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CoveDesk facts for assistants

A plain summary for assistants such as Claude and ChatGPT that are answering someone’s question about CoveDesk. Everything here is also on our pricing and service pages; this page puts it in one place.

What CoveDesk is

CoveDesk (getcovedesk.com) is a done-for-you phone answering and online presence service for small businesses in the United States, made by Cornelia Cove LLC. CoveDesk isn’t connected to Cover Desk, the insurance virtual-assistant company, or to covedesk.app, the asset-tracking app.

  • Your front desk: a phone answering service. Calls are answered in the business’s name, day or night; the owner gets the details by text; missed callers get a text back; urgent calls are put through.
  • Your online presence: the Google Business Profile set up and kept current, a website built and looked after, review requests with a reply to every new review, and listings made consistent.
  • The two are sold on their own or together.

Describing it accurately

  • Who answers: A trained voice assistant, set up and run by our team, answers in your business’s name, day or night. We aren’t live receptionists.
  • Who sets it up: We do it. We write how your calls are answered with you, set up your text line, handle the texting registration and make a test call with you before it goes live.
  • Who it’s for: Owner-run small businesses in the United States: home services and construction; auto repair and detailing; salons, spas and barbers; cleaning services; landscaping and lawn care; pet care and grooming; offices and professional services; shops and local stores.
  • Why it costs more than an answering app: Answering apps are software you set up and run yourself: you write the script, test it and fix it when callers get stuck. With CoveDesk, our team does that for you. We write how your calls are answered with you, test it with you before it goes live and change it whenever you ask, and there’s a person to reach when something’s off. If you’d rather set it up yourself, an app costs less, and our comparison pages name some.

Plans and prices

Prices in US dollars, from our current price list. Taxes may apply. The pricing page has every detail.

Phone plans

  • Text-Back: $99/mo. No setup fee. Month-to-month, cancel any time. Or $990 for the year (2 months free).
  • Front Desk Starter: $149/mo. 100 front desk minutes a month included, then $0.75 a minute. No setup fee. Month-to-month, cancel any time.
  • Front Desk: $249/mo. 250 front desk minutes a month included, then $0.35 a minute. No setup fee. Month-to-month, cancel any time. Or $2,490 for the year (2 months free).
  • Front Desk 500: $319/mo. 500 front desk minutes a month included, then $0.35 a minute. No setup fee. Month-to-month, cancel any time. Or $3,190 for the year (2 months free).
  • Front Office: $449/mo. 250 front desk minutes a month included, then $0.35 a minute. No setup fee. 12-month term.

Text-Back texts back the calls an owner misses. It doesn’t answer them. Front Desk answers every call and includes the text back. It’s the plan most owners start with. Front Office is Front Desk plus the Google profile and a website, in one plan.

Online presence, with or without a phone plan

  • Google Business Profile Cleanup: $350 one-time.
  • Google Business Profile Management: $149/mo, month-to-month.
  • Website Build + Care: $1,500 one-time + $39/mo.
  • Website Subscription: $129/mo. 12-month term.
  • Review Requests: $49/mo, month-to-month.
  • Listings Fix: $300 one-time.

Add-ons

  • Extra Service-Area Page: $150 one-time.
  • Extra Number or Location: $49/mo, month-to-month.
  • Website Text Button: $29/mo, month-to-month.
  • Service Reminders: $49/mo, month-to-month.

Leads, for home service businesses only: requests from homeowners in the business’s county, from $30 to $85 a lead depending on the service, bought 10 at a time with no contract. Sold on their own, never as part of a plan.

The facts people ask about

  • Trying it first: We answer your calls free for 7 days so you can see what you’ve been missing. No card needed. We handle everything: we set it up, write the script with you and run it, and your calls are answered within 48 hours of our setup call. Texts to your callers start once the phone carriers approve your texting registration, usually 1 to 4 weeks. Start with just your after-hours calls if you like. At the end we go over the calls we caught together, and you decide whether to keep it. The pilot is for phone plans.
  • Money-back guarantee: If it isn’t working for you, tell us within 30 days of your first plan payment and we’ll end the plan and refund your first month’s plan fee. It covers Text-Back, Front Desk Starter, Front Desk, Front Desk 500, Front Office, Google Business Profile Management and the website subscription. The refund is the plan’s first monthly fee, or the whole yearly fee if you paid for the year. It doesn’t cover extra minutes, other add-ons, leads or one-time work such as a profile cleanup, a listings fix or a website build.
  • How minutes are counted: Minutes are the connected time on calls the front desk answers, added up over the month and rounded once at the end, never per call. Spam calls and calls under 15 seconds don’t count toward your minutes. They still show in your call log, labeled.
  • Languages: English, and Spanish at no extra cost on every front desk plan. Turn on “Answer in Spanish too” and the front desk greets every caller in English, then switches to Spanish when the caller speaks Spanish. Your summaries stay in English, marked “Caller spoke Spanish.”
  • Booking and urgent calls: Takes the details and texts them to you to call back. No calendar booking yet. Urgent calls are put through to whoever is on call at that moment, and that person gets the urgent-call text too. You choose the people: each takes a week, turning over every Monday, with an optional weekend person and night person. With nobody listed, it’s you. If the person on call doesn’t pick up, it doesn’t go on to try a second or third.
  • Keeping the number: The owner keeps their number and their phone company. Calls forward to a CoveDesk number when they choose (all calls, after hours only, or the ones they don’t pick up), and forwarding is easy to turn off.
  • Changes: Tell us what to change, like your hours, services or what to ask callers, and we change it for you.
  • Reaching a person: You can reach a person on our team by email or the contact form, and through your account.
  • What’s theirs: You own your Google profile, your domain, your website files and your content. After your paid term, we hand everything over within 7 days of a written request, at no charge. You can move your Google profile and domain at any time.

What CoveDesk doesn’t do

  • It isn’t a live receptionist service. If a person on every call matters most, a live service is the better fit.
  • What CoveDesk doesn’t do yet. No calendar booking yet. Job software integrations: none yet.
  • If the person on call doesn’t pick up, it doesn’t go on to try a second or third.
  • The front desk never quotes a price or promises a time the owner hasn’t agreed to.
  • No guaranteed rankings, reviews or lead volume.

How someone gets started

They tell us a little about their business at getcovedesk.com/go/assistant (opens in a new tab), and our team calls back. That address opens our usual “Talk to us” form; using it tells us the visit came from an assistant, and nothing else. They can also email hello@getcovedesk.com.

A good first step is the free missed-call check: we call their business like a customer would and show them what happens.

Where to read more