out_01
Announce maintenance windows
Patch day, firewall update, server restart on Saturday: Marie states the time window, clarifies who is reachable afterwards and notes check points for the technician.
for IT service providers and MSPs
AI phone assistantfor IT service providers
Your service desk answers first.
Marie takes over during overflow and at night.
500+
businesses on the phone
from €99
per month
24/7
hotline reachable
Sample log of a night: At 2:14 am a customer reports a server outage. Marie classifies it as P1, creates ticket 48213 and transfers to the on-call team. At 2:31 am another customer reports a printer error, which is scheduled as P4 for 8 am without waking the on-call team.
“We used to miss calls when several customers called at the same time. With ScaleTalk no call goes unanswered anymore, easy to use and quick to set up.”
500+ businesses
trust ScaleTalk
Listen in
A real call: an incident at the customer.
At Bäckerei Krämer, no emails have been arriving since the morning, and all five workstations are affected. Notice how Marie finds the customer in the system and derives the priority from their answer. On the right you see what lands as a ticket in your system.
0:00
The recording is in German; the transcript is translated.
Press play and the transcript follows along live.
Ticket in the system
Outage
Customer
Affected
Priority
Contact person
Callback
SLA
Try it yourself
Call and report an incident.
Play a customer for whom nothing works anymore, or a prospect looking for a new IT provider. Notice how Marie assesses the priority and what she never asks for, such as a password. After you sign up, the number is shown so you can call right away.
- free, no contract
- we get back to you briefly afterwards
- on request we show you how this looks with your SLA rules
Search queries
If you can't be reached, you get googled. And replaced.
Real search queries from Google in Germany. On the left your customers' side, on the right your own.
What your customers search for
switch it service providercost of external it service providerit service provider hourly rateit emergency service berlinit support opening hoursservice desk opening hoursbypass ai hotline
What IT service providers search for themselves
it on-call dutyit on-call compensationwhat does on-call duty coston-call duty how often permittedit support night shiftfirst level support aireplace it support with aiai phone assistant it service provider
Source: Google Autocomplete Germany, September 2026.
Reason number one for switching: The IT service provider is hard to reach when you need them most.
Google's AI Overview for “it dienstleister nicht erreichbar” (IT provider unreachable) advises end customers, among other things, to prepare a switch to a more reliable provider.
On the normal hotline at the weekend instead of the emergency number, a message on the answering machine, a complaint on Monday that nothing worked all weekend.
Simulator 2:14 am
Something goes down at the customer. Who does Marie wake up?
Choose the incident, the time and the customer's contract. Set your emergency rules and watch how the ticket fills and how Marie decides. You set the rules, not the AI.
simulator.hotlineSample flow with fictional customer, sample SLA
01 Incident
02 Time of the call
03 Customer status
04 Your emergency rules
Ticket #48213Your ticket system (PSA)
- Received
- Wed 02:14, outside business hours
- Customer
- Brandt Logistik GmbH, K-1042
- Contact
- Tobias Reuter, warehouse manager
- Callback number
- 0171 5528904, read back and confirmed
- Contract
- Managed service with 24/7 SLA
- Category
- Servers and infrastructure
- Priority
- P1
- Affected users
- 18 of 18, operations down
- Description
- File server unreachable, ERP gone at all workstations. Server is running but stuck on restart.
- SLA response time
- 30 min., around the clock
Action
Wake the on-call team
Marie calls the on-call team, hands over the case in two sentences and connects the caller. If nobody answers there, the customer is promised a callback.
Marie tells the caller
“This is an emergency. I'm connecting you to our on-call team now and will brief them on the case first.”
Why this decision
- ›P1 outside business hours: the on-call team is woken.
Handover by email or interface to your ticket system (PSA); we clarify the integration in the needs analysis. SLA times and emergency rules are sample values; in live operation you store your own.
Human first
Marie doesn't replace a technician. She picks up when nobody can.
Technically this is a call forwarding on your existing number. You decide when Marie takes over: when busy, after a few seconds without an answer or at fixed times.
Example weekday, 12 am to 12 am
You set the times yourself
Marie + on-call teamMarie
Your team first, Marie on overflowTeam
Marie + on-call teamMarie
- 01Business hours, technician freeHotline ringsYour team answersMarie: stays quiet
- 02All lines busyCall forwarding when busyMarie answersTicket, callback within SLAMarie: overflow
- 03Major outage, many at onceMarie answers all in parallelstates the known statusrecords newly affected callersMarie: unlimited in parallel
- 04Evenings, nights, weekendsMarie answersP1 by your rules: warm transfer to on-callRest: ticket for start of businessMarie: with on-call team
HALVAR IT knows the problem behind line 03: “We used to miss calls when several customers called at the same time.” A hotline with two lines stays two lines wide during a major outage. Marie takes every call in parallel.
Outbound calls
Marie makes calls too. To your existing customers.
The calls that get left undone in day-to-day business: announce, follow up, confirm. Always tied to an existing contract or with consent.
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Follow up after the ticket
Logged at night, solved in the morning: Marie asks whether everything is really working, logs follow-up problems as a new ticket and, if you like, asks a short satisfaction question.
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Renewals and licenses
Licenses, backup, warranty or certificates are expiring: Marie names the date, asks about needs and books an appointment with your sales team if changes are wanted.
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Confirm on-site appointments
The technician arrives tomorrow at 9: Marie confirms the appointment, asks about access and contact person, and sends the confirmation by text.
Campaign: firewall update
Maintenance window Saturday from 8 pm, 5 existing customers
Albers Getränkehandel
Mr. Albers
waiting
Steuerbüro Kaiser
Ms. Sommer
waiting
Brandt Logistik
Mr. Reuter
waiting
Praxis am Markt
Front desk
waiting
Werkzeugbau Hess
Mr. Hess
waiting
Sample flow with fictional customers. Every confirmation also goes out by text, and postponement requests land as a task with the technician.
UWG § 7
Marie only calls customers you have a contract with, or contacts who have given consent. Service calls about an existing contract, such as a maintenance window, are different from advertising. You only discuss contract renewals and offers with existing customers where this has been agreed or is at least presumably wanted. Cold marketing calls to consumers are not permitted without explicit consent, and Marie doesn't make them.
Numbers with sources
The bottleneck is the technician, not the phone.
Whoever answers the phone is missing from the ticket. And these are exactly the people who are hardest to find.
100,697
companies for programming, IT consulting and IT services existed in Germany in 2024, 11,177 of them with 10 to 249 employees. The figure also includes software companies.
Eurostat, Enterprise statistics by size class and NACE Rev.2 activity (sbs_sc_ovw), NACE J62, retrieved Sep 29, 2026
79,000
IT specialists are missing in Germany in 2026. 78% of companies feel the shortage.
Bitkom e. V., press release “IT-Fachkräftemangel hat sich in den letzten drei Jahren halbiert” (IT skills shortage has halved in the last three years), Sep 3, 2026
26%
of companies with open IT positions are mainly looking for IT administration and systems operations. Exactly the people who answer the phone at your company.
Bitkom e. V., press release of Sep 3, 2026
€5,189
gross per month is the median for a full-time specialist in system integration.
Entgeltatlas of the German Federal Employment Agency, IT occupations, skilled worker level, data as of 2025
42%
of IT service providers name the skills shortage as a major challenge. For companies with 5 to 49 employees it is clearly the top concern.
Synaxon IT-Servicepreisspiegel 2026, over 700 IT companies, reported by it-business.de, Jan 20, 2026
The math
What phone time costs your technicians.
Set how many calls a technician takes themselves today. Below, the ways to cover a hotline in direct comparison.
Calculation: calls × minutes × 21 working days. Hourly rate: median €5,189 gross for IT specialists in system integration (Entgeltatlas of the German Federal Employment Agency) plus roughly 21% employer contributions, so roughly €6,280 per month, spread over 170 hours. Our own calculation, excluding vacation, sick leave and workplace costs.
Technician time on the phone
52.5 hrs
per month in which nobody works on tickets
Labor cost of this time
€1,939
at roughly €37 per hour
ScaleTalk
from €99 per month
The exact price depends on your call volume and on whether Marie only handles overflow, only nights or both. We work that out in the needs analysis.
1st-level staff, technician, on-call duty, answering machine or Marie
In-house 1st-level staff
- Cost
- around €6,280 employer cost (full-time)
- Available
- Business hours
- Simultaneous calls
- 1 call per person
- At night
- no
- Result
- Ticket
Technician answers themselves
- Cost
- Technician time, see calculator
- Available
- when free
- Simultaneous calls
- 1 call per technician
- At night
- no
- Result
- Ticket, work interrupted
On-call team takes everything
- Cost
- Allowance per your arrangement
- Available
- around the clock
- Simultaneous calls
- 1 call
- At night
- every call wakes someone
- Result
- Technician sorts it themselves
Answering machine
- Cost
- practically €0
- Available
- around the clock
- Simultaneous calls
- depends on the system
- At night
- someone listens in the morning
- Result
- Voicemail without required fields
Marie (ScaleTalk)
- Cost
- from €99 per month
- Available
- Overflow and outside business hours
- Simultaneous calls
- unlimited in parallel
- At night
- only wakes by your rules
- Result
- Ticket with priority and required fields
1st-level staff: median €5,189 gross for IT specialists in system integration, full-time (Entgeltatlas of the German Federal Employment Agency) plus roughly 21% employer contributions, our own calculation. On-call duty: compensation is governed by the employment or collective agreement, so no amount is shown here. ScaleTalk: from €99 per month, depending on call volume.
Honestly
Eleven objections we hear from IT service providers.
From conversations with IT service providers and an industry podcast, anonymized. Answered briefly, without promises we can't back up.
01
“Our customers want a human.”
They should have one. During business hours your team picks up first, and Marie only takes over when everyone is busy, and outside business hours. She says right at the start that she is an AI and doesn't fake emotions.
An AI's feigned empathy tends to be off-putting. Industry podcast by an IT service provider, paraphrased
02
“Our hotline answers quickly.”
Then it stays that way. Marie only covers the gaps: lunch break, team meeting, major outage, trade show day, night.
“I'd rather have an AI on the line than nobody at all for half an hour.” Industry podcast by an IT service provider
03
“We'll build that ourselves.”
You can. The question is who runs and maintains it when administrators are the most sought-after IT profile anyway (Bitkom: 26%). With ScaleTalk it's a call forwarding and an onboarding, and the rules stay with you.
“We just build that kind of thing ourselves.” From a conversation with an IT service provider group
04
“A one-second delay would be catastrophic.”
We see it the same way. That's why we don't promise milliseconds here but let you check for yourself: the listening example above, a test call on a real line.
05
“Our security officer rejects US services.”
The servers are in Frankfurt, the data stays in the EU, there is a data processing agreement under Art. 28 GDPR, and calls are only recorded with consent. We clarify the detailed questions of your security officer in the needs analysis before the first call is made.
06
“The interfaces are too rigid.”
The result reaches your ticket system (PSA) by email or via interface. Which integration fits you, we clarify in the needs analysis, gladly directly with your technicians.
07
“On long calls the AI forgets numbers and names.”
Marie reads back the callback number, customer number and ticket number and has them confirmed before she hangs up. You can check exactly that in the test call.
08
“It will cost more than expected.”
ScaleTalk starts at €99 per month, and the price depends on call volume. Whether only the overflow, only the night or both are worthwhile, we calculate openly in the needs analysis.
09
“In the end everything lands with a human anyway because the transfer fails.”
Calls are only transferred according to your emergency criteria, and warmly: Marie briefly hands over the case, then connects. If the connection fails, the callback is promised and the ticket is complete.
10
“The AI doesn't know what's going on with us today.”
You store known outages and planned maintenance windows as a notice. From then on Marie tells every caller the current status and only records who is additionally affected.
11
“We want to offer this to our customers too.”
This page is about your own hotline. Whether and how you can use ScaleTalk with your customers, we are happy to discuss in a call. We don't promise a ready-made partner model here.
Legal and data protection
AI Act, GDPR and NIS2 on your hotline.
What applies to use on your line. This is an overview, not legal advice.
Art. 50 AI Act
AI identifies itself
Since August 2, 2026, callers must be told they are speaking with an AI. Marie says so in the first sentence.
Art. 28 GDPR
Data processing agreement
Servers in Frankfurt, the data stays in the EU, plus a data processing agreement. You receive the documents before the start.
§ 201 StGB
Recording only with consent
Calls are only recorded if the caller agrees. Without consent, it stays with the ticket and the summary.
NIS2
Security incidents
If your company falls under the NIS2 implementation act as a managed services provider, reporting obligations apply for significant security incidents. Marie replaces neither your reporting procedure nor legal advice. But she can make sure a suspected security issue reaches your on-call team immediately, even at night.
Frequently asked questions
What IT service providers and MSPs want to know before getting started.
An AI phone assistant is a voice AI that answers calls on your hotline, takes the request during the call and hands it over in a structured way. At an IT service provider, that means: classify the incident, ask for required fields, set the priority according to your SLA, create the ticket and, in a real emergency, wake the on-call team. It can also place calls itself, for example to announce maintenance windows.
Yes, but at an IT service provider we recommend the “human first” model: during the day your service desk picks up, and Marie only takes over when everyone is busy, and outside business hours. Technically it's a call forwarding on your existing number.
The test call on this page and the needs analysis are free. For ongoing operation on your hotline, ScaleTalk starts at €99 per month, depending on call volume. This includes a data processing agreement and servers in Frankfurt, so the data stays in the EU.
For an IT service provider, the one that can do four things: recognize emergencies according to your rules and transfer warmly, hand over tickets with complete required fields, take many calls at the same time when a major outage is running, and also place calls itself. The fastest way to check is a test call in which you report an incident.
Every IT service provider sets that itself, depending on level, region and contract. According to the Synaxon IT-Servicepreisspiegel 2026 with over 700 IT companies, selling prices for a technician hour at 1st level most recently rose by 2.64%. For your hotline that means: every minute a technician spends logging instead of solving is expensive time.
At first level, the request is received, logged and, if possible, solved with standard knowledge. Second level takes over what needs deeper expertise, such as servers, networks or specialist applications. Marie works before first level: she answers, asks, prioritizes and hands over. Your technicians solve it.
By criteria you define: how many users are affected, whether operations are down, whether a security incident is in play and which contract the customer has. Only when these criteria apply does Marie call your on-call team, briefly hand over the case and connect. Everything else is waiting as a ticket in the morning.
Marie hands every case over to your ticket system (PSA) by email or via interface. Which integration fits your system, we clarify in the needs analysis.
No. A password reset requires identity verification, and that stays with your technicians. Marie records the lockout, asks whether the user can work around it and creates the ticket with the appropriate priority.
Marie takes all calls in parallel, and nobody hears a busy signal. If the outage is known and stored as a notice, she tells every caller the status and records who is additionally affected.
Yes. Since August 2, 2026, Art. 50 of the EU AI Act requires callers to know they are speaking with an AI. Marie says so in the first sentence. Those who prefer to speak with a human get a transfer or a callback.
Yes, for existing customers and with a link to the contract: announcing maintenance windows, following up on a ticket, confirming on-site appointments or pointing out expiring licenses. Marie does not make cold marketing calls.
Other industries: Tradespeople · Property management · Tax advisors · Car dealerships · E-Commerce
Further reading: How an AI phone assistant works · GDPR and AI phone assistants · ROI calculator
Next step
We look at your hotline.
30 minutes: when your lines are busy, which calls at night are real emergencies, how your SLA rules end up in Marie, how the ticket reaches your system and what it costs.