Voicemail, answering service or Auxily.
Three ways to deal with the calls you can't take.
When you can't get to the phone, the call goes somewhere. For most trade and service businesses that's voicemail, a human answering service, or now, an AI receptionist like Auxily. Each one suits a different business.
Here's an honest look at all three, so you can pick the one that fits how you work.
Free, and easy to ignore.
Voicemail costs nothing and needs no setup. The catch is that plenty of callers won't leave a message. Someone after a quote has a list of businesses to ring, and the next one might pick up.
Even when they do leave a message, you're listening back at the end of the day and ringing people who may have already booked someone else.
A real person, reading from a script.
A traditional answering service puts your calls through to a call centre. A receptionist answers with your business name, takes a message and sends it on. It's a good step up from voicemail, and callers get a human.
The trade-off is depth. The person answering is usually covering many businesses at once, so they rarely know your products, prices or service areas. Most charge per call or per minute, so a busy month costs more.
Set up on your business, answering in seconds.
Auxily is an AI receptionist built for Australian trade and service businesses. We set it up on your business: what you sell, your prices, where you deliver, how you like jobs booked. It picks up, answers the common questions and takes the details you need to quote.
Straight after the call you get a written summary in your inbox, with an optional text to your phone. You keep your number, and it only takes the calls you miss unless you want it to take them all.
When an answering service is the better fit.
Auxily isn't the right answer for every business. A human answering service is likely the better choice if:
Answering services, answered.
An answering service is usually a call centre where a person takes a message for many businesses. A virtual receptionist can be a remote person or an AI that's set up on your business specifically. Auxily is an AI receptionist set up on your business, your prices and your service areas.
It varies a lot. Human answering services are commonly priced per call or per minute, often with a monthly fee on top, so the cost goes up with how busy you are. Auxily starts at $397 a month with 100 minutes included, then $0.95 a minute, plus a one-off $497 setup.
Auxily uses a natural Australian voice and talks like a good receptionist. If someone asks, it tells them it's a virtual receptionist and that the team will call them back. Most callers just want their order or enquiry taken.
No. You keep your number and forward the calls you miss. Our call forwarding guide has the exact codes for Telstra, Optus and Vodafone.
Yes. The Front Desk plan answers every call. The Overflow plan only picks up the ones you don't.
Anything it doesn't know, it doesn't guess. It takes the details and tells the caller the team will call back. We review real calls and fine-tune it as we go.
Stop missing the workyou can't answer for.
Find the right plan in 60 seconds. We'll have Auxily answering your phone within a week.