For most small businesses in Ireland, the phone is still the primary way customers make contact. And for most small businesses, there’s a recurring gap: calls that come in when no one’s available to answer them.
An AI receptionist addresses this directly. This guide explains what it actually does, where it works well, what it costs, and what to consider before getting one.
What an AI Receptionist Actually Does
An AI receptionist is software that answers inbound calls live — not a voicemail, not a hold queue, but an actual conversation. The caller speaks, the AI understands what they want, and it responds appropriately.
Depending on how it’s configured, it can:
- Answer with a natural, professional greeting in your business’s name
- Handle common questions (opening hours, location, services, pricing)
- Take a booking or reservation, syncing directly with your scheduling or reservation system
- Capture a detailed message with the caller’s name, number, and reason for calling
- Route urgent calls to a specific person or team
- Send the caller a follow-up via WhatsApp or SMS after the call — a confirmation, a link, or a simple acknowledgement
It works around the clock, so calls that come in after hours, during busy service periods, or when your team is otherwise occupied get a real response rather than ringing out.
How Niamh Works for Irish Businesses
Dromlik’s AI receptionist for the Irish market is called Niamh. She’s built specifically for Irish SMBs, with a natural Irish accent and the ability to handle calls in over 20 languages — useful for businesses in tourist-heavy areas or with international customers.
She doesn’t sound robotic. The goal is that a caller isn’t sure whether they’ve reached a person or an AI — and in most cases, it doesn’t matter, because they get what they called for.
Niamh can be set up to answer every call, or only calls that go unanswered by your team after a set number of rings. She integrates directly with:
- OpenTable, TheFork, and ZenChef for restaurant reservations — bookings she takes appear in your system in real time
- HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho, and Zendesk — call summaries and caller details sync automatically
- WhatsApp — for follow-up messages sent to callers immediately after the call
You can also have her send a summary of every call directly to your inbox or a team member, so nothing gets missed even if the caller didn’t leave a voicemail.
Where It Works Best
An AI receptionist isn’t the right fit for every business. It makes the most sense where:
Calls are missed regularly. If your team is frequently on site, with clients, or in a service environment where phones can’t be answered, that’s the core use case. The AI covers the gap so missed calls stop becoming missed leads.
Call volume is high enough to be a burden. If your reception function is a meaningful overhead — staff time spent answering the same questions repeatedly, or calls pulling someone off higher-value work — automation makes sense.
Bookings or appointments are involved. When the AI can take a booking directly into your reservation or calendar system, it’s not just answering a call — it’s completing a transaction.
After-hours coverage matters. Enquiries that come in outside business hours often go completely unanswered. An AI receptionist means those callers get a proper response rather than voicemail.
Sectors where this tends to work especially well for Irish businesses:
- Restaurants — covering reservation calls during service when staff are occupied
- Trades and construction — routing calls when the team is on site
- Professional services — handling enquiries and booking consultations outside office hours
- Recruitment agencies — capturing candidate and client enquiries consistently
- Real estate — fielding property enquiries when agents are out showing
What It’s Not
Worth being clear on the limitations:
It’s not a full replacement for human interaction in complex situations. When a caller has a complaint, a nuanced query, or a situation that needs judgment, Niamh routes to a human. She handles the straightforward majority so your team can focus on the calls that genuinely need them.
It won’t replace a full reception function overnight. For businesses that rely on a receptionist for a wide range of internal coordination — not just answering calls — an AI receptionist complements rather than replaces.
The setup matters. A poorly configured AI receptionist gives a bad first impression. The quality of Niamh’s responses depends on the information she’s given during setup: your FAQs, your hours, your booking process, your routing rules. Dromlik handles this setup with you rather than leaving you to configure it yourself.
What Does It Cost?
Niamh is available as an add-on to any Dromlik plan at €100/month, which includes 200 minutes of AI call handling per month. Additional minutes are available in 200-minute blocks at €75.
For context, that’s the cost of roughly four or five missed leads per month — for most businesses, recovering that in converted enquiries makes the cost straightforward to justify.
A 7-day free trial is available, and there are no setup fees.
See the full pricing breakdown at dromlik.ie/pricing.
Setting It Up
Getting Niamh live involves three steps:
- You fill in an onboarding form covering your business details, hours, services, and how you want calls handled
- The Dromlik team configures and tests the assistant based on your inputs, refining it with your feedback
- You go live — Niamh starts answering calls, and you get summaries of every interaction
Most businesses are up and running within 15 minutes of completing onboarding. You can adjust her responses, routing rules, and greetings at any time.
Trying It Before You Commit
The best way to understand how Niamh works is to call the demo line directly: +353 1 263 4204. It’s connected to a demo restaurant setup so you can experience a real call flow before deciding anything.
Alternatively, book a demo with the Dromlik team to talk through your specific business, call volumes, and what setup makes sense.
