AI phone onboarding: from sign up to your first answered call

What AI phone onboarding involves

AI phone onboarding is the short path from creating an account to hearing an AI phone agent answer a call for your business. On Prepaid.ai that path has four questions (your business, your country, your line of work and, later, your plan) and two listening tests, one in the browser and one on a real phone.

This post is the map. If you want the craft, such as what to put in a greeting and how to test awkward callers, read how to set up an AI phone alongside it. Here we stick to what happens, in what order, and what each step needs from you.

Why the first call comes before the payment

The first call comes before the payment because an AI phone line is only worth buying once you have heard it speak for your business. Prepaid.ai builds the AI from your website and lets you talk to it in your browser during a free trial, so the plan you later choose is for something already tested.

The AI phone onboarding steps, in order

Step 1: create your account

Sign up with your email and a password, plus your name and country, then confirm the email we send you. There's no card field anywhere in this step.

Step 2: tell it about your business

The first screen asks who the AI will answer for. There's a small switch here, a business or just me, for sole operators who trade under their own name. It changes the wording the AI uses, so pick the one that fits.

Then paste your website address. The AI reads up to five pages, starting with the one you gave it and following the links most likely to hold your services, hours and contact details.

What comes back is a profile: business name, services, hours, area, common questions and a draft greeting. Read it properly. If the site couldn't be read (some block automated visitors, some are a single image), you're told why in plain words and offered a short form instead. There's more on what it reads and what it refuses to guess in how your AI phone learns your business.

Step 3: confirm your country

If the country you gave at sign up matches where your browser says you are, this step is filled in for you and skipped. If not, you're asked where you take calls.

Your country decides the line every call opens with (the AI says it's an AI, in wording written for that country), how recording is mentioned, which local numbers you can have and the currency your plan is priced in. Your time zone is taken from your browser at the same moment, which is what stops a nine in the morning booking landing at nine at night.

Step 4: pick your line of work

Choose your trade from the list: plumber, dental clinic, salon, law office and so on, with something else at the bottom. Each choice carries vocabulary you wouldn't think to write down, especially the words that mean a call can't wait. A burst pipe for a plumber. A knocked out tooth for a dentist. Those words are how urgent calls get flagged later.

Step 5: hear it in your browser

Now the part the whole flow exists for. Press the button, allow your microphone, and talk to your AI. No phone number is involved yet.

Ask it your opening hours. Ask for a price. Ask for a human. Interrupt it. Then go and fix whatever made you wince, in the profile or the greeting, and call again.

During the trial your home screen may also show a shared trial line with a short code. Ring that number from any phone, enter your code on the keypad and you reach your own AI over a real phone line. You get 15 minutes on it across the trial, up to 5 minutes a call.

Step 6: choose a plan and get your number

A setup list on your home screen tracks what's left: create an agent, choose a plan, get your number answering, add a service menu, connect your calendar.

A plan runs 30 days and includes minutes and a local number. The three are on the pricing page, from US$29 for 100 minutes. What happens next depends on your country:

• United States and Canada. The number is set up within minutes of payment.
• New Zealand. The carrier asks for contact details and an address first. It's a short form.
• Australia and the UK. The carrier also wants documents, and you're shown exactly which ones before you start.

You get an email when the number is live, and another if the carrier needs something changed. The country by country detail is in getting a local business number, and the numbers page shows what's on offer.

Step 7: switch on bookings, if you take them

Add your services with how long each takes, set your hours, and paste your Google Calendar's private address into the calendar settings once. From then on the AI checks for free times before it offers any, and it won't offer a slot when your own diary says you're busy. Appointments it makes are kept in your Prepaid.ai calendar. Booking appointments by phone with an AI goes through the setup.

Your first answered call

Ring your new number from your mobile. You should hear the AI say it's an AI, then your greeting. Ask a question, try a booking, ask to be put through, leave a message.

Then open the call in your dashboard. The recording, the transcript and a short summary are there within a few minutes of hanging up. If the AI was asked something it couldn't answer, that question is listed for you so you can add the answer once. If you're curious what the other end of that call felt like, see what a caller actually hears.

Last step: put the number where customers look. Website, Google listing, invoices, the side of the van.

What usually slows people down

• A thin website. The AI only knows what the site says. Type in the gaps rather than waiting to fix the site.
• Documents. In Australia and the UK, have them ready before you choose a plan so the carrier check starts the same day.
• Letting the trial lapse mid setup. Nothing is deleted. Your setup is kept and becomes read only until you choose a plan.

Start with the free part

Create an account, paste your website and talk to your AI in the browser. The trial runs 7 days and asks for no card, so the only thing you spend before deciding is a few minutes of talking out loud. When it sounds right, the pricing page has the plans.

FAQ