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A telephone answering service in Doncaster

A telephone answering service in Doncaster means the calls you cannot take at the wheel, or on a job, still get answered. Reception Hub answers with your business name from Wath upon Dearne, just west of Mexborough, and sends you who rang and what they need. The Light plan is £59 a month.

Inside a parked van in a country lay-by at sunset: a phone lying face down on the passenger seat beside a clipboard, a red pen, a flask and a folded hi-vis jacket.

Why would someone who drives all day want a telephone answering service in Doncaster?

Doncaster is the largest metropolitan borough in England by area. If you cover it, a working day can take you from Thorne to Edlington, or Tickhill to Askern, with a good part of the day spent in the van, while the phone keeps ringing.

The law does not leave you much room. GOV.UK puts it plainly: holding and using a phone while driving can mean 6 penalty points and a £200 fine, and that still applies when you are sat at the lights or queuing. Hands-free is allowed, but a hands-free call on the A630 is not the place to take down an address, a fault and a time someone is in.

So the call goes to voicemail, or rings out. Some callers will not leave a message. They try the next number they found.

What lands on your phone when you pull over?

A text with everything you need to ring back properly. Something like this, which is an example and not a real caller:

New enquiry, 2.40pm. Outside tap leaking under the patio, Armthorpe. Water meter still turning with everything off. Mobile number given. In all evening. Told you would call after five.

You read it in a lay-by or on the drive at home, decide whether it is today or tomorrow, and ring one person who is already expecting you. The details come by email as well as text, and every call goes in a log you can look back over.

That log is worth a look after your first few weeks. It shows the days and times the calls actually came in, and who each caller was and what they wanted. If most of them landed mid-morning while you were between jobs, you know when the divert earns its keep. If the phone barely rang while you were out, you know that too, and can drop to a smaller plan or stop altogether.

What does the person answering know about your business?

What you have agreed with us, and that is the point. Before your first call, we go through what callers usually ask and build your notes with you: which parts of the borough you cover, what work you take on and what you turn down, if there is a call-out charge, and how soon you can usually get there. The caller gets those answers in your words. Anything outside them is written down for you to answer yourself, rather than guessed at.

It helps to be specific about geography. If you go as far as Bawtry but not over into Nottinghamshire, say so. Lead qualification comes with Growth and Premium, so on those plans someone ringing from beyond that line hears, kindly, that it is outside your patch. Light and Essential take down who rang and their number anyway and leave that call to you.

Which plan suits someone who is on the road all day?

It depends on what you want from each call.

Light: 30 calls a month for £59. The same answering as Essential, with a smaller allowance. Right if you miss about one call each working day, roughly seven a week.
Essential: 50 calls a month for £129. For a busier phone, still mainly message taking during business hours.
Growth: 100 calls a month for £249. For when you would rather the visit was booked than the message taken. Callers can be asked your qualifying questions, put in your calendar, or transferred to your mobile when something cannot wait.

Over the allowance, a call costs £2 on Light and Essential and £1.75 on Growth. Premium, the full virtual receptionist, sits above those three. All four plans, and the one-off cost of setting up (from £49.50, normally £99), are on plans and pricing.

If you work in a trade, the page for yours goes further into how calls are handled: builders, gas engineers, plumbers and electricians.

Is it only for trades?

No. The drive is a trade problem, but the missed call is not. A hairdresser with a client in the chair, a clinic between appointments, or an accountant in a meeting has the same phone ringing out. The pages for salons, clinics and accountants cover what changes for those businesses, which is mostly the diary rather than the van.

Who picks up?

A real person, never a recording or a robot, answering from Reception Hub's one address, a business park in Wath upon Dearne next to Mexborough. There is no office in Doncaster itself. Reception Hub is run by its founder, Shaun Yates, and the person on the line has read your notes before your calls start. The greeting is yours, not ours.

Have a look at your call history for last week. Count the calls from numbers you did not know that you missed or rang back late. That is roughly the work this would catch, and it tells you whether 30 calls a month is plenty or not nearly enough.

Then try it. Seven days cost nothing: no card details, and no long contract after. The codes for EE, O2, Vodafone and Three are in the article on diverting your phone. To start, call 01709 222834, or fill in the contact page. How the service works in general is on telephone answering service, and our pages for Rotherham, Sheffield and Barnsley sit with the rest under areas.

Common questions

My business number is an 01302 landline, not a mobile. Can that be diverted?

Landline diverts are set up by your landline provider, and each one does it in its own way and charges in its own way, so their help pages or customer services are the place to start. Our divert article covers the four mobile networks only.

Do my callers pay more when the call comes through to you?

No. They pay what they would normally pay to ring your number. Any charge for passing the call on falls on your own phone bill and depends on your network, so it is worth checking your tariff before you set the divert.

Some of my jobs are out where the signal comes and goes. Do I still get the message?

Yes. The text is normally delivered once your phone is back in signal, and the same details are sent by email as well, so you are not relying on having signal at the moment the caller rings.

What if a caller has an emergency and I am driving?

On Light and Essential, the details arrive as a text for when you stop. On Growth and Premium, the call itself can be transferred to you, so you can pull in and take it.

We answer for these places too

Hear it for yourself, free, for a week.

Seven days of a real person answering in your business name. No card, no contract, and nothing to cancel if you'd rather not carry on.

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Or call us on 01709 222834