An AI secretary that picks up at night too.

What sets an AI secretary apart from a classic secretarial service

The key difference is knowledge: an AI secretary answers from your company memory, while a classic secretarial service works with strangers and a generic script. An external secretarial service takes calls reliably and brings human empathy to sensitive conversations. Its limits: the staff know your business only on the surface, are usually reachable on weekdays only, and bill per call or per minute, so costs rise with volume. An AI secretary flips that: it's on duty around the clock, knows your opening hours, prices and processes from your stored company knowledge, and costs a fixed monthly price for your plan instead of getting more expensive with every call. The honest rule of thumb: for standard matters, appointment questions and information the AI is superior; for rare, emotionally charged exceptions the human stays strong. That's why rinqo hands exactly those cases to your team.

What does a phone secretariat and a secretarial service cost?

A classic phone secretariat usually bills per call, while an AI secretary runs at a fixed price. There are three pricing models on the market. First, per-call billing with human staff: a monthly base price plus a fee per call. Second, per-minute billing for sectors such as law firms or practices, where costs rise with every minute of conversation. Third, the fixed-price model of the AI secretary. Anyone looking for a flat-rate secretarial service without a base fee finds the clearest maths in the AI model: one fixed figure per month, regardless of how many calls come in.

What tasks a virtual secretary takes on

A virtual secretary takes on four core tasks: answering calls, giving information, booking appointments and passing on what matters. Answering means it picks up, greets with your company name and makes clear at the start of the call that an AI is answering. Information means it answers questions about opening hours, prices, services and responsibilities from your company memory instead of putting callers off. Appointments means it checks calendar availability, books straight in the conversation and sends the confirmation. Passing on means it writes a call note for every call, records callback requests in a structured way and recognises emergencies to put them through to a human immediately. That keeps call handling seamless, without anyone on your team having to interrupt an ongoing conversation.

• Call handling around the clock, greeting in your business's name
• Information from your stored company knowledge instead of a generic script
• Appointment booking straight in the conversation, confirmation included
• A call note for every call, cleanly retrievable
• Emergency detection with an immediate handover to a human
• Callback requests recorded in a structured way instead of on paper

GDPR and the EU AI Act: what matters for a digital secretariat

A digital phone secretariat can only be used cleanly in Germany if the conversations are processed in the EU and callers are told an AI is answering. rinqo processes the data in the EU, on servers in Germany, with a data processing agreement under Art. 28 GDPR. That sets rinqo apart from many international providers whose transfers to the US depend on the politically contested EU-US Data Privacy Framework. On top comes the EU AI Act: from 2 August 2026, it must be clear at the start of every conversation that the voice is artificial and not a human. At rinqo that announcement is part of the preset greeting by default, without you configuring anything. If you adapt the greeting, keep the reference to the AI in it.