FrontDesk
FrontDesk answers the calls your staff can’t get to — after hours, mid-job, or when both lines are already ringing. It books the jobs that can be booked accurately, and captures the rest so a human can confirm them.
Hear it yourself
The public demo line is off while we harden it for open traffic. Book a slot and we put the agent on a live call with you, running against a demo business, so you hear it before anything is quoted.
Demo line — opening soon
Until the public number opens, we run the demo call with you.
Book a live demoSame agent, same script, same text-back — on a call we schedule instead of an open line.
It answers
A live voice picks up in about a second and greets you the way the business would.
You talk to it
Ask for a tire swap and it will book you. Ask what ceramic costs and it will not — it takes the details and leaves the shop a quote to make.
You get a text
Within a minute, the same confirmation text a real caller would receive.
Real calls to our demo line
Three calls, three different decisions. Anyone can play you a pleasant voice — the part that matters is what it decided, and what it left behind for the shop to work.
Unedited calls to our own demo line — not actors, and not a script read by a person. Spoken phone numbers are silenced; the captured number is in the record instead, because we don't publish callers' details.
What it does
The value isn’t the conversation. It’s what exists after the caller hangs up — an acknowledged customer and a record someone can act on.
After the call
The caller gets an acknowledgement. Your queue gets a record someone can work.
On the customer’s phone — example, wording you approve
Hi Dave — this is Northside Auto. Thanks for calling. We have your number and your note about the brake noise, and we’ll be in touch.
DELIVERED
In the shop’s queue
Illustrative queue view. Fields match what the agent captures.
Illustrative scenarios
Hypothetical situations, not customer case studies.
Hands under a car, phone ringing. The agent captured the vehicle and symptom, and flagged how soon they need it.
Ceramic quote at nine at night. The agent captured the vehicle and paint condition, and never invented a price.
Those scenarios are illustrative. The failures behind them aren’t — we keep a written record of every defect found on a live call, and what changed because of it. Read what actually breaks.
From call to next action
Every call runs the same four steps, in this order — and every call ends with something your team can see and act on.
01 · Answer
Picks up when staff can't
After hours, mid-job, or when both lines are ringing — on the number customers already know.
02 · Decide
Books or qualifies
Routine, known-duration work gets booked. Anything variable gets captured for a human to confirm.
03 · Confirm
Closes the loop
A text lands within about a minute, so the caller stops dialling your competitors.
04 · Recover
Hands your team the next action
Name, number, need, urgency, status and age — one queue your staff work, not a voicemail box.
It books oil changes, tire swaps, seasonal work and safeties. It does not book a ceramic coating, a full detail, or anything diagnostic — a ceramic is a two-day job, and a noise is unknowable until it is on the hoist. Booking those into a two-hour slot is worse than not booking them at all.
Most AI phone services take a message and promise a callback. FrontDesk books what can be booked, and captures the rest properly.
Managed by NorthTen
There is cheap software that answers a phone. This is not that. We build the rules around how your shop actually runs, watch what the agent does on real calls, and keep it right as the business changes. Nobody on your team logs in to configure anything.
How the handoff works
This is a dial, not a switch. Most owners never want AI answering ahead of a human — so the default setting doesn't. Forwarding is configured on your existing line, and you can move between these three modes at any point.
| Mode | Who answers | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Conditional forwardingDefault | Staff ring first | Your phone rings the way it always has. The agent only picks up when the line is busy, nobody answers after the rings you set, or the phone is unreachable. Staff keep first refusal on every call. |
| Time-based | Staff during hours | People answer during posted hours. Evenings, weekends, and holidays route to the agent. Useful when the shop is fully staffed on the phone but nights are dead air. |
| Always forward | Agent answers everything | Every call goes to the agent first, and it transfers to a human on the conditions you define. Used when the phone is the interruption you are trying to remove from the floor. |
Your number never changes, and this is reversible in a minute.
The number on your sign, your listing, and your invoices stays exactly as it is. Forwarding is set with a short carrier code and removed with the matching cancel code — dialled from your own handset, without a support ticket and without waiting on us.
Integrations
Nothing gets ripped out. FrontDesk sits in front of the tools you already open and hands work into them. Some of these are running in production today; the rest are a scoped piece of work — each one below says which it is.
Calendars
Books into
CRMs and systems of record
Writes into
No shop management system is connected out of the box. We check what your system’s API actually permits, and what it costs to do, before it appears in your proposal — not after.
Phone and VoIP
Answers on
Your published number never changes. Forwarding is set with a carrier code and removed with a cancel code.
Alerts and text-back
Sends through
Workflow and ticketing
Hands off to
Website and web forms
Captures from
Form enquiries and phone calls land in the same queue, so nobody has two places to check.
Honest version: if a tool has an API, it is in scope. What connects, how deeply, and what it costs is scoped per business during the review — because a read-only calendar check and a two-way write into a shop management system are very different pieces of work.
Pricing
Setup covers scoping, building, configuring, and launching the system. Monthly covers monitoring, fixes, prompt and workflow tuning, and a performance summary. Where you land inside each range depends on integration count and how much of your information is already written down.
Combined install
FlagshipA source-grounded website and FrontDesk together — form and missed calls captured, instant text-back, owner alert, and a single inquiry queue.
Setup
C$2,500 – 3,500
Monthly
C$400 – 600/mo
FrontDesk only
The response workflow installed on the website you already have. Same capture, text-back, alerting, and queue — no site rebuild.
Setup
C$1,800 – 2,500
Monthly
C$399/mo
Third-party usage — the phone number, per-minute voice, and text messages — is billed under your accounts and disclosed before anything is switched on. Expansion modules such as follow-up enforcement and status automation stack on top once the base install has proven itself.
FAQ
Every one of those answers sits on a written QA record — twenty-four defects found on live calls, and the guard that now catches each one. What actually breaks in an AI phone agent.
Book a live demo call. We put the agent on the phone with you, walk through the forwarding mode that fits your shop, and give you a written recommendation within 24 hours. No pitch, no obligation.
NorthTen works with phone-driven local service businesses across Ontario and Canada.
Free. 15–30 minutes. No commitment.
