·6 min read
Live answering services vs AI: an honest comparison
We use answering services ourselves for some things. Here is when AI beats them for trades.
A traditional live answering service charges $1.20 to $1.80 per minute and routes your calls to a call center where an operator with a script answers. They are fine for low volume. They get expensive fast and the operators do not know your trade.
Where AI wins
- Cost per call is roughly a tenth.
- Trade-specific intake is built in - the AI knows what a P-trap is.
- No "press 1 for emergency" because the AI listens and decides.
Where a human answering service still wins
- Empathy on a genuinely distressed caller (a flooding basement, a death in the family).
- Complicated multi-account commercial relationships.
Most shops we work with run AI as the primary and keep a human service as a quiet escalation path for the rare 1% of calls that need a heartbeat.