Abby Connect is an answering service that offers live virtual receptionists and web chat support. Our Abby Connect review evaluated the service based on pricing, features, and usability to assess if it is the best value for small businesses. Overall, we determined Abby Connect is best for businesses seeking bundled chat and receptionist plans with automated features.
For businesses that need a service to replicate the experience of a front desk receptionist, Abby Connect provides personalized and professional call handling with high scores for general features, ease of use, and customer service. However, monthly prices start at $329, so businesses seeking a more affordable answering service should consider alternatives.
Abby Connect Review at a Glance
Pros
- Customizable call handling and intake protocols
- Dedicated team of virtual receptionists
- Automated assistance with Abby artificial intelligence (Abby AI)
- 24/7 customer support
Cons
- 24/7 call answering service is an add-on
- Requires a set-up fee for monthly subscriptions
- The mobile app can only send SMS messages (no photo or video)
Deciding Factors
Best For | Businesses that need live virtual receptionists and web chat bundles with automated assistance |
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Standout Features |
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Abby Connect Pricing Plans |
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Annual or Volume Discounts Available |
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Free Trial |
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Integrations |
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Customer Service |
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- Industry-specific integrations: Abby Connect provides answering services and integrations for multiple industries. For example, Abby Connect integrates with Lawmatics for law firms and vCita for healthcare providers. Because of its industry-specific integrations, Abby Connect made it to our top 10 best answering services for lawmakers.
- Bilingual receptionists: For businesses with diverse clientele, Abby Connect provides virtual receptionists who speak both English and Spanish for more efficient communication.
- Artificial intelligence features: Abby Intelligence provides automated support to streamline customer interactions. For example, Abby Connect uses AI to create call summaries and transcriptions while providing detailed business insights.
- Bundled web and chat plans: For businesses that require answering services and a web chat widget, Abby Connect bundles receptionist minutes with live chat at a discounted rate.
- You need a cost-effective answering service: Abby Connect’s monthly plans are at the higher end of the answering service spectrum. If you want a lower-cost plan with premium features, consider GoAnswer.
- You have low call volumes: Abby Connect’s monthly plans begin at 100 receptionist minutes, which is best for small and midsize businesses. For solopreneurs or businesses that need less than 100 minutes a month, check out VoiceNation.
- You need an all-inclusive service: While many answering services include 24/7 live answering, Abby Connect offers extended hours as an additional feature. If you seek more all-inclusive services, Ruby provides 24/7 support without an extra fee.
Fit Small Business (FSB) uses a rigorous editorial process to evaluate providers and services before recommending them to our audience. As a platform, FSB is an authoritative voice in multiple topics, including office technology, focusing on providing high-quality content and the best answer for small businesses. As a researcher and expert in communication technology, my analysis reflects these editorial standards.
Specifically, I analyze data on each provider, such as website content and primary sources, to construct an overview of pricing, features, and customer service. Then, I delve deeper into user reviews, product demonstrations, and provider platforms to assess ease of use and determine the expert score. Read our methodology section to learn more about how we evaluate providers and services.
Abby Connect Alternatives
Abby Connect has potential drawbacks, such as expensive monthly plans, set-up fees, and limited integrations. If these concerns factor into your business plans, consider some of the following providers who are highly ranked in our best answering services guide:
Providers |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|
Best For | Pay-as-you-go pricing and plans | Low call volumes | Remote call management |
Monthly Price (per 100 minutes) | $175 | $229 | $375 |
Learn More |
Abby Connect received low scores for pricing because of its higher cost of monthly subscriptions, set-up fees, and additional costs. Similar answering services, like GoAnswer and VoiceNation, offer lower monthly subscription plans for the same number of receptionist minutes. While GoAnswer is $175 for 100 minutes and VoiceNation is $229, Abby Connect pricing starts at $329, placing it on the higher end of receptionist services.
In addition to the receptionist plans, Abby Connect offers live chat plans and discounts for bundled plans. However, each plan can incur additional costs depending on your usage and the inclusion of extra features like 24/7 answering services.
Receptionist Plans
Abby Connect pricing for receptionist plans comes in three tiers: Essential, Professional, and Growth. The main difference between the plans is the number of minutes and monthly contacts, with plans starting at 100 minutes and scaling up to 500 minutes. Additionally, receptionist plans come with a one-time set-up fee of $95.
Abby Connect Pricing and Plans | Essential | Professional | Growth |
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Best For | Solopreneurs or small teams with low call volume | Small businesses with medium call volume | Small to midsize businesses with high call volume |
Monthly Pricing | $329 | $599 | $1,380 |
Monthly Minutes | Up to 100 | Up to 200 | Up to 500 |
Cost per Additional Minute | $3.29 | $2.99 | $2.76 |
Number of Contacts | 5 | 15 | Unlimited |
Live Chat Plans
There are three tiers of live chat support: 10 Engaged Chats, 30 Engaged Chats, and 50 Engaged Chats. Abby Connect uses call blocking and filtering, so it only uses your engaged chats for high-quality website visitors. However, there is a $95 one-time set-up fee and an additional cost per chat, so select a plan that accurately reflects your monthly chat volume.
10 Engaged Chats | 30 Engaged Chats | 50 Engaged Chats | |
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Best For | Solopreneurs or small teams receiving less than 10 chats per month | Small businesses receiving less than 30 chats per month | Small to midsize businesses with an average of 50 chats per month |
Monthly Price | $129 | $329 | $469 |
Cost per Additional Chat | $12.90 | $9.96 | $9.38 |
Dedicated Success Manager | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Automated Greetings | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Bundled Plans
For businesses that require live answering services and web chat, Abby Connect offers three bundled plans at a discounted rate for the live chat services. The Abby 10 plan offers a $30 monthly savings, the Abby 30 plan is discounted by $50, and the Abby 50 plan offers the highest monthly savings of $70.
Abby 10 Bundled Plan | Abby 30 Bundled Plan | Abby 50 Bundled Plan | |
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Number of Chats | 10 | 30 | 50 |
Live Chat Price | $99 | $249 | $399 |
Cost per Additional Chat | $9.90 | $8.30 | $7.98 |
Receptionist Plan | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Add-ons
In addition to the receptionist and live chat plans, Abby Connect offers some features not included in the standard plan. While each plan includes receptionist minutes during business hours, you can add 24/7/365 answering services for an additional cost.
Abby Connect received a perfect score as it has all the standard features you would want in a live answering service, including virtual receptionists that take messages and answer calls with customizable scripts. Clients can access a web portal and the AbbyGo App for account details, such as contacts, call logs, message logs, call recordings, and invoices.
Answering services often complement VoIP phone systems because of their call-handling features, like call transfers, forwarding, and voicemail boxes. While VoIP systems use auto attendants and phone trees to route phone calls, virtual receptionists can be added to your phone system for a more personalized approach. We also evaluated the following features under the virtual receptionist plans:
Abby Connect offers a dedicated team of five to seven receptionists and a customer success manager for each account who answer calls, take messages, and answer questions during standard business hours. Accounts with extended hours will receive two receptionist teams, and accounts with 24/7 answering services will have three receptionist teams.
Abby Connect provides a team of virtual receptionists. (Source: Abby Connect)
The dedicated receptionist teams benefit small businesses by improving the customer experience and providing a positive first impression to first-time callers. Virtual receptionists use your custom greetings to introduce the business professionally, replicating the experience of speaking to an in-house receptionist. Additionally, Abby Connect offers bilingual receptionists who communicate in English and Spanish to handle diverse clientele.
Once you create an Abby Connect account, you can customize your call management plan to fit your business’s needs. For example, custom answering hours let you set up rules for when your receptionists will be available to answer calls.
You can create custom scripts for your receptionist team, such as personalized announcements, messages, or intake questions. Additionally, Abby Connect plans include various call forwarding and transferring options, such as warm transfers with custom hold music.
Abby Connect ensures you don’t waste receptionist time or minutes on repetitive or scam phone calls with call blocking and filtering. By filtering out calls you don’t want to receive, receptionists ensure you only receive verified leads from potential clients and customers.
Abby Connect offers multiple features like call blocking and filtering. (Source: Abby Connect)
Abby Connect offers several integrations with popular CRMs and workspace management tools like Zapier, HubSpot, and Salesforce. Additionally, Zapier can connect collaborative tools like Google Docs, Slack, and Microsoft Teams to your Abby account. There are also industry-specific integrations, such as Clio and Lawmatics, for legal firms and vCita for healthcare professionals.
Abby Connect provides integrations with CRMs and legal software. (Source: Abby Connect)
Virtual receptionists are often used for taking messages, so Abby Connect also offers voicemail services for plans with custom calling hours or those who do not sign up for the 24/7 answering service. During business hours, receptionists can route your calls to voice mailboxes, and after hours, they are forwarded to a voice mailbox, many mailboxes, or a custom phone tree. You can also have your voicemails transcribed and sent via email or text for more efficient call updates.
Abby Connect offers a mobile application to manage your answering system using Apple or Android products. Specifically, you can use the Abby Go App to make calls and send texts, analyze call data like receptionist ratings, and communicate with your customer success manager. The activities screen also lets you see all your call activity in one place.
Manage your account and calls all from the Abby Go App. (Source: Abby Connect)
Abby Connect offers many advanced features, such as bilingual receptionists, live chat, and appointment scheduling. It also stands out for its customized client intake feature, which lets you personalize the information your receptionists collect to ensure you get everything you need. However, it should be noted that outbound calling does use receptionist minutes, which can be costly for businesses that require appointment scheduling or payment processing.
In addition to the virtual receptionist features, Abby Connect offers live chat with a human receptionist who communicates using a website widget. Live chat benefits businesses that want more full-service customer engagement across communication channels. You can also customize the interface of your website widget with company branding to capture visitors’ attention.
Abby Connect sets itself apart from standard answering services by offering artificial intelligence features with Abby AI (AAI). Specifically, Abby uses artificial intelligence to assist its human receptionists with detailed call summaries, voicemail transcriptions, and sentiment analysis.
Improve call handling with Abby’s artificial intelligence features. (Source: Abby Connect)
Virtual receptionists not only answer incoming calls for a business, but you can instruct your team to send outbound calls. Outbound calling is generally used to follow up with customers and clients, such as providing appointment reminders and updates.
Abby Connect specializes in providing services to industries such as law, healthcare, and finance that require appointment scheduling to engage with clients. In addition to scheduling appointments over the phone, Abby Connect includes integrations with applications like Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar to help keep track of client calls and meetings.
While many virtual receptionists focus on answering calls and taking messages, Abby receptionists can generate sales by screening calls and capturing leads. The receptionist team is trained to recognize which clients would make good customers and forward them to a sales team or business representative. Abby Connect also provides lead generation scripts to ensure receptionists maximize each call’s sales potential.
Use the Abby Go App to analyze call insights and customer support. (Source: Abby Connect)
Abby Connect’s excellent customer service scores reflect the provider’s 24/7 technical support and availability for all support channels, including phone, live chat, and email help desk. The Abby Connect Resource Center also includes a robust knowledge base with a blog, Abby Academy for training, and articles with helpful information about providing better customer service and using live receptionist services.
Visit the Abby Connect Resource Center for customer support. (Source: Abby Connect)
Abby Connect received a perfect score for ease of use because of its intuitive mobile application, digital dashboard features, and seamless onboarding. Specifically, you can use the AbbyGo App to customize call handling, create call schedules, and receive real-time feedback from the receptionist team.
The dashboard displays activity trends, such as minute usage, chat usage, call volume, and SMS volume. The web portal and mobile app also provide more pricing transparency and predictability, ensuring users are continuously updated about their plans.
Abby Connect simplifies onboarding with its proven process. (Source: Abby Connect)
With the Abby Proven Process, each account receives a dedicated onboarding specialist to assist with setting up a new account. For businesses that require custom integrations, Abby Connect also provides access to a Solutions Engineer and a 30-day onboarding period to ensure that your business is set up for success. Therefore, adopting Abby’s technology will not require extensive technical skills.
Because of its bundled plans and Abby Intelligence, Abby Connect is an excellent fit for businesses interested in live chat and virtual receptionist services with artificial intelligence assistance. Specifically, Abby is best for businesses with small to medium call volumes that don’t have extensive in-house staff to field calls and messages.
By offering artificial intelligence features, Abby Connect benefits small businesses with VoIP services that want more detailed analytics for data-driven decision-making on call journeys and client acquisition. The mobile application and advanced call features also enable customers to customize call handling rules.
These features are essential for businesses that capture clients and generate leads from live chat and calls. Additionally, Abby Connect stands out for its process-oriented onboarding, which ensures that even business owners without technical skills can seamlessly integrate Abby Connect with their workspace tools and phone systems.
Although Abby Connect has excellent features and customer support, these services come at a premium cost. Compared with other answering services, Abby Connect is more expensive, even with discounted plans. Therefore, we recommend that startups and small businesses with tight budgets research more cost-effective alternatives.
What Users Think About Abby Connect
Abby Connect has received several awards for its virtual receptionist services, including Clutch awards as a top answering service provider and a top virtual receptionist from 2017-2021. Based on Clutch and Consumer Affairs reviews, users appreciate Abby Connect’s personalized service, an excellent complement or substitute for in-house receptionists.
Abby Connect has received numerous Clutch awards for virtual receptionist services. (Source: Abby Connect)
Specifically, users enjoy Abby’s responsive customer support, detailed message-taking, and efficient call handling. However, some users expressed concerns about missed calls, limited business integrations, and technical issues.
Here are the most recent ratings earned by Abby Connect on popular review sites:
- ConsumerAffairs: 3.3 out of 5 based on 397 ratings
- Clutch: 4.9 out of 5 based on 80 reviews
- G2: 5 out of 5 based on one review
How We Evaluated Abby Connect
We evaluated Abby Connect based on industry standards and feedback from verified users on popular review websites. We compared it with other leading answering services in the market as the basis for our evaluation. From there, we created a scoring system divided into six criteria: pricing, general features, niche features, customer service, ease of use, and expert score.
Learn how we evaluated Abby Connect by clicking on the tabs below:
15% of Overall Score
We assessed Abby Connect’s subscription fees, including the availability of a free trial. We also considered if it has overage rates or setup fees.
30% of Overall Score
We reviewed features essential to a live answering service, such as message taking, voicemail, and a mobile app. We also considered the provider’s integrations and script customizability. Abby Connect gets an additional point for the availability of any of these features.
20% of Overall Score
We checked Abby Connect’s niche features to see the additional value users get by subscribing. In evaluating live receptionist services, we check if they offer live chat, bilingual receptionists, and appointment scheduling. We also give additional points for outbound calling.
10% of Overall Score
We assessed the quality of customer service by checking the availability of the customer support team. Higher points are given for 24/7 coverage and self-service resources, like articles and videos. We also looked at the types of customer support channels, including email, phone, and live chat.
10% of Overall Score
We evaluated Abby Connect’s user interface based on its usability and the technical skill required to set up and operate its entire platform. We explored its client portal and mobile app and considered user experience.
15% of Overall Score
To construct the expert score, we compared Abby Connect with other leading answering services and the needs of small business owners. Then, we consulted user reviews to see what others say about its features, ease of use, cost-effectiveness, and customer service.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
The primary difference between an answering service and a virtual receptionist is the call handling features. Answering services provide basic call handling, such as answering calls, transferring customers, and taking messages.
In contrast, virtual receptionists receive industry-specific training and customizable scripts to represent a business. Therefore, virtual receptionists are best for small businesses that want high-quality customer interactions with personalized and professional support.
Yes, Abby Connect offers a 14-day free trial, beginning with a discovery call to learn more about your business. Then, your representative will move you into onboarding to set up your account and train the receptionist team based on your business needs. You will have two weeks to test Abby Connect’s call-handling services from there.
You can cancel your plan anytime within the first 30 days of an Abby Connect subscription service. But, after the first 30 days, you must provide at least 30 days’ notice of your cancellation request. Additionally, you will be responsible for any additional fees or overage charges on your account.
Bottom Line
Abby Connect is an intelligent answering service that offers virtual receptionists and live chat services. The Abby Connect team offers full-service customer support through answering calls and managing chats during business hours or 24/7. The platform also sets itself apart by providing bundled plans and automated assistance with Abby Intelligence. Users also enjoy the Abby Go app, which offers on-the-go access to call data and management.
To learn more about Abby Connect’s offerings, sign up for a 14-day free trial or book a free consultation with a live representative. For new accounts, Abby Connect offers a 22-day money-back guarantee on its services.