Should your organisation use an AI voice assistant?
(Watch the video summary or read the full article below.)
If your organisation receives a steady stream of phone calls, you’ll probably hear the same questions every day.
- “What time do you open?”
- “Has my order been dispatched?”
- “Can someone call me back?”
For a business, these calls can take valuable time away from your team.
For a school, it could be parents asking about term dates, clubs, trips, uniform or appointments with staff.
That’s where AI voice assistants are starting to make a real difference.
This isn’t the old “Press 1 for sales” system
Modern AI voice assistants can have a more natural conversation with callers. Instead of making people work through a series of menus, they can explain what they need in their own words.
The AI can understand the request, respond appropriately and, where it is connected to your systems, take action.
For example, it could:
- Book or change appointments
- Answer routine questions
- Check information
- Create or update support tickets
- Take messages and arrange call-backs
- Send confirmations
For organisations dealing with a high volume of routine enquiries, this could take significant pressure off your team.
But should you replace people with AI?
Probably not.
AI voice assistants work best when you use them for simple, repetitive and predictable tasks.
They can free your people to focus on conversations that need judgement, empathy or specialist knowledge.
A frustrated customer with a complicated billing issue probably wants to speak to a person. The same applies to a parent dealing with a sensitive issue at school.
The aim shouldn’t be to remove the human element. It should be to make better use of your people’s time.
Start small
You don’t need to automate your entire phone system.
Start with one area where AI could provide a clear benefit.
For example:
- Business: appointment bookings, basic customer enquiries or out-of-hours calls.
- Education: answering common parent enquiries, taking messages or providing routine information.
You can then see how well it works before expanding its role.
What about security?
This is an important consideration.
If your AI assistant can access customer, pupil, parent or employee information, you need to understand exactly how that data is handled.
Consider:
- Where is the data stored?
- Who can access it?
- Are calls recorded?
- What systems does the AI connect to?
- How is access controlled?
- Does the solution meet your security and compliance requirements?
Integration matters too. An impressive demo is one thing. A system that works reliably with the technology you already use is another.
Is AI voice right for your organisation?
AI voice assistants are improving quickly, but they aren’t suitable for every organisation or every conversation.
The best approach is to look at where your team spends time answering repetitive calls and ask:
Could AI handle some of these enquiries reliably, securely and without compromising the experience for the person calling?
If the answer is yes, it could be worth exploring.
At Breathe, we can help you understand where AI could fit into your existing IT environment, and where it may not be the right solution.
Want to explore what AI could do for your organisation?
Get in touch.
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