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Our AI receptionist turned down a job. On purpose.
We put a real AI receptionist on a US phone number that anyone can call. In testing, a caller said they smelled gas, and she refused to book the job. That was the right answer. Here is what Ava does, two things we had to fix, and how to call her.
One of our test callers rang a heating and cooling company and said they could smell gas in the kitchen. The receptionist did not offer a time slot. She told them to leave the house now and call 911 from outside, and she booked nothing. The receptionist was Ava, an AI we built, and that call is the one we are proudest of.
Ava answers the phone for a sample HVAC company in Dallas, Ridgeway Heating & Air. She is not a recording. You can call her right now on +1 (469) 904-0039, describe a problem like "my AC stopped cooling", and she will check for anything unsafe, take your name and address, find an open time and book it. Every call is logged automatically, so an owner can see who called and what they needed without listening to anything.
We built her over three days in October, part-time, between other work. Most of that time was not spent making her talk. It was spent on calls that go wrong. She passed a set of recorded test calls first, then real phone tests on the live number: a normal booking, handing the call to a person when the caller asks for one, and the gas-smell call.
The first thing we fixed was the most dangerous sentence an AI receptionist can say: "you're booked". In an early version Ava confirmed the appointment and then tried to create it. If the booking failed, the caller still heard a confident yes and would turn up waiting for a technician who was never scheduled. Now she reads the details back, asks "Shall I book that for you?", and only says you are booked after the booking system confirms it went through.
The second fix was a loop. When a caller asked about a water heater or electrical work, Ava kept asking whether there was anything HVAC-related she could help with, again and again. Now she says once what the company does not handle, asks once if there is anything else, and moves on. A real receptionist would never repeat herself five times, so Ava should not either.
One more thing we checked: when a test caller asked whether she was a robot, she said yes, she is an AI, and when they asked about price she did not invent a number. An AI receptionist that pretends to be human, or makes up a quote, causes more trouble than a missed call.
What she is not: a finished product for every trade. Ava is set up for heating and cooling, and the same approach works for plumbing and roofing with their own safety checks and questions. It is a demo line, so test bookings go into a demo calendar that is cleared daily.
If you run a home-service business in the US and want this answering your phone, we are taking our first three businesses on a founding offer: live in 14 days or your setup fee back, month-to-month with no contract. Call Ava first. If she would have kept that customer, book a 20-minute call with us.
Written by Rushi Prajapati