Every missed call is a job that might go to someone else. And the calls that come in on a Friday night or a Sunday afternoon are the ones most likely to go unanswered.
That was the gap at BioWise. So I built IRIS, a phone agent that answers when the office is closed. Today, dozens of calls a month that used to be missed are answered, and most of the leads from BioWise's agents arrive outside office hours.
Here is how it works, what I learnt building it, and what you can take from it for your own business.
Who BioWise is
BioWise is a fast-growing commercial services business in London. Its customers include restaurants, hotels, pubs, shops and offices across the city. Pest control is a big part of the work, and when a business has a problem, it wants to speak to someone quickly.
I've worked with BioWise for three years. In that time we took it from effectively no website to a strong digital presence: 60k+ Google impressions a month and 60+ enquiries a month, 10-20+ of them commercial. The full story is on the BioWise project page.
But getting found is only half the job. If someone rings at eight in the evening and nobody picks up, that enquiry is lost.
What IRIS does
IRIS answers BioWise's calls on evenings and weekends. It's built in Voiceflow, with Twilio handling the phone line. On a call it does five things:
- Picks up and explains. It tells the caller the office is closed, but that it can get the team to contact them.
- Answers common questions. It works from a knowledge base built from BioWise's own information: what the business does and what it doesn't. It never quotes prices.
- Takes the details. A few short questions: what the problem is, how urgent it is, whether it's a home or a business, the area, and a name.
- Sends the enquiry to the office. The details go by email and into a shared sheet, so nothing depends on someone remembering a voicemail.
- Follows up on WhatsApp. Where it can, IRIS sends the caller a WhatsApp message after the call, so they have the details in writing and an easy way to add more.
A caller who rings late on a Saturday gets a conversation instead of a missed call.
Why speed matters on the phone
A pause that's fine in a web chat feels long on a call. I've read call transcripts where a caller hung up in the middle of a slow reply.
IRIS replies in well under a second, so it feels like a real conversation.
Three agents, one job
IRIS isn't on its own. BioWise also has a WhatsApp agent and a web chat agent on its website. They all do the same job: answer the question, take the details and get them to the team. The web chat agent also sends the customer an automatic follow-up email after every request.
Every lead the agents take is emailed to the office. An email agent sorts BioWise's main inbox and sends a WhatsApp alert when something important comes in, so a new lead doesn't sit unread. You can see every kind of agent I build on the agents page.
What I learnt building it
Getting IRIS live was one job. Making it reliable is an ongoing one. These are the lessons that have made the biggest difference.
Send early, not just at the end
IRIS used to send the details only at the end of the call. That meant a caller who hung up early was lost, even if IRIS already knew what they wanted. Now, if a caller wants a call back right away, sounds impatient or says they have to go, IRIS stops asking questions and sends what it has. A missing name never stops a send.
Keep it short
Nobody wants a long list of questions late in the evening. IRIS has a cap on how many follow-up questions it asks, so the call stays quick and the caller stays on the line.
Read the transcripts, not just the dashboard
Phone lines attract robocalls, scam calls and sales pitches. They all show up as calls on a dashboard. So the agents on my always-on Mac mini read the real transcripts every week. They count genuine callers only, check every lead was actually sent to the team, and flag anything that went wrong.
Never let an agent claim something it hasn't done
An agent that tells a customer their details have been passed on, when nothing was sent, is worse than no agent at all. I build my agents to confirm a message only once it has actually gone. When the weekly checks catch a slip, I fix it.
It's never finished
Every week's calls show me the next thing to tighten. That's normal. A phone agent is less like a website you launch once and more like a new member of staff you keep training.
The results
Dozens of calls a month that used to be missed are now answered. Most leads from BioWise's agents now come in outside office hours: evenings and weekends, the times a small office can't cover.
If you'd like to know how many enquiries your own business is missing, that's one of the things I look at in a free Digital Growth Audit.
What you can take from this
- Find out what you're missing. Check your phone records for calls that came in when nobody answered, especially on evenings and weekends.
- Start with the job, not the tech. Write down what a good receptionist would do on a late call: what they'd say, what they'd ask, and where the details would go.
- Give the agent your real facts. What you do, what you don't, and what it must never say. Prices are a good example of a rule to set early.
- Make sure leads land where you look. An email, a shared sheet and a WhatsApp alert beat one more inbox nobody checks.
- Read the calls every week. The first version won't be perfect. The transcripts show you exactly what to fix.
An AI phone agent doesn't replace your team. It covers the hours your team can't, so out-of-hours callers get an answer instead of a missed call.
Wondering how many enquiries slip away when your office is closed? Book your free 30-minute Digital Growth Audit. It's a quick Google Meet where I look at how people find you and get in touch, and give you straight advice on what to fix first.
