AI receptionist for the shop phone
An AI receptionist that knows where the car is.
Most shops lose the call that comes in at ten past six on a Friday. Not because nobody would have answered it — because everybody had gone home. An AI receptionist that can read your board turns that call into a booking instead of a voicemail.
The phone stops going to voicemail.
An AI receptionist that picks up on the second ring — after hours, on a Saturday, or only when nobody in the shop gets to it. It can see the board, so it tells a customer exactly where their car is, books them a slot, takes a new job’s details, or puts a callback in front of a person. And it dials out as well as in.
- Picks up 24/7 — after hours, or only what your team misses
- Books a real slot on your board while they are still on the line
- Dials out too: missed calls, reminders, and ready-for-pickup
- It never guesses. Nothing on the board means a callback, not a story
Give it as much of the phone as you want.
Five modes, ordered from the one that cannot reach a customer to the one that answers everything. Nobody has to commit on day one: most shops run test for an afternoon, sit in after-hours for a month, and only then decide whether the daytime overflow is worth having too.
One weekday
Open 8am–5pm, Mon–Fri
It takes the calls nobody was there for.
Where most shops startInside your opening hours the phone rings the way it always has. Outside them — evenings, weekends, the holidays you set — Carvikon answers instead of the voicemail nobody checks on Monday.
Four decisions, not thirteen switches.
Under the hood the agent can call thirteen named tools and the server checks every single one against what you allowed. You do not have to think in tool names: you answer four questions about what a caller should be able to get done, and the tools follow.
Tell people where their vehicle is
On for a new shop
It checks who is calling, confirms it is really them, then says which stage their vehicle is at.
It never guesses. If there is no status on the board, it says so and offers a callback.
Take details from someone new
On for a new shop
Records a new enquiry, or a request for an estimate, straight into your CRM.
It will not quote a price or say anything about an insurance claim.
Book appointments
Off until you switch it on
Offers your open times and books one, on your board, while the caller is on the phone.
Off by default — a booking puts a real slot on your calendar. Turn it on once you trust it.
Text people your links
Off until you switch it on
Sends your booking page, directions or policies by text while they are still on the call.
Needs the Text messaging add-on. It can only send YOUR links, never one a caller reads out.
Four more it always has
These are not presented as choices, because an agent without them is not a receptionist. It can always read out your address and opening hours, always transfer a caller to a person, always leave a callback task when it is unsure, and always write the call up afterwards.
The part everybody actually worries about.
An AI on your phone line is a liability if it can say anything. This one is built the other way round: it can only do things somebody named in advance, and the awkward answers are the ones it is best at.
It never quotes a price
There is no tool for it. An estimate is a person's job, and a caller who asks for one is offered a callback from somebody who can give a real answer.
It never guesses a status
The vehicle's stage is read off the board. If the board has nothing to say, the agent says so and takes a callback rather than inventing something reassuring.
It cannot be talked into dialling
Transfers and text messages take a named destination the shop set up, never a number or a link a caller reads out. The model never sees the number at all.
Every call leaves a trail
Transcript, AI summary, disposition, and the exact list of tools the agent used, filed against the job or the customer. Nothing about the call is only in the model's head.
It will not cold call
Outbound exists for missed calls, reminders and ready-for-pickup. There is no marketing purpose in the product — the value does not exist in the enum, on purpose.
You can switch it off in one click
Per location, or across the whole shop. Outbound can be paused on its own, and running out of minutes never stops the phone being answered.
$199 a month, per location.
One price for the location, not for the seat and not for the call. It sits on top of whatever plan you are on, and the only thing that ever varies is minutes past the 500 included.
AI Front Desk
$199per month, per location
An add-on to any Carvikon plan. No setup fee, no per-call charge, and no contract — cancel it from the billing portal without touching your plan.
- 500 AI minutes every month, for the whole location
- Inbound and outbound, on the same agent
- A number provisioned for you, or forward your own
- Every call transcribed, summarised and filed against the job
- Recording, on or off, per location
- Five languages, set per location
Past 500 minutes: $0.30 a minute
Billed by the minute and rounded up, the way every telephony vendor in this market bills. A call that rings and never connects costs nothing. Carvikon warns you at 70, 90 and 100 percent of the allowance, so a heavy month is never a surprise on the invoice.
What your month would cost
Drag it to the number of calls you would actually route to the AI. The estimate assumes 2.5 minutes a call, which is a status check and a booking averaged together.
Calls a month
160
- Add-on
- $199
- Minutes past 500
- $0
- A month like that
- $199
An estimate, not a quote. Your plan is billed separately, and only the calls the AI actually handles use minutes.
Questions shops ask about an AI receptionist.
It can only run thirteen named tools, the shop ticks which of them an agent may use, and the server checks every call against that list. There is no tool for quoting a price and none for discussing an insurance claim, so it cannot do either. If the board has no status for a vehicle it says so and offers a callback rather than guessing, and every caller can ask for a person at any point.
AI Front Desk is $199 a month per location, and that includes 500 AI minutes a month. Minutes past the allowance are 30 cents each, billed by the minute and rounded up, the way every telephony vendor in this market bills. There is no setup fee and no per-call charge.
No, and it is not sold as one. It takes the calls that were going to voicemail — after hours, on a Saturday, or the fourth call while your advisor is on the third — and hands anything it cannot finish to a person as a transfer or a callback task. Most shops run it in after-hours or overflow mode and never change it.
Yes, if you switch that on. It offers times that are genuinely open on your board and writes the appointment there while the caller is still on the phone. It is off by default, because a booking commits a real slot and that is a decision the shop should make deliberately.
Both. Outbound is triggered by the board: a missed call gets rung back, an appointment gets a reminder, and a car that reaches ready-for-pickup gets the call that says so. Outbound respects quiet hours, a daily cap, and any customer who has opted out. There is no cold-calling mode and no marketing purpose — the option does not exist in the product.
It transfers them. Transfer destinations are set up by the shop as named entries with a phone number attached, and the agent can only ask for a destination by name — it never dials a number a caller reads out. If nobody is there to take the transfer it creates a callback task, which lands in the same notification bell as everything else that needs a person.
Yes. Every call is logged with its transcript, an AI summary, a disposition and the list of tools the agent actually used, filed against the job or the customer it was about. Recording can be switched off per location if your state's law or your own policy calls for it.
No. Carvikon can provision a number for you, or you can forward your existing shop line to it — which is what most shops do, because the number on the van and the sign does not change.
The language you set for that location's agent. Carvikon runs in five languages across the product, and the AI Front Desk follows the same setting.
Yes, and this is the mode a new agent starts in. In test mode the agent is provisioned and reachable only from the test console in Settings, so you can call it yourself as many times as you like and no customer ever hears it. Shadow mode is the next step: it answers, transcribes and summarises, then transfers every caller to a person.
It is a separate add-on rather than a trial line item. Add it during setup or at any time from Settings, and cancel it from the billing portal whenever you like without touching your plan.
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