Comparison
A receptionist answers the phone when it rings. Most of your buyers never ring — they read, decide, and leave.
This is the comparison most owners are actually making, so it deserves a straight answer. A good receptionist or inside-sales hire is excellent at converting the people who make contact. The gap is everyone who does not: the visitor who reads your pricing page, assumes wrongly, and closes the tab without a trace.
Judgement, warmth, and everything unusual. A person can read a hesitant caller, handle a complaint, negotiate, and do the dozen things around the edges of a job description that no software touches. If your enquiries are already reaching you and the issue is how they are handled, hire the person — you will get more from it than from us.
Coverage of the silent majority. We answer the question the visitor was never going to phone about, at 11pm, on the page where they were about to give up. We do not replace a person: when someone is ready, they reach your team with the whole conversation attached — what they asked, what nearly stopped them, and where to pick it up.
| Capability | Hiring a receptionist or inside-sales hire | SentientWeb |
|---|---|---|
| Handles the buyer who makes contact | Yes, and better than us | Hands them to you, prepared |
| Handles the buyer who never makes contact | No | Yes |
| Available at 11pm and at weekends | Not without extra cost | Yes |
| Judgement on an unusual situation | Yes | Escalates to you |
| Cost | A salary, plus ramp | $1,000/month, month to month |
| Needs training and cover | Yes | No |
Hire if enquiries already reach you and the problem is how well they are handled.
Choose SentientWeb if the problem is how few enquiries you get relative to the traffic you already pay for.
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