20 Points to Check Before Handing Your Phone to Anyone

Three-criteria comparisons (price, promise, demo) always select the best salesperson, not the best solution. Twenty points force you to look at what matters over six months: what answers when you're in a meeting, what happens to your data, what occurs when the service goes down.

The method is simple: score each point 0 or 1, no half points — doubt counts as 0. A provider must clear the bar on the non-negotiables, and you judge the trade-offs on the rest. The list is deliberately agnostic: it works for an outsourced human service, an AI, or a mix.

1. The service answers during your job hours — test a Tuesday at 11 AM, not a scheduled sales meeting. 2. It answers outside your hours: an evening at 9 PM, a Sunday morning. A "24/7" promise is verified at 2 AM, not on a brochure. 3. It handles load: three simultaneous calls don't produce a busy line — ask how, test if you can.

4. First-response time is held: text in under 10 seconds on a missed call, call pickup without endless hold music. 5. The fallback plan exists: if the service goes down, what do your callers hear? A forward to your mobile, an honest notice — not silence. A provider who never thought about its own outage has thought about yours even less.

6. The service understands your trade: test with your real vocabulary — "water heater leaking," "breaker keeps tripping," "clutch slipping." 7. It asks qualifying questions: urgency, address, the client's availability. A service that doesn't qualify hands you noise, not leads. 8. It stays in its lane: no invented prices, no deadlines promised on your behalf.

9. It honestly states what it is when asked — outsourced human or AI, without lying about the question. 10. It speaks the languages of your actual clientele: your region's everyday French, and more if your market demands it. "Multilingual" on a spec sheet means nothing until the language you care about has been tested live.

11. Emergency transfer to your mobile has a clear threshold — who decides a call is urgent, and how. 12. The service writes into your existing calendar (Google Calendar or equivalent), not a parallel list you'll have to re-enter. 13. History is centralized: one client number = one file, not ten orphan conversations across three channels.

14. Your data exports — CSV or API — because it stays yours, today and the day you leave. 15. The service fits your tools: field CRM, WhatsApp Business, your homegrown spreadsheet. Every missing integration is a future double entry, and double entry is where leads go to die.

16. Recording consent is handled without you: announcement at call start, timestamped log. 17. Data retention is documented — how long recordings are kept, and how to have them deleted. 18. The price is total: included minutes, overage cost, any activation fees, all on one page.

19. The contract is monthly and simply cancellable: a service that believes in itself doesn't need a year upfront to keep you. 20. There are references from your trade — reachable ones, not logos on a website — or failing that a real trial period, with your line, your calls, your clients. Point 20 settles half the others by itself.

Score below 16 out of 20: eliminated, no second-guessing. Between 16 and 18: negotiate the missing points or schedule their fix before launch. Above 18: one trial remains, the only one that counts — a live test on your line, at different hours, including at night.

The contract must reflect the tested promises: if 24/7 sits at point 2, it must be true at 2 AM on a February Sunday. Trust tests, not brochures — including ours. This checklist is designed to be used against us as much as for us.