How to judge it after a month
A month is long enough to know and short enough that changing your mind is cheap. The difficulty is that most people assess this on the wrong evidence — a couple of memorable calls and a general feeling — and reach a confident answer that has nothing to do with whether it worked.
Two measures that prove nothing
The first is the one call that went badly. Every month contains one, including months where somebody human answered, and it is memorable precisely because it was unusual. The second is whether it sounds good — pleasant to listen to and useless at booking is a worse outcome than slightly stilted and reliable. Both measures feel like evidence and neither is.
Four questions worth answering
Look at evenings, weekends, and the hours you were busy. This is the thing you bought.
Bookings, quotes, visits. Even a handful usually settles the arithmetic.
Not "went imperfectly" — actually cost you something. Be strict, and be honest.
Fewer evening callbacks, fewer interruptions mid-job. This is a real benefit that never appears in a figure.
Separate the setup from the product
Most disappointing first months are knowledge problems rather than capability problems: it did not know a price because nobody gave it one, or it could not book because a calendar was never connected properly. That is worth ten minutes of checking before you conclude anything, because the fix is small and the alternative is discarding something that was never configured. Ask what it got wrong and whether you had ever told it the answer.
Reaching the answer no
If calls were answered, nothing was lost, and it still did not produce work, then your phone was probably not where your problem was — and that is a legitimate conclusion rather than a failure. Businesses that are already booked solid, or whose callers are mostly suppliers, find this out in a month for the cost of a month. Stopping then is the system working, not the system failing.
Frequently asked
Four questions: were calls answered that previously were not, did any turn into work, did anything go wrong that a person would have prevented, and are you doing less of the work you disliked?
The one call that went badly — every month has one — and whether it sounds impressive. Pleasant and useless at booking is worse than slightly stilted and reliable.
Check whether it is a knowledge problem before concluding anything. Most disappointing months are a price nobody supplied or a calendar never properly connected.
If calls were answered, nothing was lost, and no work came of it, your phone was not where your problem was. That is a legitimate conclusion reached for the cost of a month.