AI receptionist or a hire? How to compare the real cost in Malaysia
The honest comparison is not machine against person. It is which hours, which calls and which tasks each one covers, and what is left over for the other.
Start with coverage, not salary
A full-time receptionist covers a shift, minus leave, sick days and lunch. Your phone rings outside that shift too: early mornings, evenings, weekends, public holidays and the minutes when the one person is already on another call. List the hours your business is reachable and the hours customers actually try to reach you, and note the gap.
Count what the person does all day
Keep a tally for a week. How many calls and messages were questions with a written answer? How many were bookings or changes? How many needed judgement, such as an upset customer or an unusual request? The first two groups are where an assistant helps. The third is where you want a person.
The costs people forget
- For a hire: salary, statutory contributions, leave cover, training time, recruitment, equipment and the cost of the calls missed when the person is away or busy.
- For an assistant: the monthly plan, usage beyond the allowance, the time to write its knowledge, and the time a staff member spends reading its conversations and handling hand-overs.
A simple way to work out your own numbers
- Take the number of calls and messages last month and the share that were routine.
- Look up the plan allowance on the pricing page and see how many calls and conversations it covers in your volume.
- Add the staff time you expect to spend on hand-overs.
- Compare it with the cost of the hours the assistant would cover, and with the calls you currently miss.
Where a person is still the better choice
Walk-in customers, sensitive conversations, complaints that need judgement and anything where a relationship matters are better handled by a person. The goal is rarely to remove the receptionist. It is to let them spend their day on those conversations instead of repeating opening hours.
Use both
Many businesses keep their receptionist for the counter and the difficult calls and let the assistant cover after hours and the peak. That is the lowest-risk first step, and it gives you real numbers instead of guesses. Read answering calls after hours without hiring for how to set that up, or try the free plan first.