Built to do the things other “AI answering” products hand back to you
Most products in this space either take a message, play a menu, or hand out a booking link. ParlioTec was designed from the start to complete the job on the call — with your team, your rules and your tools.
Side by side
| Capability | ParlioTec | Answering service | Phone system / IVR | Chatbot-only AI | Booking-link tools |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Answers 24/7 in a natural British voice | ✓ | Business hours / cost per minute | Menus only | — | — |
| Books into Google / Outlook by your rules (length, grid, travel gap) | ✓ | Takes a message | — | ◐ | Fixed slots |
| Tenant-created service types with their own durations | ✓ | — | — | — | ◐ |
| Pooled availability across your whole team + auto-assignment | ✓ | — | — | — | ◐ |
| Books into your scheduling tool (ServiceM8, webhook) | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Day/week schedule board with a lane per team member | ✓ | — | — | — | ◐ |
| Warm transfer with a spoken briefing to your staff | ✓ | ◐ | Cold only | — | — |
| Emergency handling: on-call team member or out-of-hours booking | ✓ | ◐ | — | — | — |
| Calendar events carry the full job brief + link to the recording | ✓ | — | — | — | ◐ |
| Email, SMS, WhatsApp and web chat from the same assistant | ✓ | — | — | ◐ | — |
| Replies to email enquiries from your own domain, with approval rules | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Compliant AI call-backs with the resolution in hand | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| In-depth analytics: trends, forecasts and an AI business advisor | ✓ | — | Call logs | — | — |
| Self-improving: QA every call, proposes and tests its own fixes for your approval | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Transcript & recording search to the exact moment | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Live listen / whisper / take-over from the dashboard | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Grounded in-app help: ask how to do anything, jump to the setting | ✓ | — | — | — | — |
| UK data handling, consent, redaction, retention, audit | ✓ | ◐ | ◐ | ◐ | ◐ |
✓ included · ◐ partial or add-on · — not offered. Categories describe typical products in each class, not any named vendor; check individual providers for their current features.
Twelve things you will struggle to find elsewhere
Booking rules the tenant owns
Slot length, on-the-hour or half-past grid, business hours with finish-by-close, travel gap, notice period, horizon and an emergency exception — set in the dashboard, enforced on every call. Booking-link tools give you fixed slots; message-taking AI doesn't book at all.
Service types you define
Create “Boiler service – 90 min”, “Repair – 60 min”, “Quote – 30 min”. The assistant asks which, books that length and puts the service in the calendar title.
A real team, not one diary
Team members with skills, areas, shifts and their own calendar. Pooled availability means the caller hears the earliest slot anyone suitable has; assignment is least-loaded, round-robin, nearest or preferred. The Schedule board shows every lane.
Your scheduling tool as the source of truth
Switch the backend to ServiceM8 or a signed webhook into your own system: availability comes from it, jobs are created in it, and the calendar isn't touched.
Calendar events your team can act on
Title “Service – Name”, phone, address (as the location), what the caller described, caller ID and a link straight to the recording and transcript.
Warm transfers that actually brief the human
Your staff hear who's calling and why before the caller is bridged; departments have descriptions that steer routing; the human leg can be recorded and measured.
Booking-first when it sounds urgent
“No hot water” is an appointment, not an emergency. Unless the tenant marks it so, the assistant offers the earliest slot — and asks before sending anyone to the on-call team member.
One assistant across voice, text and web
The same knowledge and rules answer the phone, email, SMS, WhatsApp and the website widget — with in-page voice, so a visitor can talk without dialling.
Analytics you can talk to
Ask in English, get a chart. Then the AI Advisor turns patterns into recommendations you can apply with one click, and a weekly digest lands in the owner's inbox.
Quality you can prove
Every call QA-scored, every conversation searchable to the second, regression tests run before you publish a change, and a simulator to try callers against a draft.
Help that knows your screens
“Can I block anonymous callers?” → “Yes — Assistant Studio → Call screening → tick Reject withheld…” with a chip that opens that exact section.
UK-first, owner-controlled
Consent, redaction, retention, GDPR export/delete, audit, 2FA, approvals. Platform owners set plan caps and entitlements per tenant; agencies white-label the lot.
Don't take our word for it — talk to the demo assistant and ask it to book a boiler service on a specific morning.
Be there for every customer conversation.
One AI agent, connected to the channels your customers already use. 14 days free — no card, no obligation.