What it actually is, in three sentences
It picks up your phone
You forward your business line to the number Clayta gives you. From then on the phone gets answered at seven in the morning, on a Sunday, and while you are mid-job with your hands full.
It talks, and it books
It works out what the caller wants, checks the times you are genuinely open, and puts the appointment in. In English or Spanish, whichever the caller starts in.
You read it afterwards
Every call turns up in your dashboard written out, with what got booked and anything it could not answer put in front of you to fix once.
Nine screens, one question each. You don’t write it, you pick it.
Tap the kind of shop you run
Eleven of them. The one you pick sets the words your assistant uses for everything after it. A barbershop gets barbers and appointments, a plumber gets callouts and estimates. Nobody hires software that sounds like it was built for somebody else's trade.
First things first
What kind of shop is this?
Not quite right? Pick the closest. Nothing here is locked in.
Write the first thing a caller hears
Or leave it, and it uses your shop name. Either way a box underneath shows you the whole opening line assembled, including the sentence that tells every caller they are speaking with an AI assistant, which is on by default and which we think is the right way round.
Your shop
How should it answer?
Shop name
How the assistant answers
Callers will hear
“Just so you know, this call is recorded and you're speaking with an AI assistant. Thanks for calling Vine Street Barbers, how can I help?”
Set your hours once
Seven rows, one per day, and a box to tick for the days you are shut. It only ever offers a caller a time you are actually open, so nobody talks their way into a Sunday morning that does not exist.
Your week
When are you open?
Say where a real person can be reached
Yours, not the shop's. When a call needs a human, somebody unhappy or a question it has never been given an answer to, it takes a message and puts it in front of you rather than guessing.
Almost there
Where should we reach you?
Your mobile
Yours, not the shop line. An unhappy caller shouldn’t be sent back to a phone nobody is picking up.
Audition five, keep one
This is the screen owners spend longest on, and they are right to. It is what a stranger hears when they ring your shop. Tap a card and it speaks; each one says who it suits, because warm and unhurried is the wrong choice for a shop with a line at the door.
Your assistant
Who should answer your phone?
Tap one and it speaks. You can switch any time from Settings.
Point it at your calendar, or don't
Square Appointments or Google Calendar, whichever your shop runs on. One of the two, never both, so two systems can never disagree about whether two o'clock is free. Run on neither and you skip the screen: Clayta keeps the calendar itself and nothing about answering or booking depends on it.
Your calendar
Do you use Square Appointments?
Square Appointments
Your services, staff and hours come across. Bookings are written back to your Square calendar.
Google Calendar
It reads when you're busy, never what you're doing, and puts bookings in a calendar of its own.
Neither, thanks
Clayta keeps the calendar itself. Nothing about answering or booking depends on either one.
One of the three, never two at once.
Check the list it quotes from
Connect Square and your catalog is already here, so this screen is correcting rather than typing. Otherwise paste your price list in one go and it reads it into rows. Each one carries what it costs and how long it takes, because both come up on the phone.
What you offer
Here's what we found
Or paste a whole price list, one per line, name and price, and it reads them into rows.
Pick an area code, not a number
There is no list to trawl. Type the three digits that make you look local, or leave it blank and we choose one near you. The number on your window stays exactly as it is, and this is the one you quietly forward it to.
Almost there
Your own number
Preferred area code (optional)
Leave it blank and we'll pick one near you.
We’ll give you a number
You keep the number on your window and your cards. You forward it here, and nothing changes for your callers.
Add your card, and the line switches on
The card is last, after the shop is set up, and it is the thing that makes it real: your number is bought and your assistant created the moment it goes through. Your first seven days are free, your plan starts after that unless you cancel, and nothing answers your phone before this screen either.
Last step
Pick your plan
Starter$99/month
One shop. The right size for most single-location businesses.
150 minutes of calls a month, and your own phone number.
Growth$249/month
For a busier phone. Four times the talk time.
600 minutes of calls a month, and your own phone number.
- No setup fee. The number is included.
- No contract, cancel from your dashboard
- 30-day money-back guarantee
One code from your shop phone, and the calls arrive on the number you already have
*71
Only the calls you don't pick up. Most shops start here.
*72
Every call, straight through.
*73
Undoes it, whenever you like.
What happens on every single call
“Just so you know, this call is recorded and you're speaking with an AI assistant.”
It goes to every caller and cannot be switched off while recording is on.
- Answers inbound calls in English and Spanish
- Books, reschedules and cancels appointments
- Handles several callers at the same time
- Answers questions from details the business has configured
- Takes a message and notifies the owner when it cannot answer
- Syncs with Square Appointments, or with Google Calendar
- Discloses that it is an AI and that the call is recorded
- Shows the owner a written transcript of every call
The full list, including what it deliberately cannot do, is on what Clayta does and doesn’t do.
Most calls aren’t someone booking
They’re running late, checking your hours, asking where to park.
Vine Street Barbers, from the car
Caller: Hey, uh, I've got a four o'clock with Dev and I'm stuck on the interstate.
Clayta: No trouble, I'll let Dev know, roughly how late do you think?
Caller: Um, ten minutes, fifteen, and sorry, where do I park?
Clayta: Street parking right out front, and it's free after six.
Road noise is real to the call, because he is driving. The assistant recognizes the booking. It answers the parking question from the shop's own details.
Ask for a person and you get one.
It never guesses. It takes the caller’s name and number, and you answer the question once.
Is there parking near you?
I don’t want to give you the wrong answer on that, so let me have the owner follow up with you.
It never guesses.
Every call, written down and waiting for you
Overview
37
Calls answered
last 7 days
21
Bookings made
last 7 days
112
of 150 minutes
38 left this month
2
Need your attention
escalated calls
A call, read back
Transcript
- Assistant:Vine Street Barbers, how can I help?
- Caller:Have you got anything Thursday after work?
- Assistant:I have three o'clock or half five on Thursday.
- Caller:Half five, please. Cut and beard.
- Assistant:Booked. Thursday at 5:30 with Marcus.
Overview
Calls per day
Calls
Calls
Overview
Coming up
Overview
When your phone rings
Calls that would have gone to voicemail.
Overview
Teach your assistant
Things it couldn’t answer yet. Answer one here and it handles it from then on.
“Do you do kids' cuts?”
Asked by 6 callers
Answer“Is there parking near you?”
Asked by 3 callers
AnswerServices
Services
Your assistant reads this list on every call. Changes reach it straight away.
Calls are recorded, and the assistant tells every caller so before anything else is said. Your dashboard shows you the written transcript rather than an audio player, and that transcript is how you read a call back.
It fits what you already use. Or it becomes it.
You already have a system
Connect Square Appointments and it reads your services, your staff and your opening hours, and writes every booking back to the calendar you already look at. Or connect Google Calendar instead, and it reads when you are busy, never what you are doing. One or the other, never the two together: a shop has one calendar, and two systems would eventually disagree about whether two o’clock is taken.
You haven’t got one
Then this is it. Your services, your prices, your hours and your calendar live in Clayta, and the phone books straight into them. Skip the calendar screen and nothing else changes: the calendar connection decides where a booking is written, never whether one happens.
Your phone right now is a liability
When you're with a client
Rings out, then offers to take a message
Answers on the first ring and books the appointment
Two people ring at once
The second one gets a busy tone or voicemail
Both answered, at the same time, by name
After you've closed
Sits until morning, and by then they have booked elsewhere
Books it into tomorrow's calendar at eleven at night
A caller who speaks Spanish
An English greeting they may not finish listening to
Switches to Spanish the moment it hears it
Knowing what was said
A name on a notepad, if that
A written transcript of every call, in your dashboard
Tap Clayta to see the same five moments handled.