Florists,
Nearly 70% of business enquiries still arrive by phone. Yet almost half of all calls to small UK businesses go unanswered — because the owner is with a customer, on a job, or simply can’t get to the phone in time.
For most small businesses, a missed call isn’t just an inconvenience. It’s lost revenue:
- A florist missing 10 calls a day at £50 per order loses up to £13,000 a month — and a single missed wedding or funeral enquiry could cost £600 to £2,000 or more
- A salon or grooming business missing booking calls loses appointments that simply go to a competitor
And that’s before counting the time you waste on unsolicited sales calls interrupting your day.
What the AI Voice Receptionist does
When a call comes in that you can’t answer, the AI Receptionist picks up — immediately, every time, 24 hours a day.
It’s trained specifically on your business, so it can:
- Answer common questions (opening hours, pricing, location, services)
- Take messages and capture caller details
- Book or check appointments via your calendar
- Redirect sales and cold callers — politely but firmly — to email
- Transfer genuine urgent calls to you or a colleague
- Send you a full transcript of every call
It speaks naturally, at a pace and in a tone appropriate for your business. You can hear an example of a real conversation below.
Who is it for?
The AI Voice Receptionist works best for owner-operated businesses where:
- You are often unavailable to answer the phone — on a job, with a customer, or simply busy
- Every call could be a new customer — and missing one has a direct cost
- Sales and cold calls are a constant interruption — taking time away from paying work
It’s a particularly strong fit for florists, trades (plumbers, electricians, heating engineers), salons, pet services, independent retailers, and any business that relies on phone bookings or enquiries.
How much could missed calls be costing you?
Use the calculator to get a rough sense of the revenue at risk for your business — and how it compares to the cost of the service.
What are missed calls costing
your flower shop?
Florists lose orders every day to unanswered phones — everyday bouquets, sympathy arrangements, and high-value wedding florals alike. Enter your numbers to see the real cost.
ⓘ These figures are estimates based on the values you have entered. Actual results will vary depending on your call volumes, the proportion of calls diverted to the AI, and other factors specific to your shop.
To get a personalised assessment and accurate pricing for your situation, book a free no-obligation consultation.
Book a free consultation →Pricing
Two public tiers, pick the one that fits your call volume:
| Standard | Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly fee | £499 | £749 |
| Setup fee (one-off) | £500 | £750 |
| Calls included per month | Up to 400 | Up to 800 |
| Minutes included per month | Up to 1,000 | Up to 2,000 |
| SMS confirmation + 24hr reminder | Add-on £20/mo | Included |
| CRM read (HubSpot / Pipedrive) | Add-on £60/mo | Included |
Call and AI costs are bundled into the monthly fee up to your tier’s allowance. Overage beyond the cap is £0.20 per minute, with email alerts at 70%, 90%, and 100% of your tier’s usage. A Lite tier at £349/month (£350 setup, up to 150 calls / 400 minutes) is available by arrangement for low-volume sole traders.
What the monthly fee covers: continuous monitoring of call handling, script and seasonal-hours updates as your shop changes, AI model upgrades when providers deprecate older models, priority support, and call recordings stored on your own server.
Setup gets you live: discovery session, custom FAQ and call handling scripts, calendar integration, call transfer and escalation rules, and full pre-launch testing.
Prefer to hold the provider accounts yourself? A pass-through arrangement is available where you pay Twilio, VAPI, and the LLM providers directly and receive a roughly 12.5% discount on the monthly fee. Mention it during your discovery call.
For the full detail of what each tier covers, response times, what counts as a chargeable change, and the licence terms, see the Florist Service Scope document.
Getting set up
Getting started is straightforward:
- Free consultation — we talk through your business, call volumes, and what you need the AI to handle
- Discovery and setup — we build and test your custom receptionist (typically 1–2 weeks)
- Go live — your phone provider diverts unanswered calls to the AI. You start capturing every enquiry
Most clients are live within two weeks of their first conversation.
Frequently asked questions
Will callers know they’re speaking to an AI? The AI speaks naturally and confidently. Whether to disclose it’s an AI is your choice — many businesses prefer transparency, and callers generally respond well when the AI is helpful and responsive.
What if a call is urgent or complex? The AI can be configured to transfer calls to you or a colleague in specific situations — for example, if a caller uses certain keywords or explicitly asks to speak to a person.
What happens to calls outside the AI’s knowledge? If the AI can’t answer a question, it takes a message and ensures you’re notified promptly. It never guesses or makes up information.
Can I update the AI myself? Changes to your scripts, FAQs, and settings are handled as part of your monthly service. Just get in touch and updates are typically live within 24 hours.
Is there a minimum contract? There is a minimum initial term of 3 months. This gives the system time to bed in and allows you to see the full value of the service. After that, rolling monthly.
Ready to stop missing calls?
Get in touch for a free, no-obligation conversation →
Also available for tradespeople — see the Trades AI Voice Receptionist for plumbers, electricians, and heating engineers.
What you will need
Your automation runs on infrastructure you own. You will need the following accounts before or during onboarding:
- A Hetzner (or equivalent) cloud server account for your n8n instance
- A Twilio account for your phone number and call routing
- A VAPI account for the AI voice platform
- A Google account for FAQ lookup and calendar availability
These accounts can be set up during onboarding if needed. Ongoing server and API costs are typically £10–£20 per month in total, billed directly to you by the providers.
What the monthly fee covers
The monthly fee covers monitoring and maintenance of the automation and the infrastructure it runs on.
- Monitoring. Every automation is watched. If a webhook stops working, an API key expires, or a provider has an outage, you are told before your customers notice.
- Maintenance. Your n8n instance is kept current with security advisories and software upgrades. When AI model providers deprecate older versions, the automation is updated and tested before the old version is switched off.
- AI and API costs stay on your bill. Because you own the accounts, providers charge you directly. There is no markup. A usage summary is included in your monthly update so you can see exactly what was spent.
- Small tweaks are included. When your business changes, the automation is updated as part of the monthly service without a new project quote.
- No long lock-in. There is a minimum initial term of three months, which covers the cost of onboarding. After that, the service is rolling monthly. If you cancel, you keep the automation, the server, and all your accounts.
Ownership and licensing
Your server, API accounts, and all data processed by the automation are yours. If the engagement ends for any reason, you keep everything.
The automation workflow is the intellectual property of ObserveAutomation. This includes the logic, prompts, and integration design. Your licence to use it inside your own business continues indefinitely, including after the engagement ends. You may not share, sell, or sublicense the workflow.