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 busier businesses can ask us for a package with more minutes.

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's new review rules could cost you the reviews you already have

By André Bergan, 2026-10-02

If you've ever told a happy customer "pop us a review if you don't mind" while quietly not asking the one who grumbled about the invoice, Google now has a name for that: review gating, and it's against the rules. Google tightened its Business Profile review policy twice in 2026, in February and again in April, and the changes target exactly the habits a lot of small businesses picked up to get more reviews.

What actually changed

Google's rating and review policy has always said a review should reflect a genuine, unbiased experience. The February update and the April one spelled out exactly what counts as cheating that:

Offering a discount, a free call out, loyalty points or any other benefit in exchange for a review. This includes offering something to get a bad review changed or taken down.
Asking only the customers you think are happy, or talking people out of leaving a bad one.
Pressuring someone to leave a review on the spot, while you're still standing in their driveway or they're at your counter.
Telling a customer what to write.
Giving staff a review quota, or asking a customer to mention a specific technician by name in their review.

None of that is new in spirit. What's new is that Google now treats it as an explicit rule violation rather than something it might frown at. Google has also started emailing businesses when it finds fake or incentivised reviews on their profile: the reviews are removed, and the email warns that if it keeps finding them, restrictions may be applied to the profile. Google says it blocked or removed over 292 million policy-violating reviews in 2025, up from more than 240 million in 2024, so this isn't a rule sitting unused in the fine print. It's being enforced by machine, at scale, right now.

Why this hits trade businesses particularly

A lot of the advice floating around for getting more Google reviews is exactly what's now banned. "Give them 10% off their next service if they leave a review." "Only send the link to the ones who seemed happy on the day." "Hand them the tablet before they drive off." Every one of those sounds like a reasonable thing to tell a junior staff member to do, and every one of those now breaks the rules, which can get reviews pulled or your whole profile restricted, right when a new customer is searching for someone to call.

For a trade business, your Google Business Profile rating is often the first and only thing a stranger sees before they decide to phone you instead of the next plumber on the map. Losing reviews you've built up over years because a well-meaning habit tripped a new rule is a real cost, and it's avoidable.

What's still fine

Asking for reviews at all is completely fine. Google wants genuine reviews. What changed is how you ask:

Ask everyone who finishes a job, not a filtered subset.
Send the same plain request, with no discount, voucher or incentive attached.
Don't tell anyone what to write, and don't ask them to name an individual staff member.
Don't hand them a tablet or your phone to review you on the spot. Send the link afterwards instead, by WhatsApp or SMS, when the customer is away from the job and can write what they actually think.

If you've been doing any of the things in the first list, it's worth a look at your own Google Business Profile this week, and worth having a quiet word with whoever in your business sends review requests.

Where Hannah fits in

The best source of honest reviews is simply more happy customers, and you can't make a customer happy if you never answered their call. That's the part Hannah handles: she answers your calls and WhatsApps when you can't, takes down the job and sends you the lead straight away, so the work comes to you instead of going to the next business on the map. Do the job well, send everyone the same plain review link afterwards, and the reviews look after themselves.