Turning on a receptionist line is a small change with a lot of edges. The first week is where you find them. This guide is a day-by-day plan for that week, written for Glow Line but useful for any answered line: what to set up before the first call, what to read in the summaries, and what to fix before you stop noticing.
Before you switch it on
Read your service list as a stranger would. Every name should be the one clients use, every price should be current, and every duration should be the real one. The assistant will say exactly what is there, so a stale price is a stale price spoken aloud. Check the hours for each day and tick Closed on the days you do not open.
Then write the notes. This is the part most people skip, and it is where the useful answers come from. Parking. Where to wait. Deposits. The voucher rule. How far ahead you book. Who does what, if that matters. Keep each a sentence. The assistant reads these when a caller asks, and says it is not sure when the answer is not there.
Get the number, dial the divert code the dashboard gives you for your carrier, and ring your own salon from another phone while it is on silent. Listen to the whole call. You are checking that the opening line names your business correctly, that a price question gets your price, and that a booking request ends with the team will confirm by text.
Monday: read every summary
The first day, read every text that comes in and every entry on the Bookings page, even the wrong numbers. You are not checking the assistant's manners; you are listening for the questions it could not answer. Each one is a line you can add to notes or a service you can add to the menu. Three callers asking whether you do men's cuts means the menu needs a line that says so.
Confirm every booking request by text the same day. The callers were told to expect it. A fast first reply sets the pattern for everything after.
Tuesday: fix the menu
Take Monday's unanswered questions and fix them. Add the missing services. Reword the ones callers named differently. If someone asked for a lash fill and the menu said lash infill, change the menu to fill. Save, and the next call hears the new version. There is no retraining step; the list is the knowledge.
Wednesday: tell your regulars
Regulars will notice a new voice. A short text to your client list, or a line on your social accounts, saves confusion: when we cannot pick up, a virtual assistant takes your details and we text you back; you can also request a time at our booking page. Say it once. Most people will not mind, and the ones who do will ring at a time you can answer.
Thursday: check the allowance
Look at the dashboard's count of answered calls for the month and do the arithmetic. If four days used fifteen calls on a plan with forty, you are heading for the allowance by the end of the month. That is fine, because calls past it are still answered and marked, up to twice the allowance, but it tells you which plan you actually need. Line is 40 a month; Salon is 200.
Friday: listen to one call that went wrong
By Friday there will be one. A caller who hung up, a request with a service name you do not recognise, a message that makes no sense. Read the summary and decide whether it is a notes problem, a menu problem or just a caller. Most are the first two, and most are fixed in a sentence.
Also look at the booking page requests. Clients who were told about the page on Wednesday will have started using it, and their requests arrive the same way as phone ones, marked booking page.
The two habits that make it work
Confirm fast. The assistant promised a text; the shorter the gap between the call and your text, the more the whole thing feels like one conversation to the client. Between clients, at the basin, over lunch: a confirmation takes thirty seconds.
Keep the list true. Prices change, a therapist's days change, you close for a long weekend. Edit the Receptionist page the day it changes, not the week after. The line is only as honest as the list.
What not to expect
The assistant does not see your diary, so it will never say yes you are booked in. It will not be charmed into quoting a price that is not on the list. It will not transfer a call or put anyone on hold. A caller who wants a person hears that the team is with clients and will call back, and you get the message. These are limits chosen on purpose. A line that promises less and keeps every promise is the one clients trust.
By the second week
You will stop reading every summary and start reading the ones that matter. The menu will have settled. The booking page will be in your bio and your voicemail greeting. The phone will ring mid-colour and you will not look up. That is the whole point.