Call recording for business, with the notice built in

On Receptionist, we record the calls that connect to you, both sides of the conversation, and we do it by default. Nobody has to tap a button at the start of each call. The caller always hears that the call may be recorded before any recording starts. Pro doesn't record calls.

Whether and how you should record business calls is also a legal question, so the consent rules are further down, in general terms and with links to the laws themselves.

What callers hear before we record

After screening, a call goes one of two ways on Receptionist, and each way has its own line. When the call is put through to you, recording starts only after the caller has heard it.

Saved contacts and repeat callers normally hear no intro at all before your phone rings. When their call is being recorded, they hear the notice like everyone else. Whether a saved contact's call is recorded depends on your account's settings, and when it is, the notice plays first.

Which plans record calls

Recording is on when your Receptionist account starts. If you'd rather not record, switch it off in your dashboard settings; you can turn it back on there too, unless yours is an attorney account (more on that below).

Before you decide, think about what your calls are like. If you take job details, addresses and change requests over the phone, a written record of the conversation is the whole point. If your calls tend to get personal, the switch is there.

What a recorded call turns into

Each recorded call gets a transcript, split into “Caller” lines and “You” lines, and a summary of one or two sentences. Both stay in your call log for 90 days. The summary is written by Claude Haiku, an AI model from Anthropic.

Calls the AI receptionist answers are kept separately: each one's summary and transcript shows in the dashboard's AI call history.

In practice that means you can scroll back to Tuesday's call and see what was agreed without replaying anything from memory. The call transcripts page covers where every kind of transcript shows up, including voicemails and calls the AI answers.

One thing recording doesn't give you is a live line into the call. There's no way to listen in on a call or join it once it's connected.

Attorney accounts

If your account's trade is attorney, we never record the calls that connect to you, and the dashboard switch can't turn that on. Calls the AI receptionist answers work the same as on any account: the caller hears "This call may be recorded" at the handoff, and the call is recorded and transcribed. Voicemail transcription is off for attorney accounts as well: it switches off when you sign up with attorney as your trade, or change your trade to attorney later, and you play voicemails instead of reading them. If you run a law office, that's the setup you get without asking for it.

Is it legal to record business calls?

This is general information, not legal advice. Recording laws differ from state to state and can change. Check your state's law, or ask a lawyer, before you rely on any recording.

US recording laws come in two broad kinds, and the difference is who has to agree.

One-party consent. Under federal law, it isn't unlawful for a person to record a call they're part of, or one where one of the parties has given prior consent, unless the recording is made to commit a crime or a tort. You can read the text at 18 U.S.C. § 2511, subsection (2)(d).

All-party consent. Some states go further. California's Penal Code section 632 makes it an offense to record a confidential communication, including one carried on by telephone, without the consent of all parties to it. The statute is on the California Legislature's site. Google makes the same point in its own help page for Android call recording, where it warns that some laws require consent from everyone on the call.

Here's what our side does: every caller hears that the call may be recorded before we record it. Whether that notice is enough where you are, and for callers phoning from other states, is a question for your state's law. If your business is in an all-party state, or you get a lot of calls from one, that's worth a short conversation with a lawyer before you lean on recordings for anything important.

Recording calls on your cell phone instead

Phones can record calls on their own now, which is worth comparing.

iPhone. Apple's call recording starts by hand on each call: during the call in the Phone app, you tap a button and then Call Recording. Both people hear an audio notice that the call is being recorded. The recording saves to a Call Recordings folder in the Notes app, with a transcript in select regions and languages. Apple says it works when you're talking to one other person, in some countries and regions.

Android. Google's Phone app can record a single call, or be set to always record calls from numbers not in your contacts or from contacts you pick, and both parties hear a disclosure when recording starts. Google says only certain devices and carriers support it.

On Receptionist there's nothing to start: calls that connect to you are recorded after the notice, and the transcript and summary land in your call log.