When your 10-year veteran receptionist retires

The receptionist who has been with the shop for a decade and knows every commercial account is irreplaceable in a way that is hard to admit. When she retires, the standard move is to hire someone new at the same wage. That person quits in four months because the wage is now low for the work and the institutional knowledge is gone.

The shops we have watched succeed in that transition split the job: AI handles the intake and routing the veteran used to do on autopilot, the new hire focuses on the relationship and outbound work that AI cannot.