In a shop the phone always rings while you are with a customer at the counter, and you have to pick one. An AI receptionist for shops answers the phone so you do not have to choose: it gives your opening hours and address, answers questions about what you sell and what it costs from your own price list, and takes a message when a caller needs you personally. The person in front of you keeps your attention, and the person on the phone still gets an answer.
Most shop calls are short and repetitive. Are you open today. Where exactly are you. Do you have this in stock. How much is it. Do you take card. Is there parking.
None of those need you specifically. All of them need answering within about fifteen seconds, or the caller hangs up and tries somewhere else. And every one of them arrives while you are mid-sale with someone standing in front of you, which is the one moment you cannot reach the phone.
The result is a slow leak nobody measures. You do not see the calls that rang out, so the problem never shows up as a number. It just feels like a quiet week.
Voicemail is not the answer, because a person asking "are you open until six" will not leave a message about it. They will look up the next shop.
You give it what you would say from behind the counter. Upload your price list, your range, your opening hours including holidays, your address and parking, your returns and warranty policy, as a PDF, a document, or a link to your website. The agent answers from that, so callers hear your real prices and your real hours instead of something approximate.
On a call it can:
With PhoneMyAgent you upload your price list and hours, pick a voice and greeting, and point your existing shop number at it. From the first call it answers in the shop's name, and the number on your door, your receipts, and your listings does not change.
This is worth being clear on, because it is the most common question a shop gets. The agent answers from the documents you give it. If your price list says you stock a product, it will say so and quote the price. It does not read your till system, so it cannot promise that the last one is still on the shelf right now.
The sensible way to run it is the way a good assistant would: the agent confirms you carry the item and what it costs, then takes the caller's name and number as a message so someone can check the shelf and call back. That is a far better outcome than a phone ringing out, and it does not put a promise in your mouth that you might not be able to keep.
After each call you get an email with the transcript, a short summary, and whatever the agent did. You can see the pattern in a week: how many people asked about your hours, what products they ask for, whether the same question keeps coming up. If it ever gets a price or a policy wrong, you flag it and it learns the correction, so the next caller hears the right answer.
| Voicemail | You, at the counter | Part-time assistant | PhoneMyAgent | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Answers while you serve a customer | Records only | No | Sometimes | Yes, always |
| Answers evenings and Sundays | Records only | No | No | Yes |
| Quotes your real prices | No | Yes | Usually | Yes, from your list |
| Cost | Low | Your own time | Wages | Monthly plan, all-in |
| Gives you a record of the call | Message only | No | No | Transcript and summary |
It will answer every call, give your hours and directions, quote prices from your price list, explain your returns policy, take a clean message, and email you the transcript afterward. It tells every caller at the start that it is an AI assistant.
It will not check live stock, take a card payment, or make a decision that is yours to make. It does not give technical, legal, or safety advice about a product. When a caller needs something it should not answer alone, it takes the details and passes them to you rather than guessing. It is not an emergency line.
Yes. It answers live during and outside your opening hours, gives your hours, address, prices, and policies from documents you upload, and takes a message for anything that needs you personally. You get a transcript and a summary of every call by email.
It can confirm what you sell and what it costs from your price list, because that is what you upload. It does not connect to your till system, so it does not promise that a specific item is on the shelf at that moment. It takes the caller's details instead so someone can check and call back.
Yes. Every caller hears a short disclosure at the start that they are speaking to an AI assistant. It is on by default. You choose the voice and the greeting, so it still sounds like your shop.
No. You keep your existing number and forward it to the number we provide, so the number on your door, your receipts, and your online listings stays the same. The forward takes a few minutes to set up and you can switch it off from your own phone.
Yes. You set the hours it answers, and most shops have it take everything outside opening times. Callers get your real hours for the next day and can leave a message, which reaches you by email rather than sitting on a machine nobody checks.
Pricing is a monthly plan that includes an allowance of call minutes, and it is all-inclusive: one price covers both the AI and the telephony, with no setup fee and no separate surcharges. The same plan covers evenings and Sundays at no extra cost, and you can start with 45 free minutes, no card. The plans are on our pricing page.
New to this? Start with what PhoneMyAgent is and how it works, or see what it costs compared with hiring someone. Then forward your shop line for a day and read the transcripts.
Never miss another call
An AI agent answers your business phone, knows your documents, and emails you what happened after every call. 45 free minutes to try, no card required.
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