What is a small business answering service, and how is this one different?
An answering service picks up the calls a small business cannot take. Here it is not a room of operators: one AI answers your own number day and night, along with the website chat, the e-mail and the forms, from your class and exhibition pages. It books places, sets viewings, sells gift cards and keeps every conversation on the customer's record.
Can it book places in painting classes and wheel series?
Yes. Each class, series or open studio block can have its own calendar, and the AI offers only the free times of your live calendar on the phone, in the chat, by e-mail and on your forms. Every booking is confirmed by e-mail with a calendar invite, a reminder follows, and when the asked time is taken the AI offers the waitlist.
Does it work for an art gallery as well as a studio?
Yes. A gallery uses the same doors for other jobs: the AI answers questions about the current show, the artists and the opening hours from your own pages, takes down a collector's interest in a work, books a private viewing in the director's calendar and puts every inquiry and opening RSVP on the record. What may be said about a price is up to you.
Can it book open studio time on a wheel or an easel?
Yes. Anything people reserve can have its own calendar: a pottery wheel, a slab roller, an easel in the open studio or a private room for a party. The AI answers from what you wrote about each one, such as who may use it and which class must come first, and books the time into that calendar. That covers what potters look for in pottery studio booking software, with the phone and the chat answered too.
Can customers buy gift cards for a class or a pottery date night?
Yes. Gift cards for an amount or for an experience, such as a wheel lesson for two, are sold on your gift page, in the website chat, by e-mail and on the phone. On a call the AI texts the payment link and never takes a card number by voice; the money goes to your own payment account. The details are on the AI gift cards page.
How does it handle birthday parties, team events and private bookings?
A party request by phone, chat, e-mail or form gets an answer in seconds and lands on the customer's record with the date, the head count, the ages and the project they have in mind. The AI builds a quote from your own party price list, and nothing goes out until you say yes. Follow-ups then stop the moment the host replies.
Will it answer questions while I am teaching or hanging a show?
That is the point of it. Calls on your own number are picked up at once while you are at the wheel, the easel or up a ladder, and chats and e-mails are answered from your own pages. Whatever your rules keep for a person becomes a message with the callback number read back, or is put through to whoever is free, with the AI saying who is calling and why.
Can it answer parents' questions about kids' classes and camps?
Yes, from what you approved: the age range, what children should wear, pick-up times, how long a painting takes to dry or a pot to be fired. A question about an allergy, a medical need or a child who needs extra help is written down in full and handed to your instructor. The AI does not decide what is safe for a child.
Can it tell potters when their fired pieces are ready?
It answers from the firing notes you wrote, such as how long a bisque and a glaze firing usually take and when the pickup shelf is open. It does not see inside your kiln, so a question about one particular piece goes to your list with the name and the callback number read back, and your team answers it.
Will it call people to confirm tomorrow's class?
Yes. AI Auto-Call phones the people booked for tomorrow's session and takes their answer: yes confirms the place, no frees it, and a request for another date comes to your list. You prepare clay, canvases and kits for the people who are really coming, and a freed place can still be filled.
Can we keep our studio's or gallery's phone number?
Yes. Keep the number printed on your flyers, your gallery cards, your website and your social pages, and forward it the way you would forward it to a cell phone. There is no porting and nothing to install, and the calls your rules send to you are transferred, with the AI telling you who is on the line and why.
Which languages does it speak with our visitors?
Each visitor's own. The phone answers every caller in their language, and the website chat works in 40 languages by text or by voice, which helps a gallery that draws tourists or a studio in a neighborhood where many languages are spoken. A call can also be routed to the person on your team who speaks the caller's language.
What does this answering service cost for a studio or a gallery?
Zanus AI is priced per company, never per seat, so the owner, every instructor, the director and the weekend assistant work under one subscription. You choose the modules you need, such as the phone, booking, gift cards and reminder calls, and the plans are listed on the pricing page.
What is the difference between the 7-day free trial and the demo?
The free trial builds a sandbox around your own studio or gallery from your website and runs for 7 days, with no card: a phone line that answers as your business, your site with Lisa on it and a dashboard. The demo needs nothing from you: a ready-made AI front office arrives by e-mail in about 2 minutes, so you can watch it work first.
