How does an AI receptionist learn about my business?
From whatever you give it — and the difference between a useful assistant and a frustrating one is almost entirely here, not in the voice. An assistant that knows your cancellation policy sounds competent. One that does not sounds like a phone menu with better manners.
Three places the answers come from
The fastest start, because it already exists. Services, hours, locations and pricing get read and turned into something the assistant can answer from — no forms to fill in.
For everything your website does not say out loud: price lists, policies, aftercare instructions, the answers your team gives twenty times a week. A scanned menu or PDF works as well as a typed one.
The greeting, the name it answers as, your opening hours and the specific things you want it always to say — or never to.
Why a website beats a script
A scripted assistant knows exactly what somebody thought to write down, which is never enough. Real callers ask about parking, whether you take walk-ins, if you do gift vouchers. Learning from your site means the assistant starts with everything you have already published, and the gaps that remain are real gaps rather than transcription failures.
What to add when your website is thin
Most sites are marketing, not reference. They say "expert colour services" and not "a full head of highlights takes three hours and costs from £120". If your assistant keeps missing questions, the answer is usually a one-page document written the way you would actually answer on the phone — not a website rewrite.
Finding the gaps without guessing
Read a week of call summaries. The questions that keep coming back unanswered are your list, and it is usually shorter than expected — five or six things covering most of what the assistant could not handle. Add those, and the difference in the following week is obvious.
Keeping it current
Prices change and pages get edited. A re-crawl on a schedule keeps the assistant aligned with your site without anyone remembering to do it, which matters most for the things that change quietly — hours over a holiday, a service you stopped offering.
Frequently asked
No. Open Lines reads your website and builds the knowledge from that, then you add documents for anything your site does not cover.
Common documents and PDFs, including scanned ones — a photographed price list is read the same way a typed one is.
Your call summaries. Questions it could not answer appear there with the caller’s details, and the same handful usually accounts for most of them.
Update your site or your uploaded document. Scheduled re-crawling keeps the assistant aligned with your website without you having to remember.
Yes, and you should for anything needing professional judgement. Those become a message and a callback rather than an answer.