VERTICAL · TRANSLATION AGENCIES

AI Receptionist for Translation Agencies: Capture Every Brief, Route It to the Right PM

AI receptionist for translation agencies. Captures the quote scope on the call, routes briefs to your project managers and flags certified and sworn enquiries. Growth from £997 a month.

Last updated 26 September 2026

Call the live demo line 020 3769 0881 You will be speaking to an AI receptionist. Talk to a person: compliance@eldris.ai

Your translators translate. The agent answers the phone while they do.

Every call your project managers take is time away from project work. Each enquiry they field, about scope, deadline, word count or format, is a conversation that an AI receptionist can take instead, so your PMs stay on the work that pays.

Eldris Voice is trained on your agency’s services: the languages you offer, the document types you handle, your turnaround options and your certification scope. When a call comes in, it captures the full project brief, answers the caller’s standard questions and routes the brief to the right person, without pulling a translator off their screen.

Call the live demo line → 020 3769 0881 You will be speaking to an AI receptionist.

THE COST OF ANSWERING THE PHONE: DO THE ARITHMETIC

The cost of answering the phone: do the arithmetic

Here is a way to put a number on the time your PMs spend on inbound calls. The figures are an example; use your own.

Suppose a project manager’s time is worth £50 an hour, your agency takes 15 inbound enquiries a week, and each call lasts eight minutes. That is two hours of PM time a week, about £100, or about £5,200 a year.

Eldris Voice on Growth, the tier with up to three languages, costs £997 a month plus a one-off £997 setup: £12,961 in the first year. At the example figures above, PM time alone does not cover that. The case rests on more than PM minutes: the calls that go to voicemail while everyone is busy, callers in other languages, and enquiries that arrive outside office hours. Count those for your agency before you decide.

Starter, at £497 a month plus £497 setup, covers one language pair, for example English and French.

See the full pricing →

WHAT THE AI DOES ON A TRANSLATION QUOTE CALL

What the AI does on a translation quote call

Here is what an inbound quote call looks like when Eldris Voice handles it.

Step 1: language and document type. The agent identifies the source and target languages and asks whether the document is legal, technical, financial, medical, marketing or general. If the caller mentions a sworn translation, a certified translation or an apostille, the agent flags it and routes accordingly.

Step 2: scope. Word count or page count, deadline, whether the document is digital or needs scanning, and whether the client needs a notarised copy. The agent captures this in a structured brief for your PM, not as a voicemail.

Step 3: delivery and contact. Preferred delivery format, whether a hard copy is needed, and the caller’s name, email, phone and company. The agent tells the caller who will follow up and when, based on your agency’s settings.

Step 4: routing. The brief reaches the right PM through your chosen channel. If the enquiry is outside your scope, such as a language pair you do not cover, the agent says so rather than creating false pipeline.

The caller ends the call with their brief taken, a name to expect contact from and a timeframe.

Call the live demo line → 020 3769 0881 You will be speaking to an AI receptionist.

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”ISN’T THIS THE AI THAT REPLACES OUR TRANSLATORS?”

”Isn’t this the AI that replaces our translators?”

This is the first question most agency principals ask. It deserves a straight answer.

Eldris Voice handles phone reception. It does not translate documents. It does not touch source texts, CAT tools, translation memories, glossaries or your workflow in Trados, Memsource or any other platform. It answers the phone, captures the brief and routes the work to your team.

The two functions are separate. Document translation needs linguistic expertise, cultural knowledge, subject depth and accountability that a reception system does not provide or attempt to provide. Eldris Voice removes the reception work: the inbound calls that pull your PMs and senior translators away from the work that needs them.

You are members of the Association of Translation Companies or the Institute of Translation and Interpreting because you hold professional standards in language services. The useful question is not “will this replace our translators?” but “what does it cost us to have our translators answer the phone?”

LANGUAGES ON THE RECEPTION LAYER, IN AN INDUSTRY THAT LIVES IN LANGUAGES

Languages on the reception layer, in an industry that lives in languages

Your clients call in the language they are most comfortable in.

Eldris Voice answers in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Mandarin. Scale includes all six, Growth up to three languages and Starter one language pair. If a caller starts in French and switches to English, the agent follows.

For a translation agency, your reception then reflects the languages you sell. A French-speaking client asking about a legal translation is answered in French; a Mandarin-speaking client asking about technical documentation is answered in Mandarin.

For details, see the multilingual AI receptionist page.

INTEGRATION WITH PLUNET, XTRF, MEMSOURCE AND TRADOS

Integration with Plunet, XTRF, Memsource and Trados

You are not looking to replace your translation management system. You want your reception to feed it.

On Growth and above, each brief reaches your project managers by email or Slack, and CRM connections for HubSpot, Pipedrive, Salesforce and Zoho are included. Direct job creation in Plunet or XTRF from call data is a bespoke Enterprise build, scoped to your intake workflow.

Memsource and Trados work at the document and translation memory layer, not the reception layer, so a direct connection is not usually needed. What Eldris Voice delivers is a structured project brief: the kind your PMs now type up from voicemails and notes.

Prefer to talk through your intake workflow first? Email Mark Ritson at compliance@eldris.ai.

Call the live demo line → 020 3769 0881 You will be speaking to an AI receptionist.

Gold network of linguists and project threads connecting to a translation agency plaque

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Frequently asked questions

Isn’t AI replacing translation work?

An AI receptionist handles phone reception: answering calls, capturing project briefs and routing enquiries to the right project manager. It does not translate documents, handle source texts or work inside translation management systems. It frees your linguists and PMs for translation work; it does not attempt that work itself.

Can it capture a translation quote on the call?

Yes. The agent can capture the scope of a quote request during the call: source and target languages, document type (legal, technical, certified, sworn, general), word or page count, deadline, delivery format and the caller’s contact details. The brief goes to your PM or intake system after the call, and the caller is told who will follow up and when.

Does it handle certified, legal or sworn translation enquiries?

Yes, with routing. During onboarding the agent is trained to recognise enquiries about certified translations, sworn translations, apostilles or documents needing notarisation, and to follow your routing rules, for example escalating to a senior PM. It does not advise on certification requirements; that stays with your linguists and your clients’ own advisers.

Will it work with Plunet or XTRF?

On Growth, the brief from each call is delivered to your project managers by email or Slack. Direct job creation in Plunet or XTRF from call data is a bespoke Enterprise build. The right starting point is a conversation about your intake workflow.

What if a caller wants to speak to a PM directly?

If a caller asks for a specific person, the agent follows your escalation rules and transfers the call through your existing phone system. Callers who ask for a person are put through.

Hear it scope a translation quote on a real call.

You will be speaking to an AI receptionist. Ask it anything you would ask a trained receptionist: prices, languages, availability and more.

Call the live demo line 020 3769 0881

Or talk to Mark directly: compliance@eldris.ai

AI Receptionist for Translation Agencies: Capture Every Brief, Route It to the Right PM

The cost of answering the phone: do the arithmetic

What the AI does on a translation quote call

Hear it for yourself — faster than finishing this page.

”Isn’t this the AI that replaces our translators?”

Languages on the reception layer, in an industry that lives in languages

Integration with Plunet, XTRF, Memsource and Trados

Frequently asked questions

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Hear it scope a translation quote on a real call.

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