Go-live checklist: launching your AI receptionist in a day

Launching an AI receptionist doesn’t need a six-week project plan. Everything that matters fits into a single focused day: morning for configuration, afternoon for testing, evening for the switch. This checklist assumes you’ve already chosen a platform. If you’re still deciding, sort that first. Once the platform is picked, here’s the day.

Morning: configuration (about 3 hours)

1. Connect your phone number. Decide whether the AI answers every call, or only overflow and after-hours. Most businesses start with after-hours plus overflow, then expand once the system proves itself. Set up call forwarding from your carrier or port the number, and test that calls actually reach the AI. This is step zero; nothing else matters if the calls don’t arrive. If you’re weighing number options, the local vs. toll-free decision is worth ten minutes before you commit.

2. Load your business information. Hours, address, service area, the fifteen to twenty FAQs from your FAQ training work. Write the answers for the ear: two to three spoken sentences, ending with a next step. Mark the off-limits topics where the AI must hand off instead of answering.

3. Write the greeting. Business name, AI disclosure, open question. Under eight seconds spoken. Write the after-hours version too, with the three options: book, message, or urgent escalation. The greeting script guide has working examples by business type.

4. Build the call flow. Map your five to eight caller buckets to their destinations: booking, transfer, message, or answer. Set the routing for each department if you have more than one. Define the fallback for calls the AI can’t classify. One page, per the call flow mapping guide.

5. Set escalation rules. The six triggers, a destination person for each, a backup for each destination, and the after-hours version. Configure the warm handoff so the receiving person gets a summary, not a cold ring. Full details in the escalation rules guide.

6. Connect calendar and CRM. The AI can only book calendars it can read. Connect yours, then configure the CRM field mapping: which call data lands in which field, new-contact matching rules, and what becomes a task. Test with one manual entry before the AI writes anything.

7. Configure follow-up. The missed-call text-back, the post-call confirmation text, callback request windows, and the voicemail drop for outbound calls. Set the callback windows you can actually hit. Details in the follow-up configuration guide.

8. Set business hours and holidays. Normal hours, the after-hours behavior, and the year’s holidays entered now, not in December. The hours and holiday setup covers the mechanics; write the holiday scripts to sit on top.

Afternoon: testing (about 2 hours)

9. Run the thirteen test calls. Happy path, messy middle, edge cases. The full QA script is a separate guide; run all of it. Fix training and flow issues on the spot. The bar: happy path clean, safe failures everywhere else.

10. Check the data landing. After the test calls, open your CRM and calendar. Every booking in the right place, every callback request as a task with a due date, every summary where your team looks. No duplicates, no spam contacts.

11. Brief your team. Everyone who might receive a transferred call needs to know: the AI exists, what it handles, what the warm handoff looks like, and what to do when a transfer lands. Five minutes per person. The team doesn’t need to love the AI; they need to not be surprised by it.

Evening: go live (about 1 hour)

12. Switch the forwarding on. Point your calls at the AI per the schedule you chose. Call the business number yourself from your mobile to confirm the live path works end to end.

13. Set up monitoring for week one. Decide who reviews the call transcripts daily for the first week, and what they’re looking for: misrouted calls, bad answers, escalation failures. Fifteen minutes a day. This review is where the system gets good; skipping it is how bad configurations survive for months.

14. Tell your callers (lightly). You don’t need an announcement. But if regulars call and hear a new voice, a brief mention on your website or socials avoids confusion: “We’ve added an AI assistant to help with calls after hours and when the team’s busy.” Normal, not defensive.

Week one: the shakedown

The launch day gets you live; the first week gets you good. Review transcripts daily. Fix the training gaps the tests missed. Watch the escalation rate: too high means the scope is too narrow, near zero means the triggers are too tight. Adjust the call flow map and the FAQ list from what you see.

By the end of week one, you’ll have a receptionist that handles the routine work, escalates the rest cleanly, and writes good data into your systems. That’s the whole goal. Everything after that is maintenance: a monthly FAQ review, a monthly test-call pass, and holiday calendar updates. The broader onboarding checklist covers the longer-term setup items this one-day sprint doesn’t.

One day. Fourteen steps. A phone that gets answered properly from tonight onward.