Every product in this category demos well. A scripted call in a quiet room proves almost nothing. These are the questions that separate a convincing demo from something you can leave answering your phone on a Friday night.
About accuracy
- Where do prices come from during the call — a live lookup against my data, or a copy of my menu the model was given?
- If I change a price at 18:00, when does a caller hear the new one?
- What does it do when I ask for something that is not on my list at all?
- Show me a call where it did not know the answer. What did it say?
The fourth question is the one vendors dislike. A system that has no good answer for it will improvise on your behalf in front of your customers.
About control
- Can I read a transcript of any call, and how long is it kept?
- Can I see which lookups it performed during a call, or only what it said?
- How do I stop it from answering a specific kind of question?
- How does a caller reach a human, and is that handover recorded?
About the operational reality
- Do I keep my existing number, and what is the process if I do?
- What happens to a booking if the calendar is unreachable during the call?
- What exactly do I have to maintain for it to keep being accurate?
- What is not included that I might assume is?
How to test the shortlist
Do not test with the scripted scenario. Test with the calls that actually go wrong: a caller who changes their mind halfway, one who asks for something you stopped selling, one who mumbles a postcode, one who asks a question with a legal or medical edge to it.
Then read the transcripts. What the system says when it is out of its depth tells you more about living with it than any number of successful orders.
On pricing
Check what a call costs at your real volume, whether there is a per-minute component, and what happens when you exceed the plan. A price that only works at low volume is a price that changes exactly when the product starts being useful.