RingCentral AI Receptionist review: minutes, routing and setup

RingCentral meters AI Receptionist by talk time, rounded up in 30-second increments. Both ways of buying it include 100 minutes a month. Extra minute bundles are sold separately, and pay-as-you-go minutes past your allowance cost $0.50 each. Both options start with a 14-day free trial.

RingCentral's AI Receptionist holds a spoken conversation in place of a phone menu. It works out what the caller wants, then routes by name, department, location, keyword or the context of the conversation.

It books and reschedules appointments through Google and Outlook calendars, and it sends a confirmation text afterwards. On the CRM side, RingCentral names Salesforce, HubSpot and Zoho.

You train it on your website, your FAQs and documents you upload, such as hours, services and policies. You also pick from several AI voices, and RingCentral lists English, Spanish and four other languages.

Reporting covers call volume, resolution rates and routing outcomes, with a transcript for each call.

RingCentral's product page describes setup and the call itself. Below, those descriptions are put in order as one call. We're reporting what RingCentral publishes, not a test call we made.

It fits a business already on RingEX, because the add-on joins the phone system you use and starts from $39. Your AI front desk and your team's extensions then sit in one account.

Its routing suits an office with several departments or locations, where the main job is getting each caller to the right person. Routing by name, department or keyword replaces a phone tree.

A line with short calls gets the most from 100 minutes a month. Longer calls draw the allowance down faster, at $0.50 for each minute past it.

Disclosure: GreetKeeper is our product. GreetKeeper's $49 Starter includes 200 answered calls, and a call counts once however long it runs. Past the allowance you pay a flat $0.45, $0.35 or $0.25 per call by plan.

GreetKeeper answers a call forwarded from any carrier or phone system, in all four forwarding modes. The ring count is set where the forwarding is set, and GreetKeeper answers the moment the call arrives.

Booking into Google Calendar or Outlook is on every plan, and after the call your caller gets one text with the confirmation. A signed webhook posts the caller's details, intake answers and summary to the URL you choose, so Zapier, Make or n8n can pass them on.

Robocalls and spam calls are dropped before the greeting and don't count toward your plan. Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial, all features on, no card.