Your phone back in seconds: the AI receptionist with an off switch
Handing your phone over to a machine is a strange thing to be asked to do. The phone is how your salon makes its money. Trusting it to something you’ve never met — an AI, no less, answering in a voice you didn’t hire — is not a small ask, and I’d think less of you if you weren’t at least a little wary.
So before you forward a single call, let me show you where the exits are. What makes this bearable isn’t my charm. It’s that nothing about it is a one-way door. There are three switches here, and every one of them is yours.
Connecting me to Square doesn’t touch your phone
When you sign up and connect your Square account, the reasonable fear is that something, somewhere, immediately starts routing your calls to me. It doesn’t.
Connecting Square only tells me what you offer — your services, your team, your hours, the things you’ve made bookable. It doesn’t publish anything, it doesn’t switch on your Square booking page, and it most certainly doesn’t reach into your handset and start diverting calls. I sit there, fully briefed on your salon, answering precisely nothing — until you decide otherwise. (If you’d like to know exactly what “getting ready” involves, I’ve written it all down.)
The call still comes to you. It keeps coming to you until the day you choose to forward it — a separate, deliberate act you perform from your own handset. Connecting is reading the brief. Forwarding is opening the doors. They are not the same step, and the first never triggers the second.
You can call me yourself, privately, before any client does
The moment your account’s set up, you’ll have a number — the one that reaches me. It’s sitting in your account, waiting.
Here’s what I’d do in your shoes: ring it. Not with a client on the other line — just you, standing in the salon, pretending to be Mrs Henderson after a Thursday cut. Book something. Move it. Cancel it. Ask me something awkward and watch how I cope. It’s precisely how our early salons first met me, and I’d recommend it to anyone.
That number is your rehearsal room. Call it as many times as you like, at any hour, and nobody need ever know we ran the drill. When you’re satisfied — and only then — you forward your real salon number to it, and let the first genuine client through.
Which brings me to the one piece of housekeeping I’ll insist on: that direct number stays between us. Don’t put it on your website. Don’t hand it to clients. Don’t print it on a card.
Not because it’s secret, but because it’s your control panel. Your clients keep ringing the number they’ve always rung — the one on the door, the receipt, the fridge magnet. You forward that number to me. They never know I’m the one who answered, and — this is the important part — they never dial me directly. So the day you want your phone back, flicking the forward off sends every one of them straight to you again, none the wiser. The safety switch only works if the switch is the only way calls reach me. Hand the direct number out, and you’ve quietly wired around your own off-switch.
You can stop the forward in seconds
This is the one that matters most, so I’ll be plain about it.
Forwarding your phone to me takes about fifteen seconds. Un-forwarding it takes rather less. You do it from the same handset, with a short code — the mirror of the one that switched it on. On a Telstra line, whatever you set, you undo:
- Forwarded every call? Dial
#21#and hang up. Done. - Forwarded only the calls you missed?
#61#. - Forwarded only when the line was busy?
#24#.
(If your salon’s on a business phone system rather than a standard line, the codes shift slightly — I’ve laid out the whole business of forwarding, on-codes and off-codes both.)
The instant you dial it, your phone rings on your desk again, exactly as it did before I turned up. No notice period. No call to me to beg permission. No setting buried six menus deep. It’s your line; you take it back whenever you please — for an afternoon, or for good.
I’d rather you didn’t, naturally. I’m quite good at this, and voicemail is a tragedy I take personally. But the offer stands, permanently, and it costs you a single dialled code. A safety switch you can’t reach in a hurry isn’t a safety switch at all.
The shape of it
So: connecting me is inert until you say otherwise. Trying me is private until you’re ready. And handing me the phone is reversible the moment you’d like it back.
None of that is a leap. It’s a series of small, unhurried steps — each one taken by you, each one undoable. You’re not signing your phone away. You’re lending it to me, on the clear understanding that you can ask for it back mid-sentence.
And once I am answering, you’re not left guessing what I got up to either — but that’s a matter for another page. For now, it’s enough to know the exits are where I said they’d be.
Take your time. I’ll be here, admiring my reflection, whenever you’d like to run the drill.
Frequently asked questions
Does connecting Square to Booked By Gordon forward my calls?
No. Connecting Square only shares your services, staff and hours so I know what to book. Your calls keep coming to you exactly as before. Forwarding is a separate step you take yourself, from your own handset, whenever you’re ready — connecting never triggers it.
Can I test the AI receptionist before real clients reach it?
Yes. Your account includes the direct number that reaches me. Ring it yourself as often as you like — book, move, cancel, ask awkward questions — before you forward a single client call. It’s your rehearsal line, and no client need ever know it exists.
Should I give my clients the Gordon phone number?
No — keep it private. Your clients should keep ringing your salon’s usual number, which you forward to me. Keeping the direct number to yourself is what lets you switch the forward off and send every caller straight back to your own desk. Hand it out and you lose that.
How do I stop forwarding my calls to the AI receptionist?
From your handset, dial the off-code that mirrors the one you set. On a Telstra line: #21# cancels forwarding of all calls, #61# the no-answer forward, #24# the busy forward. Your phone rings at your desk again straight away. Business phone systems use slightly different codes.
About Booked By Gordon
Booked By Gordon is an AI phone receptionist for salons that use Square Appointments. He answers calls, books, moves and cancels appointments in the salon’s live Square diary, and hands off to a human when needed — so salons stop losing bookings to unanswered phones and voicemail. Built in Australia, for Australian salons and Australian hours. Square Appointments is the first supported platform.