Safety instructions on the phone: what a reception service should say or avoid

A caller may report a feeling of illness, an accident, the start of a fire, a suspicious smell, a threat or violence, when they thought they were reaching a practice, a tradesperson or an agency. Reception is not a rescue service: as a general rule, it has neither the means nor the mission to assess a situation remotely.

This observation leads to a simple rule: faced with immediate danger, reception refers the caller to the competent services, quickly and clearly, and rules out instructions of its own making. This rule applies to a person as it does to a voice agent.

The situations to plan for differ from one trade to another. A medical practice may receive a call from a patient in distress; a repair company, one from a customer reporting a leak or a smell of gas; an agency, one from someone worried about a relative. Drawing up this list, even a short one, avoids improvising when the situation arises.

According to Service-Public.gouv.fr, France’s official administrative information portal, in France 15 reaches the Samu (the emergency medical service) for a medical emergency, 17 (Police secours, the police emergency line) is used in particular to report an offence, 18 reaches the fire brigade for a situation of peril or an accident, and 112, the European emergency number, directs the caller to the right service depending on the case. Calls to these four numbers are free, geolocated and prioritised, and they do not appear on bills. 114 is for people who are deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing or aphasic (video, chat, text message, images, French Sign Language); free and available 24/7, it can also receive by text message the alert of someone who cannot speak aloud, for example a victim of violence.

The same page also mentions a single callback number used by the emergency services, 0 800 112 112, and states that it was checked on 25 August 2026: reread it from time to time so that your instructions stay aligned with it.

What can be said: a short, unambiguous sentence along the lines of “in case of immediate danger, hang up and call 15, 17, 18 or 112”. It can specify whom to call depending on the nature of the problem and mention 114, intended in particular for people who are deaf or hard of hearing and reachable by text message for those who cannot speak aloud. The tone is calm, neither dramatising nor playing down.

What to avoid: making a diagnosis, giving medical advice, indicating a technical operation (turning off the water, gas or electricity, moving a person) that has not been validated, promising an intervention time, or keeping the caller on the line to “finish taking the message”. The French Criminal Code (Code pénal) punishes, in Article 223-6, the voluntary failure to give assistance to a person in peril when one could have done so without risk to oneself or to others, either through personal action or by prompting help: this text illustrates the importance of raising the alarm or having it raised. This reference point is not legal advice; if you are in doubt about your situation, consult a lawyer.

A reception service’s instructions are the professional’s responsibility, not the operator’s or the tool’s. A medical practice, a plumbing company and an estate agency do not have the same situations to plan for. Write a short document: the conceivable danger cases, the sentence to say for each, what must not be said, the person who validated it and the date of the last review.

Have this text reviewed by the person who bears professional liability, test it on a few simulated calls and update it when your business changes. If a technical instruction seems useful to you (for example for customers who know your installations), it is for the professional to word it, validate it and stand behind its content.

Also plan an internal circuit: if a danger call has been received, who is informed afterwards, how the record is kept and who reviews the instructions if the situation requires it. This improvement loop remains modest, but it turns a difficult call into better-worded instructions for the future.

The EU Artificial Intelligence Act (the AI Act) provides, in its Article 50, that AI systems intended to interact directly with people must be designed so that those people are informed that they are interacting with an AI system, unless this is obvious from the point of view of a reasonably well-informed person. According to the European Commission (FAQ updated on 24 July 2026), Article 50 has applied since 2 August 2026, and the information must be given at the start of the first interaction. In a danger situation, knowing that they are speaking to an AI can help the caller understand that they must call the emergency services themselves.

Alyas, an AI voice agent, answers using the information you give it: you can include the instruction you have validated, for example directing callers to 15, 17, 18 or 112. At the start of the call it announces that it is an AI and that the call is recorded, and if it does not know, it says so and offers to pass the request on. The trial is free for 10 days, with no card required.