A virtual receptionist for Melbourne businesses: the AI receptionist that books the job

• Takes the call as your business when you're on the tools, with a client or crawling along the Monash, on Melbourne's clock with daylight saving looked after.
• Books it there and then from Starter: a slot you really have, straight into your calendar, and a text to the customer confirming it.
• Passes on whatever isn't a booking (caller, number, what they rang about) by email, plus SMS from Starter.

Hear it for yourself on (02) 7501 0101, where Verity picks up, or read how to hear it answer. Ready? Start a free week: 60 minutes over 7 days, and that clock only starts at your receptionist's first answered call.

Melbourne runs on small operators: plenty of them, close together, competing as hard as anywhere in the country. Tradies across the west and the outer ring, clinics and studios on every high street, brokers, conveyancers and consultants stacked through the CBD and the inner suburbs. In a market that dense, the caller who can't get through doesn't wait for a callback — the next option is one scroll away.

Giday's answer to that isn't a message-taking service. It answers as part of your business — your greeting, your services, your prices — books real jobs into your calendar mid-call (Starter and up), quotes from your price list (Busy and up), and sends you the messages that need a human — emailed, and texted too from Starter. It does all of that at 9am on a Tuesday and 11pm on a Sunday, for the same price.

The traditional answering market makes you do homework. We checked the big incumbents' published pricing on 24 August 2026, and here's the shape of it against Giday:

Giday's five plans run $19, $49, $99, $149 and $299 a month, AUD with GST included, and from Starter up booking is never an add-on. The full allowances and features are published on the pricing page, and the wider national comparison lives on the phone answering service page. Run over, and it's 50c a minute past your allowance; the phone keeps answering, and if a bigger plan would have cost less for the month, we email you the figures.

Melbourne's economy isn't one thing, and a receptionist here can't be either. What Giday does on the call depends on who's ringing. Booking, texts and putting calls through are on Starter and up:

• The heating call in July. A dead ducted heater in Reservoir gets answered while you're in a roof cavity in Preston. Giday offers your next real slot, books it, and texts the customer a confirmation before you're back down the ladder.
• The sparkie's quote. On the Busy plan and up, Giday quotes from your own price list — one honest number, the way you'd say it, confirmed on the job.
• The conveyancer's settlement-week phones. Calls answered professionally, detailed messages relayed by SMS, and the calls that genuinely need you put straight through.
• The physio's front desk. Appointments booked into your calendar with SMS confirmations, in restricted mode for a health practice — no clinical details are discussed or written down, and no audio or transcript is kept. The 8pm caller isn't lost: Giday takes their details and offers your next available times.
• The property manager's after-hours line. Maintenance calls answered all night; genuine emergencies put through to the number you chose if you've switched that on for after hours, everything else booked in for business hours.

If your work is on the tools, the Giday for tradies page goes deeper on the trade call flows.

Twice a year Melbourne's clocks jump and half the country's schedules wobble. Pick VIC at signup and Giday answers identically through both changeovers — the first Sunday in October and the first Sunday in April are just Sundays. Your bookings always land in your calendar in Melbourne local time, your business hours follow your clock, and the 2am call in January gets the same answer as the 2am call in June — with no after-hours surcharge either way. There's more on how the round-the-clock side works on the after-hours answering page.

Giday isn't a concept video. The same engine has been answering real calls for a Brisbane locksmith since late July 2026 — booking jobs straight into the calendar mid-call (typically 2.5 minutes from hello to booked, measured 30 July – 22 August 2026), giving priced quotes over the phone from the approved price list, and relaying messages to the owner by text, with call volume on that one line growing 24% across that measured window. The full measured window is on the Brisbane page.

Diversion doesn't care which city you're in — the same receptionist is ready for Melbourne today. There are pages for Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth, Darwin and Hobart, or start from the top with the full virtual receptionist rundown.