# After-hours front desk > The after-hours front desk is an AI receptionist that answers your phone when you're closed: nights, weekends and holidays. It answers questions from what you've approved, books appointments into your calendar, takes messages, and hands anything urgent or unusual to a person. Source: https://chalkthis.io/workflows/after-hours-front-desk · chalkthis., Sound Beach, NY · updated 2026-10-23 ## What is an after-hours front desk? Calls don't stop when you lock the door. A burst pipe at 9 PM, a “can you come Saturday?”, a new customer comparing three businesses on a Sunday. Voicemail loses many of them, and an answering service can only take a message. The after-hours front desk answers in a natural voice, using only what you've told it: your services, hours, service area and booking rules. It books the visit, takes a clear message and sends you a summary. Emergencies and anything about price go straight to a person. ## A good fit if - Calls come in after you close, and voicemail fills up. - Customers need to book, not just leave a message. - You pay for an answering service that only takes messages. - Your team should be able to go home at night. ## How does the after-hours front desk work? 1. **Teach it your business.** Your services, hours, service area, booking rules and what counts as an emergency. You approve what it says before it takes a single call. 2. **It answers when you're closed.** After hours and on weekends it picks up, tells callers it is an automated assistant for your business, answers from what you approved, books into your calendar and takes messages. 3. **You get the summary.** Every call comes to you as a short summary: who called, what they need, what was booked. Urgent calls go to you or your on-call person right away. ## What stays in your control - It only says what you've approved. No prices, promises or guesses. - Emergencies and anything unusual go straight to a person. - It tells callers it's an automated assistant. - During business hours, your phone rings like it always has. - Call summaries stay in accounts you control. ## Worth knowing In a study of 1.25 million sales leads, firms that tried to reach a lead within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify it as firms that waited even one hour longer. Source: [Harvard Business Review, "The Short Life of Online Sales Leads," March 2011](https://hbr.org/2011/03/the-short-life-of-online-sales-leads) ## Run your own numbers Example: 3 after-hours calls a week × 40% real jobs × 30% won × $500 average job ≈ $780 a month walking out the door. Run yours at https://check.chalkthis.io ## Questions about the after-hours front desk ### What is an AI receptionist? A phone assistant that answers calls in a natural voice, answers common questions from information you approve, books appointments and takes messages. The after-hours front desk is one that works when you are closed. ### Will callers know it's not a person? Yes. It tells callers it is an automated assistant for your business, and it hands them to a person whenever they ask for one or need one. ### What happens with an emergency call? You decide what counts as an emergency. Those calls go to you or your on-call person right away, by call or text, instead of waiting for morning. ### Can it book appointments into my calendar? Yes, by your rules: which services, which days, how long each job takes and how far you travel. Anything outside the rules becomes a message for you. ### Does it answer during business hours too? Only if you want it to. By default your phone rings as usual during business hours, and the front desk takes over when you close. ### How is this different from call text-back? Call text-back texts people whose calls you missed. The front desk answers the call itself, so the customer talks to someone right away. Many businesses start with text-back and add the front desk later. ### What does it cost? It depends on the business and the leak. On a short call we'll show you what fixing it is likely worth, and you'll see the price before anything starts. No long contract. ## Get started Tell us about your business at https://chalkthis.io/workflows/after-hours-front-desk#start (we reply within one business day), or email hello@chalkthis.io.