# AI phone receptionist

The AI phone receptionist answers a location's phone. It reads out answers you've written, texts callers your address, and puts them through to a real person when it can't help.

For: Admins, Managers · On: Web · [Help Center](https://www.mays.app/help) › [Catering & phone](https://www.mays.app/help/catering-phone) · Last updated October 20, 2026 · Mays Team

The AI phone receptionist answers a location's phone. It reads out answers you've written, texts callers your address, and puts them through to a real person when it can't help.

**Who:** admins, and managers for the locations they're assigned to, on the web. A manager doesn't see the receptionist of a location they aren't assigned to, and employees can't open it. In **Roles**, the tab needs **View branches**; subscribing, upgrading and **Manage billing** also need **Pay for and buy AI credits for their own locations**. If your organization has one bill for all locations, **Manage billing** for a receptionist on the organization's card also needs **Edit organization settings**, which only admins have by default. **Add-on:** it's a paid add-on that you buy for one location at a time. It isn't part of the Basic or Pro plan, and the free trial doesn't include it.

## What callers hear

- **The greeting.** By default: *Thank you for calling (your business and location). How can I help you today? You can ask a question, press 1 to receive our address by text, or press 9 to speak with someone at the store.*
- **A question in their own words**, such as *what time do you close?* The receptionist looks for an answer in your FAQ list and reads it out, then asks: *Anything else? You can ask another question or press 9 to speak with someone.* If the caller says nothing more, the call ends. See [Receptionist FAQs and missed questions](https://www.mays.app/help/catering-phone/ivr-faqs-and-missed-questions).
- **Pressing 1** texts the caller the location's name and address: *We've sent our address to your phone. Have a great day!*
- **Pressing 9** puts the caller through to your fallback phone: *Connecting you to the store.*
- **A question it has no answer for** also goes to the fallback phone: *I'm not sure about that. Let me connect you with someone at the store.* With no fallback phone, the caller hears *I'm sorry, I don't have an answer for that. Please call back during business hours.* and the call ends.
- **Silence.** If the caller says nothing for about 6 seconds after the greeting, they hear *I didn't get that. Please call back if you need help. Goodbye.*

Some callers first hear *Welcome to (your business and location). Press any key to continue.* It keeps robocallers out. See [Receptionist call log and blocked numbers](https://www.mays.app/help/catering-phone/ivr-call-log-and-blocking).

## Plans

The **IVR (AI Receptionist)** tab lists the plans and their current prices. When this article was written they were:

| Plan | Calls a day | Monthly | Yearly |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Starter** | 30 | $29 | $290 |
| **Growth** | 100 | $49 | $490 |
| **Unlimited** | 200 | $79 | $790 |

- The first invoice adds a one-time **$20 setup fee**.
- **Call recording** is an extra $10 a month ($100 a year). See [Call recording for the receptionist](https://www.mays.app/help/catering-phone/ivr-call-recording).
- Yearly billing is 10 times the monthly price, so two months are free.
- You pay for the plan, not by the minute. Calls don't use AI credits.

## Subscribe a location

1. Go to **Locations & Users → Locations** and open the location.
2. Open the **IVR (AI Receptionist)** tab.
3. Choose **Monthly** or **Yearly**. Tick **Add call recording** if you want it.
4. Click **Subscribe** on a plan. Stripe, our payment provider, opens a secure checkout. Pay the plan and the setup fee.
   - If the card that pays for this location is already on file, Mays asks you to confirm the payment with that card instead. Choose **Use a different card** to enter another one.

![The IVR — AI Receptionist tab for the South location before subscribing: Monthly and Yearly (2 months free), Add call recording (+$10/mo), the Starter $29/mo (up to 30 calls/day), Growth $49/mo (up to 100 calls/day) and Unlimited $79/mo (up to 200 calls/day) plans with Subscribe buttons, and First invoice: plan price + $20 one-time setup fee](https://mays-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/site/help__ai-receptionist-ivr__01-choose-a-plan.63625f3dc1.png)

5. You come back to the tab and see *Payment received — IVR is now active for (location)*. Mays then buys a local phone number for the location, if possible in its state, and adds six starter FAQs for you to edit.

The number appears under **IVR phone number** once it's ready. Until then the tab says **Provisioning…**. If it still says that after a few minutes, [contact support](https://www.mays.app/help/getting-started/contact-support).

![The subscription card: Growth, Active and Recording badges, a daily call limit of 100 calls/day, Renews Oct 10, 2026, the IVR phone number +15615550142, Live since Sep 10, 2026, an Unlimited · 200/day · $79/mo upgrade button and Manage billing](https://mays-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/site/help__ai-receptionist-ivr__02-subscription-card.f4bc903291.png)

## Send calls to the receptionist

The receptionist answers calls to its own number. You can give that number to customers, or ask your phone company to forward your store's existing number to it: all calls, or only when the line is busy or nobody picks up. The forwarding is set up with your phone company, not in Mays.

## Change the greeting

1. On the **IVR (AI Receptionist)** tab, open **Greeting**.
2. Type what callers should hear first. The placeholder shows the default greeting.
3. Click **Save greeting**.

![The Greeting tab with a custom greeting: Thanks for calling E2E Test Co North. You can ask me about our hours, parking or vegan options. Press 1 to get our address by text, or press 9 to talk to someone at the store. Below it: Custom greeting. Clear the field and save to revert to the default, Reset to default and Save greeting](https://mays-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/site/help__ai-receptionist-ivr__03-greeting.20d6f788c8.png)

- Your greeting replaces the whole default one, so say that callers can **press 1** for the address and **press 9** for a person.
- A computer voice reads it word for word. Write numbers as words ("seven", not "7").
- To go back to the default, click **Reset to default**, then **Save greeting**.

## Put callers through to a person

1. Open **Forwarding**.
2. Enter the **Fallback phone number** with the country code, for example +1 561 555 0177. Use a manager's cell phone, a kitchen line or any phone that doesn't forward to Mays.
3. Tick **I confirm this is a separate line**.
4. Under **Caller ID shown to the fallback line**, choose what the fallback phone shows when it rings:
   - **Show the customer's number**: you see who's calling and can call them back.
   - **Show our IVR number**: only for a store whose own line forwards to Mays and also takes the calls back. Your phone company needs to let the receptionist's number through so the call doesn't loop.
5. Set **Ring duration before giving up**: 5 to 45 seconds, 30 by default (about 5 rings).
6. Click **Save forwarding settings**.

![The Forwarding tab: Fallback phone number +15615550177, the ticked I confirm this is a separate line box, Caller ID shown to the fallback line set to Show the customer's number, the Show our IVR number option, Ring duration before giving up 30 seconds (about 5 rings), and Save forwarding settings](https://mays-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/site/help__ai-receptionist-ivr__04-forwarding.e1f42971db.png)

- The fallback phone can't be the location's own phone number (from **Basic Info**) unless you choose **Show our IVR number**. Otherwise the call would loop back to the receptionist.
- If nobody answers the fallback phone in time, the call ends. The receptionist doesn't take messages.
- With no fallback phone, callers who press 9 hear *Sorry, no one is available to take your call right now. Please try again later.*

## Daily call limit

- Each plan answers a number of calls a day, counted from midnight in the location's time zone.
- Only calls the receptionist answers count. Blocked callers, robocallers who hang up and calls it turns away don't.
- Once the limit is reached, callers hear *We've reached today's call volume. Please call back tomorrow, or visit our website.* and the call ends.
- Mays emails the location's email address and every admin when the location reaches 80% of the day's limit, and again when callers start being turned away. Each goes out at most once a day. You can reword it, see [Branding customer emails](https://www.mays.app/help/account-billing/customer-email-branding).
- **To raise the limit**, click one of the buttons under **Upgrade for a higher daily call limit**. The new limit works straight away, and the price difference for the rest of the billing period is added to your next invoice. The tab can't move you to a smaller plan. On **Unlimited** it says *You are on our highest standard plan*.

## Billing and cancelling

- **Who pays.** With per-location billing, the location's own card pays, as always. If your organization has one bill for all locations, a new receptionist is billed to the organization's card. A receptionist you already have stays on the card it's on.
- **Manage billing** opens Stripe's billing page for this location's receptionist: change the card, see invoices or cancel. When the receptionist is on the organization's card, that page is the organization's billing, so only someone with **Edit organization settings** (admins by default) can open it.
- **If a payment fails**, the status says **Payment failed** and the receptionist stops answering. Callers hear *This service is temporarily unavailable. Please contact the business directly.* The Greeting, FAQ and call tabs are hidden until the payment goes through.
- **When the subscription ends**, Mays releases the location's receptionist number straight away and it stops working. If you cancel at the end of the billing period, that's the last day of the period, and the tab shows the date.
- **To subscribe again** after the subscription has ended, open the location's **IVR (AI Receptionist)** tab: it shows the plans again. Pick one and pay as before. The location gets a new phone number, so update your call forwarding, and your FAQs and call log are kept.

## Good to know

- **It only speaks English.**
- **It answers only from your FAQ list.** It doesn't use your Knowledge Base, and it doesn't make up answers.
- **It doesn't know your opening hours.** Write them into the *What are your hours?* answer. The receptionist answers the same way day and night.
- **It doesn't take messages or voicemail.** Rewrite the starter *What is your phone number?* answer, which mentions leaving a message after the tone.
- **It doesn't take catering orders.** Catering has its own phone line, which is part of the Catering module.
- **Texts** come from Mays's texting number, not from the receptionist's number. Texts sent to the receptionist's number aren't answered.
- **Any key other than 1 or 9** ends the call with *I didn't understand that. Goodbye.*
- **It's on the web only.** The phone apps don't have receptionist settings.

## Related articles

- Catering & phone: [Receptionist FAQs and missed questions](https://www.mays.app/help/catering-phone/ivr-faqs-and-missed-questions) — The AI phone receptionist answers callers from a list of questions and answers that you write. Add answers, test what callers might say, and turn the questions it missed into new FAQs.
- Catering & phone: [Receptionist call log and blocked numbers](https://www.mays.app/help/catering-phone/ivr-call-log-and-blocking) — See every call to a location's AI phone receptionist, read what each caller asked and heard, and block numbers that keep calling. Mays also blocks robocallers on its own.
- Catering & phone: [Call recording for the receptionist](https://www.mays.app/help/catering-phone/ivr-call-recording) — Call recording is an extra for the AI phone receptionist. It records calls that are put through to your staff, so you can listen to them later from the call log.
- Team & roles: [Add and manage locations](https://www.mays.app/help/team-roles/add-and-edit-locations) — Add your stores to Mays, keep their address, phone, email and time zone up to date, and find each location's billing, phone receptionist and scheduling settings.
- Account & billing: [Plans, the free trial and locked modules](https://www.mays.app/help/account-billing/plans-and-free-trial) — Every organization starts with a 30-day free trial of all plan modules, then picks Basic or Pro (or your company's own package, if Mays set up custom pricing). What each plan includes, what the add-ons are, what a locked module means, and how each location's package decides its features.
- Account & billing: [Branding customer emails](https://www.mays.app/help/account-billing/customer-email-branding) — Put your logo, brand color and business name on the emails Mays sends for you, and rewrite five of them — schedule published, shift picked up, trade decisions, receipts and receptionist alerts.
- Getting started: [Getting help and support tickets](https://www.mays.app/help/getting-started/contact-support) — Open a support ticket from Help in the web app, follow the Mays team's replies and answer them, or send a support request from the contact page at mays.app/contact, or call us.

## Still need help?

Send us a support request and a real person on the Mays team will get back to you.

[Contact support](https://www.mays.app/contact?topic=support) · [Call +1 (561) 286-3939](tel:+15612863939)

Canonical: https://www.mays.app/help/catering-phone/ai-receptionist-ivr