How does Voksha compare to just hiring a dedicated phone host?

A dedicated phone host or reservationist costs most restaurants $16-20/hour in most markets, which is roughly $2,800-3,500/month for a single full-time person covering one shift a day, and that's before you account for the fact that one person can't cover open-to-close, weekends, and after-hours calls without overtime or a second hire. Voksha's Premium plan is $99/month for 150 calls, with $1/call after that, covering every hour your restaurant's phone can ring, not just the shift a hired host is scheduled for.

The gap isn't just cost, it's coverage. A human host, even a great one, is unavailable during their day off, can't answer a call at 11pm when someone's deciding where to book for Saturday, and is physically unable to answer the phone while also seating a walk-in party, which is exactly the moment a $120 takeout order call goes to a competitor instead. Voksha answers every call regardless of time of day or how busy the floor is.

Where a human host still wins is judgment calls that benefit from local relationship knowledge, recognizing a regular's voice, handling an unusual VIP request, or defusing a genuinely upset longtime customer with more warmth than a phone system can offer. Most restaurants that do well with Voksha aren't replacing their host, they're using Voksha to catch the calls a single host physically cannot answer at the same time as everything else on the floor, then having the host or manager step in for the calls that need a real relationship.