What does Heyhannah actually do?

Hannah is an AI receptionist for your business. She answers every call and message 24/7, asks the right questions about the job, and sends you the lead on WhatsApp within seconds, so you never lose an enquiry because you couldn't pick up. If you need a website, we build and run one for you as part of the package.

R1,999 a month with 100 minutes of calls included, or R23,988 a year with 150 minutes a month. Extra minutes are R6 each and Hannah never stops answering. A website is included if you need one, and that package is for one business at one location with a small team (up to 5 people). Businesses with several branches, a bigger team or a lot of calls get a custom package.

How does call forwarding work?

You forward your existing mobile number to your Heyhannah number by dialling a few short codes on your phone. It takes about three minutes and works on all the major South African networks; rain is the one exception, so talk to us first if you're on it. When you're available, turn forwarding off and answer calls yourself. When you're busy, turn it on and Hannah handles everything.

Does it sound like a real person?

She holds a normal conversation rather than reading a script: she answers with your business name, listens, asks follow-up questions about the job, and reads the details back to check she got them right. If she mishears something she asks again instead of guessing.

What happens during load shedding?

Heyhannah runs in the cloud, so it keeps answering calls even when your office has no power. This is one of the biggest advantages: you never miss a call due to load shedding again. WhatsApp summaries are delivered over mobile data.

Can it handle Afrikaans callers?

Ja. Hannah can run entirely in Afrikaans: she greets your callers in Afrikaans and understands them in Afrikaans, not just English with an accent. We set your language when we set your account up, and each Hannah answers in one language, so tell us which one your customers actually phone in.

How is this different from a normal answering service?

An answering service takes a message, usually charged per call and often only during business hours. Hannah answers every hour of the day and actually qualifies leads: she asks what they need, when, and how to reach them, and you get a structured WhatsApp message, not a vague callback note. A full-time receptionist doing the same job averages R7,865 a month for office hours alone (Indeed, September 2026).

What about data privacy?

Heyhannah is fully POPIA compliant. We don't collect ID numbers, bank details, or other sensitive information. Call data is stored securely and you can request deletion at any time.

How does billing work?

Pay monthly or yearly. Monthly has no contract: you're billed when you sign up and then each month, and you can cancel anytime. Yearly is paid once for 12 months and renews each year, with an email reminder well before it does. Hannah can be answering your calls within 24 hours of you finishing setup, and if you're not happy in your first 30 days, tell us and we refund your first payment in full, monthly or yearly.

Google is answering your customer's search before they ever find you

By André Bergan, 2026-11-09

If your website visits have been quietly dropping even though nothing about your business changed, you're not imagining it, and it's probably not your fault. Google is increasingly answering a search itself, on the results page, instead of sending someone through to a website or a listing to find the answer. Fewer clicks doesn't mean fewer people searching for what you do. It means more of them never need to leave Google to get an answer.

What a South African study found

Algorithm, a performance marketing agency, put out the first South African study of this at the end of October (Bizcommunity). It worked through 16 months of Google Search Console data from 110 South African websites across eight sectors, covering 1.43 billion appearances in Google search results. The finding: the same business is now showing up in Google more often than a year ago, but earning roughly three clicks for every 100 times it appears, down from close to five. More visibility, fewer clicks for it.

That's one agency's data, not an independent audit, and it's not specific to trades. But it lines up with what Google itself has been doing all year: putting an AI-written answer directly on the results page, before a single blue link shows up. For a simple question like opening hours, a price range, or whether someone does a particular job, there's often no reason left for the person searching to click through anywhere.

Why this matters more than it sounds

It's tempting to read a drop in website clicks as a drop in interest, and either panic or go looking for someone to sell you a fix. Neither is the right response. Clicks were never the number that paid your bills. A customer who gets their answer straight off the search page and then phones you is a better outcome than one who clicks through, reads three paragraphs, and still has to find your number.

What this actually changes is where the real estate is. If Google is building its answer out of your Business Profile rather than sending someone to read your website, then your profile is no longer just a listing, it's the raw material for an answer a customer may never scroll past. Google's own guidance on how it ranks local results hasn't changed: it still comes down to relevance, distance and prominence (support.google.com/business/answer/7091). None of that is new advice. What's new is how directly it now gets reused.

What's worth checking, and what isn't

A few things are worth ten minutes:

Your category, service area and hours should be exactly right, because those are the fields an AI answer leans on hardest for a "near me" question. Your business description should say plainly what you do and where, in the words a customer would actually use, not a list of keywords. And your phone number needs to be correct and prominent, because even when Google answers the question itself, the next thing most people do is call or WhatsApp, not read further.

What isn't worth your time is chasing a guaranteed fix. Google hasn't published exactly how it picks what to put in an AI answer, and that includes the agencies now selling "AI visibility" or "generative engine optimisation" as a service. Nobody outside Google can promise you'll be the one it quotes. If someone's selling you certainty here, that's the tell.

Where this actually lands

However someone found you, Google's answer, a mate's recommendation, your van parked outside a job, the moment that matters is still the same one it's always been: they pick up the phone or send a WhatsApp, and you either answer or you don't. That part hasn't moved, and it's the part Hannah handles. She picks up the call or the WhatsApp message, gets the details of the job, and gets them to you within seconds, whatever brought the customer to you in the first place. Have a look at the AI receptionist if you want to see what that looks like on a real call.