A lot of people are selling AI phone agents right now, and every pitch sounds the same. These questions sort them. Bring the list to every call you take, including the one with Blake.
1. Does it run on your existing number?
Your number is on your trucks, your signs, and ten years of invoices. If the system needs customers to call a new number, the vendor is building their asset, not yours. The right answer: it answers the number you already have, and the number stays yours if you leave.
2. Can you hear it take a real call before you pay?
Not a highlight reel, a phone number. Call it, and the vendor’s own agent should answer, so you can judge the pause before it speaks, the voice, and how it recovers when you go off script. A vendor who won’t put their agent on their own line is telling you something. Ours answers the number at the bottom of this page.
3. Does it know your trade?
A generic agent answers like a generic agent, and your callers can tell. It should be loaded with your services, your service area, and how you qualify a lead before it ever takes a call. Ask the vendor how that gets built, and who builds it.
4. What happens when it doesn’t know?
The failure that costs you isn’t “I don’t know,” it’s the confident wrong answer. You want the agent that flags the question, books the callback, and never makes a promise on your behalf. Handing a hard question to the owner keeps the lead. A bluff loses the customer, and your name goes with it.
5. Does it book, or does it take messages?
A message is voicemail with better handwriting. The point of answering is the booked site visit: straight onto your calendar, a confirmation text to the customer, and the transcript and summary texted to you. If the demo ends with “then it sends you the lead,” ask who calls that lead back, and how fast. The five-minute window is why the answer matters.
6. Is the texting compliant?
The system will text customers on your behalf, so consent has to be collected and disclosed the way carriers require. Ask the vendor where that happens. If the answer is a shrug, walk: the number that gets filtered is yours, not theirs. Ours is written in plain English on the SMS terms and privacy pages.
7. What holds them accountable?
Ask what the vendor measures, and how you’d check it yourself. Vague answers (“more visibility,” “brand awareness”) are how a system hides that it isn’t working. Ours measures booked site visits, and every one comes with the transcript, so you count them yourself instead of taking our word. And ask about the exit: we run month to month with a 30-day cancellation notice, so nothing but the results holds you here.
Seven questions. All seven fit in one call. Start with number two. Ours picks up on the first try.