Managed Agents at Previously $0.06 $0.03/minManaged Agents are Previously $0.06 $0.03/min.

ServiceNow#1 on EVA-Bench

Artificial Analysis#1 on Speech Agent Arena

IT answering service that pages the on-call engineer for outages.

Clients can report an outage, open a ticket for the morning queue, and reach the on-call engineer.

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Get outages to your engineer and the rest on the queue

Clients with a full outage reach your on-call engineer. Smaller problems wait on the morning queue.

The agent answers from your support hours and client coverage list. After hours, only a full outage pages an engineer.

An IT answering service that knows an outage from a dead laptop

What is an IT answering service?

An IT answering service answers a managed IT provider's support line when the office is closed. For an MSP, every call comes down to one decision, which is whether this wakes an engineer. Your engineers need the rest of the night to stay quiet.

  • Find the client and site
  • Open a ticket
  • Page the on-call engineer
  • Transfer to the on-call engineer

Why can't a general answering service do this?

Operators hear "the system is down" and often can't tell twelve people locked out from one dead laptop. So either every call pages the on-call engineer, or a dead office sits in a mailbox until 7 a.m. Neither works for a client paying for coverage.

Nobody in our office can get on the internet.

I'm sorry. How many people are affected, what is down, and which company and office is this?

Fenwick Dental, Pine Street. All twelve of us. No internet, and the phones are out too.

What happens when a client's whole office goes offline?

The agent asks how many people are affected and what is down, then finds the client and site. Nobody at the site able to work means severity 1. It opens the ticket, pages the engineer and puts the client through once he answers.

  • Office offline, engineer connected3:05
  • Laptop won't power on, morning queue1:48
  • Phones out at one site, engineer paged2:37

Can the agent reset a password or give a repair time?

No. It stops at the ticket and can't touch a client's systems. One user or one device is severity 3 and goes on the morning queue for your team, so the fixing stays with your engineers.

Severity captured

Did the agent record how many people were affected and what was down before it set a severity?

Quieter nights from an answering service for IT company engineers

An MSP and IT answering service earns its keep on the night nothing pages. These cards show what your engineers get, and the line the agent won't cross.

Severity from facts, not panic

Two questions decide it. Twelve people with internet and phones down is severity 1, however calm they sound. One laptop is severity 3, however upset.

Engineers get paged with context

Each page carries a ticket number, so Hamza picks up knowing the client, the site and what's down before he says hello.

Tickets exist before anyone logs in

Through tools you configure, the agent opens the ticket in your service desk, such as ServiceNow or Jira, and sends the page through PagerDuty.

The morning queue arrives sorted

Slow Wi-Fi and locked-out email wait for 7 a.m. with the caller, the client and the symptom already filled in.

Coverage answers come from your list

The agent reads which sites have after-hours cover, so a new client asking about Elm Street gets a straight answer without bothering anyone.

No resets, no repair times

Nobody gets a password change or an ETA from this line. Fixing stays with your engineers, and the agent says so when asked.

Clear speech for a client with no internet

A client in a full outage may be on a cell phone in a parking lot, talking over colleagues. Cartesia's speech models stay with them through the noise of the moment.

  • $0.03per minute
  • #1on Speech Agent Arena and EVA-Bench
  • 24/7answers every call, at any hour

Takes it in the order they give it

Callers list the company, the headcount and three symptoms in one breath. The agent keeps what it heard and asks only for what's missing.

Your severity rules, your LLM

Choose the LLM, then give it the tools that find the client and site, open a ticket, page the on-call engineer and transfer the call.

Calm about bad news

Steady beats cheerful here. Find a voice library option that can tell a client there's no repair time yet without sounding evasive.

Who should pick up your support line at night

An answering service for IT companies is usually weighed against a generic operator service or a rotating engineer's phone.

Cartesia agentGeneral answering serviceEngineer on the phone
Sets severityFrom two questions and your rulesDepends on the operator and the scriptYes, with real technical judgment
Opens the ticketIn your service desk, on the callOften emails you a messageAfter the call, if they remember
Engineer gets woken forThe severity you markOften anything that sounds urgentEvery call
Fixes the problemNo, it hands offNoYes
Knows the client's coverageReads your coverage listOnly if it's in the scriptUsually, or checks the PSA
How you payMetered at $0.03 a minute, plus LLM and telephonyUsually a monthly plan with per-call feesOn-call pay, and burnout

See which calls got outages to your engineer

Every call is recorded and transcribed. See which calls opened a ticket with the right severity, and which full outages reached the on-call engineer.

Launch an AI IT services answering service in three steps

Start building

  1. Clone the support line

    Copy this agent, then load your support hours, coverage list and your own severity rules.

  2. Connect your service desk and pager

    Link ticketing in ServiceNow or Jira and paging in PagerDuty through tools you configure, then forward your after-hours line.

  3. Stage a site outage

    Call as a client with an office offline, then as one user with a dead laptop. Go live when only the first pages the engineer.

Enterprise-grade security

  • HIPAA compliant badge

    HIPAA compliant

  • SOC 2 Type 2 badge

    SOC 2 Type 2

  • GDPR badge

    GDPR

IT services answering service FAQs

What is an IT answering service?

An IT answering service answers a managed IT provider's support line when the office is closed. This one is a voice agent. It sets severity from two questions, opens a ticket, and pages the on-call engineer for a full outage, and everything else goes on the morning queue.

What is the best phone answering service for IT?

The best fit can tell a full outage from a single device. Look for one that asks how many people are affected, opens the ticket in your service desk and pages your engineer by rules you set. Then call it as a client with a dead office, and check the transcript to see what it did with your rules.

How does a phone answering service work for an IT company?

You forward your support line to the agent after hours and give it your coverage list and severity rules. It asks what is down and who is affected, finds the client, and opens a ticket. A full outage pages your on-call engineer and transfers the caller. Everything else waits on the morning queue.

How much does it cost to hire an answering service?

Live services usually charge a monthly plan with per-minute or per-call fees. This agent has no operators to hire. You pay $0.03 per minute of call time plus LLM usage and telephony, so a quiet week of tickets costs little. Add up your after-hours minutes to compare. See pricing.

How much does an IT answering service cost?

An IT answering service costs $0.03 per minute of call time for the agent, so a three-minute call is $0.09 in agent time. LLM usage is billed separately, and a Cartesia phone number adds $0.014 per minute, or nothing if you bring your own Twilio account or SIP trunk. The free plan includes $1 of agent calls a month, so you can test the agent before you pay. See pricing.

Is an IT answering service the same as IT support outsourcing?

No. As an IT company answering service, the agent answers your support line, opens tickets and pages your engineer. It can't log in to a client's systems, reset a password or change settings, so the fixing stays with your engineers. For staff calling their own help desk, see AI IT helpdesk.

What counts as a full outage for an IT answering service?

Whatever your rules say. The agent sets severity from what the caller reports, pages an engineer only for the severity you mark, and puts everything else on the morning queue.

Does an IT answering service connect to ServiceNow, Jira or PagerDuty?

Yes. The agent opens tickets in your service desk and sends pages through tools you configure.

Can the agent transfer a caller to the on-call engineer?

Yes. For a severity 1 outage, the agent pages the on-call engineer and transfers the caller when the engineer picks up. It never promises a repair time.

How is an IT answering service different from an AI receptionist?

A receptionist books and routes calls during the day. This agent covers the outages that start after the office closes, as the receptionist guide explains.

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