The AI virtual receptionist for pharmacies

Yes. Run2AI's Virtual Reception books the services your pharmacy offers by appointment, such as ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (holter), spirometry and first-line blood tests, offering only the free time slots in the pharmacy calendar.

Before proposing a date, the assistant reads the preparation instructions you have entered, such as fasting or pausing medication, and passes them on to the customer. For each service you choose how it behaves:

• it books autonomously, when the calendar is connected;
• it collects the request, which your staff then handle from the dashboard;
• walk-in, when it only needs to explain hours and how the service works, without booking a slot.

The Virtual Reception collects prescription refill requests by phone and on WhatsApp and lines them up in the dashboard, where the pharmacist validates and processes them when there is a quiet moment at the counter.

Each request arrives with name, number and a summary and works like a simple ticket: yellow while it is pending, green once the customer has been contacted, with a record of who handled it and when. If a photo of a handwritten prescription arrives on WhatsApp, the assistant does not try to read it: it stops, the pharmacy receives an email notification and a member of staff replies to the customer directly. Voice messages are transcribed too and can still be played back. See how the channel works on the WhatsApp AI bot page.

No. The pharmacy's AI receptionist gives no advice on medicines, dosages, interactions or symptoms, because those questions belong to the pharmacist.

During opening hours the assistant transfers the call to the counter or to the extension you have chosen; when the pharmacy is closed, it logs a callback request with a summary of the question, so the pharmacist calls back already knowing what it is about. If the conversation reveals an emergency, it does not continue with the routine request and directs the caller to the emergency services (118 in Italy) or the emergency department. Its scope stays practical and informational: opening hours, on-duty rotas, services, preparation and bookings. That keeps customers safe and protects your pharmacy.

Your pharmacy decides: through your phone system rules you choose which calls go to the Virtual Reception, for example after-hours calls and those that come in when all your staff are at the counter.

Many pharmacy calls are short and repetitive: opening hours, on-duty rotas, available services, how to prepare for a holter or a spirometry test. The assistant answers using the information you enter in the dashboard and leaves to your staff whatever needs a person. With a VoIP phone system a dedicated extension is created; with a traditional line, a dedicated number is used with call forwarding when nobody picks up. The only limit on simultaneous conversations is the number of lines in your phone system: with twelve lines, the assistant can hold twelve conversations at once.

Yes. If your pharmacy does not use booking software, the Virtual Reception can work with Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar, reading availability and adding service appointments directly.

Your staff see the assistant's bookings straight in the pharmacy calendar, while the duration and preparation details of each service stay in the documentation the assistant uses to answer. It is the solution for pharmacies that currently keep appointments in a simple diary, even a paper one. Find out more on the Google Calendar integration page.

Yes. The Virtual Reception is built for multiple locations, so a pharmacy group or chain can run several branches from a single setup, with different information for each one.

For every pharmacy you set opening hours, address, duty rota, temporary closures and available services. If each branch has its own number, the assistant already knows where the call is coming from; with a single number, it asks the customer which pharmacy they mean. Staff can be assigned to one or more branches and see only their own requests in the dashboard. The cost per location goes down as the number of pharmacies grows, and you can start with a pilot in just one.

Yes. The Virtual Reception processes your pharmacy customers' data in line with the GDPR, with storage on Google Cloud Platform in Europe and AI models running in Europe.

Even the name of a medicine or a booked service can reveal health information, which is why:

• conversations are encrypted at rest and visible only to people who sign in to the dashboard with their own credentials;
• no model is trained on customer conversations;
• your pharmacy chooses how long to keep them, with automatic deletion when that period ends;
• the assistant introduces itself as a virtual assistant and points to your pharmacy's privacy notice.

Run2AI signs the agreement appointing it as your data processor. Other questions on privacy and call recordings are covered in the AI virtual receptionist FAQ.

The Virtual Reception for a pharmacy starts from €224 per month (excluding VAT) for the phone channel.

There are three cost components: a one-off activation fee covering setup, testing and staff training; an annual or quarterly subscription; and usage above the included allowance of 500 minutes of actual conversation per month, around 350 calls. Only the traffic that reaches the assistant counts: in our experience, pharmacies that use it after hours and during peaks often stay within the allowance. WhatsApp and website chat are added only if you need them.

Most pharmacies are live within 2–3 weeks, and you can call the free demo number on our website at any time to hear how it answers.