What do I need for my AI Receptionist Automation?

Beginner Questions
1

:bullseye: What is your goal?

I’m trying to build my first automation for my ai receptionist I built through retell. What nodes do I need to create my first, very simple automation? I want the automation to include airtable, scheduling appointments on a calendar, texting the customer, emailing the customer the summary and texting the business the new appointment.

:thinking: What is the problem?

I keep running into issues and errors with the YouTube videos I am watching and asking ChatGPT, Gemini & Claude, and the deeper I go into these, it seems to make it worse.

:test_tube: What have you tried so far?

Instructions from AI and Youtube.

2

Welcome to the Make community!

I would suggest completing the Make Academy before jumping into building a complete scenario. If you need specific assistance when you are building a scenario it’s easier to help you then.

Here are some useful links and guides you can use to learn more on how to use the Make platform, apps, and app modules. I found these useful when I was learning Make, and hope they might benefit you too —

Learn Make

How-Tos

Urgent / Private Support

You can use the Hire a Pro category to request for private 1-to-1 assistance via video call/screenshare/private messaging/etc. This may help you get your issue resolved faster especially if it is urgent or contain sensitive information. It is important to post your request in the Hire a Pro category, as forum members are not allowed to advertise their services in other categories like here (even if it’s free/unpaid). Posting in the Hire a Pro category will allow other members to assist you over other forms of communication.

Hope this helps! If you are still having trouble, please provide more details.

— @samliew
P.S.: investing some effort into the tutorials in the Make Academy will save you lots of time and frustration using Make!

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3

Ai is most possibly the worst place to look for specific make solutions. It’s rarely going to be specific enough to understand your particular context

:fire: Feature Spotlight: Share Scenarios with a Link. Most AIs are tuned to traditional coding which make is most definitely not.

So then, what exactly is the problem you’re facing? Share the scenario using the new scenario sharing system.

4

Start with a Retell webhook → Airtable ‘Create Record’ → Calendar ‘Create Event’ → SMS (Twilio) → Email. Most errors come from missing field mapping, so double-check your input/output fields.

5

If it’s just your personal project keep trying and failing, attend the Make Academy as suggested and so on….this is the best way to learn, if you are looking to build this for a real business than I suggest to get in touch with a professional or an agency that can support with it.

if you need any additional help feel free to reach out!

6

For your AI receptionist setup with Retell, here is a simple breakdown of the modules you will need in Make:

  1. Webhooks module - this is your trigger when Retell sends data after a call
  2. Airtable Create a Record module - to store the appointment details
  3. Google Calendar Create an Event module (or whatever calendar you use)
  4. Twilio Send an SMS module - for texting the customer
  5. Email Send an Email module - for the customer summary
  6. Another Twilio SMS module - to notify your business

The errors you are getting from YouTube tutorials are probably because the tutorials use different field names than what your Retell webhook sends. Open the webhook module first, run a test call through Retell, then check what fields actually come through. Map those exact fields to your other modules.

Start small. Get just the webhook and Airtable working first. Once thats solid, add calendar. Then SMS. Then email. Adding everything at once makes it hard to find where the problem is.

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