What does a telephone answering service actually do?

A telephone answering service puts a person on the end of your business phone at the times you cannot get to it yourself. You keep your own number, and nothing about it changes for the caller. When you are busy, or out, or already on another call, it diverts to us, we answer with your greeting, and we deal with whatever the caller rang about.

The word "answering" undersells most of it. Taking a name and a number is the minimum. What a caller usually wants is an answer to a question, a rough price, or a slot in your diary, and all three of those can happen while they are still on the phone rather than in a note for you to work through at nine at night. There is a fuller list on what we do.

What happens on the call?

Before a single call comes through, your script gets written with you: your greeting, the questions you get asked most, the prices you are happy to have quoted, what counts as urgent, and who gets put straight through. That document is the difference between a service that sounds like your business and one that sounds like a switchboard.

Then, on the call itself:

  • It is answered in your business name. Your greeting, not "hello, answering service".
  • The question gets answered. Opening times, the areas you cover, whether you take on that kind of work, what happens next. From your own notes, in your own words.
  • The job gets booked, where booking is part of your plan, into the calendar you already use.
  • The urgent one reaches you. You set what urgent means. A leak at half four and a request for a quote are not the same call.
  • You get told. Email and text, with the detail you need to act on it, usually before the caller has put the phone down.

Is it better than voicemail?

Voicemail asks the caller to do extra work at the moment they least want to. They have a problem, they have your number and three others, and leaving a message is slower than ringing the next one. The real damage is not that they go elsewhere. It is that you never find out they rang, so the loss never appears anywhere you can see it and nothing ever gets fixed.

A divert-to-mobile app has the same hole in it. It moves where the ringing happens. It does not answer the phone, and somebody still has to say hello.

How much does a telephone answering service cost?

Ours starts at £59 a month. The plans are priced on how many calls you get rather than on features, because answering the phone is the same job whether it rings thirty times a month or a hundred and fifty:

  • Light, £59 a month. 30 calls included. The same answering as Essential, for a quieter phone.
  • Essential, £129 a month. 50 calls included. Someone to pick up when you are busy.
  • Growth, £249 a month. 100 calls included, and the plan where appointment booking, lead qualification, call transfers and out-of-hours options start.
  • Premium, £399 a month. 150 calls included, plus CRM updates, outbound callbacks, quotation follow-ups and a couple of hours of admin support a month.

There is one setup fee, currently half price at £49.50 rather than £99, and it covers the work above: the call forwarding, your script, your FAQ knowledge base, the calendar link, the escalation rules. Everything is laid out on the plans and pricing page.

What do you need from me to set it up?

Less than most people expect, but it is not nothing, and the businesses that get the most out of it are the ones that spend an hour on this properly.

  1. Your greeting, word for word, as you would say it yourself.
  2. The questions you are sick of answering. Hours, areas, what you do and do not take on, how soon you can get out, whether you charge to look.
  3. Your rules on price. Some businesses want a ballpark given, some want every price kept back for them. Either is fine, as long as it is written down.
  4. Who is urgent, and how they reach you. A number for the calls that should interrupt you.
  5. Access to a diary, if you want calls turned into bookings rather than messages.

After that, your phone diverts and you stop thinking about it.

Is it worth it for a business your size?

Work it out on your own numbers instead of ours. Take the calls you miss in a normal week, multiply by fifty-two, assume only one in five would have turned into work, then multiply by what an average job is worth to you. One in five is deliberately pessimistic. Use it anyway, because a figure you cannot argue with is worth more than a flattering one.

On that basis, a business missing four calls a week with a £300 average job is losing in the region of £12,000 of work a year. The calculator on our homepage runs the same sum on your figures and shows every step of it on screen.

Who is it for?

Businesses where the phone is the front door and missing it costs real money. Trades and home services, where you are under a sink or up a ladder while it rings out. Salons and clinics, where there is someone in the chair and answering would mean leaving them. Professional services, where the part that actually needs handling is the diary and the follow-up rather than the greeting. There is more on who we help.

It is a poor fit when every call genuinely needs you: technical sales where the first question is one only you can answer, or work where a caller would rather wait than speak to anyone else. Better to say that now than after a month of it.

How do I start?

Seven days free, and no card needed to begin. You keep your number, divert it when you want to, and see what comes back in writing. If it is not for you, stop, and nothing has changed. To talk it through first, ring 07432 140658 or send it through the contact page.