or email 72 and 24 hours before the visit.
- Your team reviews any exception or action that requires approval.
This is an example workflow, not a customer result. Its behavior depends on the information, tools, and permissions you configure. Explore scheduling and Google Calendar setup for the next steps; Outlook, Calendly, Cal.com, and the built-in calendar work too.
Your team controls actions and handoff
Connected apps make specific actions available to the assistant, such as creating a contact or a deal in HubSpot or checking a calendar. Choose those actions and their permissions before enabling a workflow. Actions and approvals let your team review work that needs a decision.
Five handoff rules are on by default: the customer asks for a person, the answer is uncertain, two attempts fail, the customer is upset, or the action is sensitive or restricted. Add your own topics on top. A conversation can need a human reply while a related action separately waits for approval. Test both with the human handoff guide.
What does your team see each morning?
The Today view shows daily metrics, what the assistant handled, upcoming appointments and tasks, and a needs-you queue with handoffs, missed calls, and items waiting for approval. Your team works down that list instead of replaying voicemails.
Teammates can also get alerts for urgent conversations, new contacts, and bookings, either immediately or in a daily summary. Scale and Enterprise add conversation analytics and reports that group conversations by topic, so you can see what customers ask most.
Try the InsertChat demo
Explore the demo using Northstar Home Services, a fictional business with sample conversations, appointments, contacts, and knowledge in the InsertChat app.
For your own setup, follow the first-channel guide. Compare plans for assistant limits, team seats, credits, and features; new customers can try Pro free for 7 days with 500 credits, with a card required at checkout.