The Sona AI receptionist, also known as an AI virtual receptionist, is a call answering service that answers incoming calls for a business. It performs the function of a human receptionist by: 

• Answering common questions
• Taking messages
• Booking appointments
• Handling appointment reschedules and cancellations

Unlike an in-house receptionist, however, it's completely automated and available 24/7 to receive calls.

Sona handles the full range of inbound call tasks your front desk manages around the clock. Here's a breakdown of everything the AI handles:

• Answer calls and respond to questions. Sona greets callers and answers common questions about your business using a knowledge base you build from your website URL, uploaded PDFs, or custom documents you write manually. It learns your services, hours, pricing, policies, and anything else you want callers to know — and gives accurate, specific answers instead of generic responses.
• Take detailed messages. When a caller wants to leave information or has a question Sona can't answer, Sona collects their name, contact details, and the reason for their call. The message appears in your Quo inbox immediately after the call ends, along with a full summary and transcript.
• Capture leads and qualify new clients. You can configure Sona with custom conversation workflows — called jobs — that tell it exactly what information to collect from different types of callers. For example, Sona can ask a new lead for their name, address, the service they need, and any details that help your team follow up quickly.
• Send texts during a call. Sona can send an SMS to the caller while the call is still active. This is how Sona handles appointment scheduling — it collects the caller's details and texts them a booking link before the call ends. It can also send confirmation messages, follow-up instructions, or any link the caller requests, without any manual follow-up from your team.
• Transfer calls to the right person. When a caller needs a human, Sona transfers the call directly to the right teammate — with a call summary attached, so your team knows exactly why the caller is reaching out before they pick up. You decide the rules: which scenarios trigger a transfer, and who the call goes to. For example, you can tell Sona: “If they say their request is urgent, then offer to transfer their call to your team.”
• Log calls in your CRM automatically. Every call Sona handles is logged in your Quo inbox and can be automatically synced to HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, or Jobber using Quo's native integrations. Call summaries, transcripts, and recordings are included, so nothing falls through the cracks.
• Handle both business hours and after-hours calls. Sona plugs directly into your call flow using Quo's drag-and-drop call flow builder. You can set Sona to handle calls during business hours, after hours, or both — without changing the rest of your call routing.
• Speak with callers in English, Spanish, or French Sona currently supports English, Spanish, and French, so you can serve more customers in the language they're most comfortable with. Language is set in your call flow configuration.

An AI receptionist uses conversational AI to understand what callers need and respond naturally, instead of relying on scripted menus or human message-taking. Unlike traditional answering services or IVRs, it can answer questions, qualify leads, book appointments, and route calls intelligently — all instantly and available 24/7.

Sona brings together artificial intelligence, speech recognition, large language models, and natural language processing technologies ‌‌to provide a high-quality customer experience.

Sona turns speech into text, identifies the specific question or request, and uses AI-powered reasoning capabilities to respond. Next, it turns text responses into speech using text-to-speech software or AI voice models to communicate with customers.

This process is similar to how AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude work. The difference is Sona can access your company's information, so it can give customers accurate and specific information about your business.

The cost of an virtual receptionist often depends on how many calls it handles for your business every month. Most AI receptionist solutions charge a monthly fee or a per-minute fee for calls handled by their tools. These offerings start at around $100 per month for a fixed bundle of calls, after which they charge you by the minute.You can try Sona for free. 10 calls are included each month in the free plan. Choose from multiple pricing tiers starting at $25 per month depending on how many calls you need Sona to handle each month. Sona is billed per call, not per minute — so your costs are predictable. Calls under 15 seconds don't count toward your usage. Bonus: Find out more about the best AI phone answering services.

Choose an AI receptionist based on three factors: cost, customization, and connectivity:

1. Cost: If you choose the wrong provider, AI voice agents can be very expensive for your business. Many tools bill you by the minute, which can add up over time. Find a provider that bills you per call so that you have more visibility into your usage. 
2. Customization: Choose a provider that gives you the flexibility to train your AI receptionist and makes it easy. You shouldn’t have to manually create your receptionist’s knowledge pages from scratch. Prioritize providers that let you share a website URL or upload documents. That way, you can finish setting up your AI receptionist quickly. 
3. Connectivity: Choose an AI receptionist that lives inside your business phone. Toggling between your phone and your receptionist can be a hassle and adds work for your team. AI receptionists like Sona automatically log calls in your business phone inbox. Plus, they share call recordings and summaries with your CRM so that you don’t lose track of any conversations. 

We’re biased, but we believe that the best AI receptionist for small businesses is Sona. It can answer common questions, take down detailed messages, is easy to set up, and is cost-effective for small teams. Plus, it’s 100% integrated in your business phone, so you have full visibility into its performance at all times. 

No, Sona is designed to be set up with zero technical expertise. Simply drag and drop it into your existing call flows. You can provide custom instructions and your company documentation to Sona’s knowledge base in the call flow builder.

‍Learn how you can train and customize Sona.

No, the information you provide to Sona isn't used to train its AI models. Your business information remains private and is only used to answer questions from your callers.