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.

Why your old business number could be given to someone else

By André Bergan, 2026-10-05

If you have a business SIM that you barely use anymore, a second line from a few years ago, a spare number printed on an old flyer, you could lose it and it could end up ringing a stranger. ICASA has published new rules that let networks deactivate a prepaid number after 90 days of no real use, and then hand it to someone else about a month after that.

This isn't a theory or a draft proposal. The final regulations were published on 2 July 2026, and ICASA has confirmed the final text sets one standard process for every network. Operators get a six month window to build the systems for it, so the rule takes full effect from around January 2027.

What the rule actually says

Here's the timeline, as set out in the regulations themselves:

If a prepaid number goes 60 consecutive days with no "revenue generating activity", meaning no calls, SMS, data or value added services, the network must notify you that it plans to deactivate the number.
You then get a 30 day grace period to use the number again, with at least two reminders during that window, including one the day before deactivation.
That's 90 days of silence in total before the number is actually switched off.
Once it's deactivated, the number sits in quarantine for one month before it goes back into the pool and can be given to a new subscriber.

Add it up and it's around four months from "haven't touched that SIM in a while" to "someone else's phone now".

Two details matter if this applies to you. First, it's prepaid only, postpaid contracts aren't covered by this part of the rule. Second, there is an exemption: if you know you won't be using a number for more than 60 days, say for a long trip overseas, you can apply to your network to keep it, and the exemption lasts 183 days.

Why this actually bites a trade business

A lot of small businesses don't run one tidy phone number. They run whatever history has left them: the original cell number, a second SIM bought years ago for a now defunct side of the business, a number that was on the side of a bakkie that was sold, one printed on a flyer from a show nobody's handed out in two years. Some of those SIMs sit in a drawer. Some are still in an old phone that nobody charges.

None of that matters while the number just sits there unused and nobody's trying to reach it. It starts to matter the day an old customer, who's had your number saved since 2022, finally decides to call you back about a new job. If that SIM has been deactivated and recycled in the meantime, they're not reaching voicemail. They're reaching whoever the network handed that number to next, and you'll never know the call happened.

The same goes for a number on signage that's still up somewhere, an old invoice template nobody updated, or a number a previous employee used to answer that's now sitting idle since they left. Every one of those is a live risk under this rule if nobody's actively using the SIM.

What to actually check

Three places I'd look this week:

Every prepaid SIM your business has ever used that still has your name or your trade on it anywhere public: old flyers, signage, business cards in a drawer, an old website cache, a vehicle that's since been sold.
When each one last made a call, sent an SMS or used data. The rule is about activity the network earns from, so don't count on incoming calls alone to keep a SIM alive: make a call or send an SMS from it every so often. If it's been close to two months, you're at the point where the network's warning is due.
Whether you actually still need that number. If you don't, the honest fix is to tell the few people who still have it that you've moved on, rather than let it go quiet and risk someone picking it up without your customers ever knowing.

If you do need to keep a number but genuinely won't use it for a few months, the exemption is the legitimate way to park it without losing it.

The simpler fix

The real lesson underneath this rule is one I'd give you anyway: don't split your business across three half-remembered numbers. Pick one main number, put it on everything, and if it really matters to your business, think about moving it to a postpaid contract, which this rule doesn't touch.

That main number is also the one to have answered properly. With Hannah you forward it to her, and she picks up whenever you can't, takes the details and sends you the lead on WhatsApp, so the customers who do get through to you are never left ringing out.