Introduction
Welcome to the i118 phone assistant, a virtual receptionist and answering service designed to streamline incoming business calls. By automating daily customer interactions, i118 handles routine inquiries so staff can focus on higher-value tasks.
What is the i118 phone assistant?
The i118 phone assistant (referred to in the rest of the documents as "phone assistant" or "AI") is an AI-powered virtual receptionist designed to manage your incoming business calls. It automates daily customer interactions—including order placement, appointment scheduling, answering questions, logging messages, and routing urgent inquiries directly to your team when necessary. It has many advantages over the traditional phone answering services.
Working seamlessly alongside your existing phone line, it acts as a backup for when you’re busy or away. You can also configure it to handle all your calls automatically. When a customer calls, the phone assistant answers promptly and guides the conversation naturally in multiple languages.
Who is this for?
Restaurants
Take phone orders, answer menu questions, quote prices, and push orders directly to your POS (Square or Clover).
Service Businesses
Introduce the business to callers, book appointments, answer service questions, and provide business info, pricing, and policies.
Any Business
Handle general information requests — answer FAQs, provide hours, give directions, and transfer callers to a staff member when needed.
How it works
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A customer calls your business phone number
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The call forwards to your call forwarding number
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The phone assistant greets the caller and handles their request
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You receive an SMS or app notification with call summary, details, and recording
What can the phone assistant do?
| Capability | Description |
|---|---|
| Answer questions | Uses your custom instructions to answer inquiries, quote prices, describe services, give directions, and more |
| Take orders | Accepts phone orders. Optional integrations are available to allow sending them to Square or Clover POS |
| Book appointments | Book appointments/reservations. Optional integrations are available to allow checking availability and booking directly to Google Calendar, Outlook, or Calendly |
| Multi-language | Speaks English, Spanish, Chinese, and other languages — callers choose via phone keypad |
| Transfer calls | Routes callers directly to a staff member when requested or when the phone assistant cannot handle a question |
| After-hours handling | Plays a closed message, takes voicemail, answers inquiries, takes orders, or just appointments only — your choice |
| Send notifications | Sends an SMS and/or notification via cell phone/tablet app after every call with a summary and recording link |
Dashboard pages
Start here
Use these pages to understand the product and complete the initial setup.
Setup home
These are the core configuration pages you will revisit most often.
Business Info
Hours of Operation
Notifications
Forwarding Phone
POS
Appointments
Additional Settings
Test Simulator
Operations
Use these pages to verify behavior and review what happened on real calls.
Account
Use these pages to manage subscriptions, profile details, and multiple locations.