Book the date while they are still shopping caterers.
Catering leads call three or four kitchens in an afternoon, and the one that asks about the venue, the count, and the allergies gets its proposal read first. Your AI receptionist picks up, takes the whole inquiry, and puts the tasting on your calendar while you are plating a wedding.
An AI receptionist for catering companies answers 24/7 in English and Spanish, captures the event date, guest count, service style, and venue details like kitchen access and load-in, records dietary restrictions and allergies word for word for your chef to confirm, books tastings and consultations on your calendar, logs final-count and menu changes from booked clients, and pages you mid-call when an event day goes wrong.
What a missed call costs you.
- 01Inquiry calls land while you are on an event, and the caller has three more caterers to try before dinner.
- 02Saturdays in September and October, and the first weeks of December, sell out months ahead, so a missed call is a date somebody else books.
- 03Booked clients call with final counts, menu swaps, and new allergies at all hours, and anything written down wrong shows up on the event floor.
What a missed call could be worth
Run your own numbers. Drag the sliders to match your shop, and the figure at the bottom updates as you go.
This is an estimate built from your own inputs, not a quote. Nobody can say a given missed call was a real customer, so read the result as a possibility, not a bill.
Many calls to small businesses go unanswered, and most callers never leave a message.
Not every missed call is a sale: some are spam, wrong numbers, or people you already serve. Your honest guess.
Phone callers are high-intent and convert better than a web form. The starting number is an illustrative default, not a benchmark. Your own close rate on the leads you actually reach.
For most service businesses, a single job runs a few hundred dollars. Count repeat work and referrals and a customer's lifetime value reaches several thousand. Use the number that fits you.
You can't know any single missed call was a real customer; some are wrong numbers or sales calls. But across a month, if even 30% of the would-be customers who reached your voicemail would have booked, that works out to about $4,500.
And the fix scales with the math: even Standard, our $399-a-month plan, runs about 9% of that estimate, roughly $49,212 a year below it.
First AI Employee's Essential plan is $99 a month. The question isn't whether every missed call is a lost job; it's whether catching them clears $99.
Start a 7-day free trial →An estimate from your own inputs, not a quote. The default customer value above is just a starting estimate; set it to your own.
Sources: Invoca's home-services call benchmarks on how often calls go unanswered (a home-services benchmark; the defaults here are illustrative and fully adjustable); CRM Magazine on voicemail behavior; Invoca's call-conversion benchmarks on how well phone leads convert.
On the call, it handles all of it.
Full Event Intake
Captures the date, guest count, event type, service style, venue, and the kitchen, power, and load-in details your team needs before quoting, and texts a secure upload link (Basic and up) to callers who offer to send a floor plan or a signed BEO.
Allergies Captured Word for Word
Records every allergy and dietary restriction exactly as the caller says it and flags it on the file, without promising anything about the kitchen. Your chef confirms what is possible.
Tasting and Consultation Booking
Offers your real availability and books tastings and menu consultations straight onto your connected calendar.
Day-Of Escalation, Any Hour
Answers overnight and weekend calls in English and Spanish, pages you mid-call when an event site reports late food or missing staff, and warm-transfers the caller to the number you set.
In your callers' own words.
- “
We have 120 people at a barn venue on October 11. Are you open that day?
- “
Our final count went from 80 to 92. Can you still add them?
- “
The lunch was supposed to be here at noon and nobody has shown up.
Add-ons, rated for catering.
We rate every add-on for how much it actually earns its keep in your trade: the must-haves and the ones you can skip. Honest stars, not a sales pitch.
Stop sending catering callers to voicemail.
Your AI receptionist answers 24/7, qualifies the caller, and books the work, so more of your calls turn into customers instead of a competitor's.
Not for: healthcare or anyone handling protected health information. We are not HIPAA-compliant and don't sign BAAs.