Call, text or email: which should your assistant use?

The rule we use

If the answer depends on a question you haven't thought of yet, call. If you'll want to point at it later, email. If it's a quick nudge to someone who already knows you, text.

That last one comes with a catch on our line at the moment, which we'll get to. But the rule holds for any assistant, and for you too when you're doing the errand yourself. The channel should fit the shape of the conversation, not your mood about phoning people.

Calls are for anything with back-and-forth

Think about booking a table for six on a Friday. You ask for 7:30. They've got 6:45 or 8:15. Is the 8:15 inside or on the terrace? Can they fit a high chair? Four exchanges, and each one depends on the last. By phone that's ninety seconds. By email it's two days, and by then the 8:15 has gone.

So when you give your assistant an errand, ask yourself how many forks there are. Rescheduling, getting a quote where the price depends on the details, sorting out a delivery window, anything with "it depends" in it. Those are calls. Give the assistant your limits up front ("8:15 is fine, nothing after 8:30") and it can take the counter-offer on the spot without coming back to ask you.

Calls are for businesses with no online booking

A lot of businesses have a phone number and not much else. The gutter cleaner. The tailor. The garage that's been on the same corner for thirty years. There's no form to fill in and nobody reads the contact email, so for an assistant the phone is the only way in.

That's most of why we built a line that dials out. It's also why a restaurant reservation made by phone works at any restaurant with a phone number, whether or not the place is on a booking app. There's more on this in why the phone still matters.

The flip side is worth saying. If a business does have an online booking page that you or your assistant can use, use it. It's quicker, and it doesn't pull someone away from a customer to answer the phone.

Email is for quotes and records

Some things need to exist in writing. A quote with line items. A confirmation with a reference number. Terms, a delivery address, the date a price holds until. You can take these down over the phone, but you don't want to, and neither does the person reading them out.

Our line has its own email address for exactly this reason. On a call the assistant can give that address and ask for the quote to be sent there. The mail is stored on the line and forwarded to whichever inbox you choose, and the assistant can reply in the same thread to people who've written to it. So the two channels work together: a call to ask, an email to receive. Your AI line has an email address goes into the detail.

One limit to plan around. The line keeps and forwards the text of an email, links included, but not attachments. So ask for the figures in the body of the message. A photo or a PDF should go to your own address.

Where email loses is speed. It's the wrong choice for tonight's table.

Texting, and what it can't do yet

In general, text is ideal for short messages between people who already know each other. "Running ten minutes late." "Parcel's behind the bin." No greeting needed, no reply needed.

On our line there's a limit today, and we'd sooner be plain about it. Texts to the line always arrive and are saved. But texts from the line to other people are limited for now, which means a reply might not land. So we don't treat a text from the line as something you can count on, and the line doesn't hold text conversations with other people. Anything that must arrive goes as a call or an email.

If most of your customer contact is by text, that's a real gap, and a number on your own mobile or a calling app will serve you better for that part of the job.

Ten errands, sorted

A quick sort, to show the rule at work.

• Book a restaurant table. Call.
• Move your own dentist appointment. Call.
• Get a price for a fence repair. Call to describe it, and ask for the quote by email.
• Chase a refund from an airline. Call, and let the assistant wait on hold.
• Ask a shop if something's in stock. Call.
• Send a supplier your delivery address. Email, in reply to their message.
• Keep a confirmation for later. Email.
• Tell your assistant to do any of the above. Text it or call it.
• Confirm tomorrow's job with a customer. Call.
• Pay a deposit. None of them. That one comes back to you.

When you should make the call yourself

An assistant is good at errands. It's the wrong choice for a conversation where the relationship is the point. A complaint you feel strongly about. Bad news for a customer who's been with you for years. Haggling with a supplier you'll see at the trade counter on Monday. Thanking someone properly.

Those calls aren't hard because of the logistics. They're hard because a person needs to hear from a person. Hand the other twenty calls over, and spend the time you get back on these.

How to hand the errand over

One kind of text works well on our line right now: the one from you. The line knows your mobile number, so a text from it is treated as an instruction, not as a message from a stranger. There's a fuller write-up in text your AI assistant an instruction.

Calling the line works the same way, and it's the better choice when the errand is complicated or you're driving. Text when you're somewhere you can't talk. "Call the garage, ask if the car's ready, I can collect after four." You send that from the school gate, and the call gets made.

Common questions

More on comparisons

• AI receptionist vs human receptionist: what each is actually better at
• AI answering vs voicemail: what your callers experience
• Virtual phone number vs AI phone number
• Unlimited vs per-minute AI phone plans: how to choose