Answering for shops & stores, while you're serving at the counter.
The till keeps you from the phone, so calls ring out, and you never learn who called or what they wanted. EdgeAudit sits behind your existing number, answers in a local voice, and gets the caller's name, their number and what they were after onto a text while you're still serving the person in front of you.
The customer in front of you always wins.
You can't leave a customer standing at the till to answer the phone, and you shouldn't try. So it rings out, and the caller who only wanted to know whether you had something in stock may already be heading for the retail park instead. EdgeAudit takes those calls in a local voice, gets the name, the number and what they were looking for, and puts it in a text for you, so you check the shelf and ring back.
The phone rings while there is a queue at the till
Most calls to a shop are short, and they are nearly always the same handful of questions. Are you open today. Have you got it in. How much is it. Do you deliver, and how far out. Is my order in yet. Can somebody else collect it. None of them takes a minute, and that is exactly why they get missed. There is a queue at the till, or you are up in the stockroom, or you are on your own and you are cutting an order for the person standing in front of you.
A missed call costs a shop differently from the way it costs a plumber. They hang up, try the next place or order it online, and you never learn the call happened. The ones you feel are the order calls. A Christmas turkey and ham list, a barbecue order in a hot week, a cake for Saturday, a catering job, a big collection somebody wants held until Friday. Those are worth real money, and they land at the busiest hour of your busiest day, because that is the moment the customer thought of it.
EdgeAudit sits behind the number you already have, on call forwarding, so nothing about your number changes. When you cannot get to it, it answers in a local voice, takes the caller's name, their number and what they were after in their own words, and texts it straight to you. It cannot see your stock. It will not tell anybody you have something in, because it does not know, and sending somebody on a wasted drive into town does more damage than the missed call did. It takes the question properly so you can look on the shelf and ring back, which is all that caller wanted in the first place. The fixed things you give it at setup, your opening hours, your delivery area, where to park, it can say.
How it works
Live in about five days, behind your own number.
The till comes first
So EdgeAudit answers instead, in a local voice, whenever there's a queue and nobody free.
What they were after
Name, number, and whether it was stock, an order or a collection.
You get the text
Straight to your phone, so you check the shelf and ring back yourself.
Common questions
Somebody rings to ask whether you have something in stock. What does it actually say?+
It has no sight of your stock, so it won't tell a caller you have something in; sending them off on a wasted trip does more harm than the missed call would have. It takes their name, their number and what they were looking for, and texts it to you, so you're the one checking the shelf and ringing back. If a caller asks whether it's a person, it says no, it's an AI assistant, not you pretending to be somewhere else. You approve every line it uses before it goes live.
Can it take a click and collect enquiry, or an order over the phone?+
It takes the enquiry, not the order itself. It gets the name, the number, the order reference and what they're asking about, and texts that over so somebody in the shop can look it up and ring back. It won't tell a caller their order is ready, and it won't take a card payment. What it buys you is timing: the name and number land while the customer is still thinking about the order, not sometime after they've already tried somewhere else.
A shop's calls are small ones. Is it worth £249 a month?+
That depends on which shop you are. If there's always somebody free to lift the phone, you don't need this, and it's fair to say so. It earns its money in the shop with one or two people running it, where the till keeps you off the phone most of the day, and in the order calls, the Christmas list, a barbecue order in a hot week, a Saturday cake, a catering job, a collection held till Friday. A single one of those landing safely can cover the month on its own. It's from £249 a month, so weigh a missed order against that.
The customer comes first. EdgeAudit gets the phone.
Hear it answer from behind your counter.