Is an answering service for clinics just a booking line?
No, and an aesthetics clinic is where the difference shows. An answering service for clinics takes a different kind of call from one for a plumber. The caller is not reporting a leak. They are asking about their face, sometimes from a desk at work where they would rather not be overheard, and sometimes after weeks of deciding whether to ring at all.
So the job is to be warm, quiet and accurate. Your treatment menu is described in your words, what can be booked gets booked, and anything that needs a practitioner comes back to you instead of being guessed at. Growth and Premium put consultations and appointments into your diary while the caller is on the line. Light and Essential write the enquiry up properly and text and email it to you, for you to book yourself.
How is discretion handled on the phone?
Quietly, and on the caller's terms. Somebody asking about a treatment may not want a call back at work, a voicemail that names your clinic, or a text that could be read over their shoulder. So your call script can ask, before the call ends, how they would like to be contacted: which number to use, whether a message can be left on it, and whether a text is welcome.
Their answer travels with the enquiry. Your call back starts off knowing whether it is safe to say who you are to the person who answers.
What happens when a caller asks a clinical question?
It comes to you. Am I suitable? Will it hurt? Can I have it while I am breastfeeding? How long will it last on me? Those are questions about a particular person's body, and the only safe answer is one from the practitioner who will be treating them.
If you have written an answer you are happy for us to give, such as how long a consultation takes or whether numbing cream is used, it is given word for word. Everything else is taken down in the caller's own words and sent to you, and the caller hears roughly when you will be back in touch. An opinion on whether a treatment is right for someone is never offered on your behalf.
Why does a booking for anti-wrinkle injections need a consultation?
Because the prescribing rules require it. Anti-wrinkle injections use a prescription-only medicine, and the General Medical Council, the Nursing and Midwifery Council, the General Dental Council and the General Pharmaceutical Council all require the prescriber to see a patient in person before prescribing injectable cosmetic medicines. A prescription cannot be arranged over the phone, however sure the caller is about what they want.
A caller hoping to book anti-wrinkle injections for Friday is therefore booked in a way that allows for that face-to-face consultation, whether you run it as a separate appointment or as the first part of the treatment one. How you want that explained to the caller is agreed at setup, so they hear it as your process rather than as a hurdle.
Who checks that the caller is over 18?
If you offer injectables, the age question belongs on every booking for them. The Botulinum Toxin and Cosmetic Fillers (Children) Act 2021 makes it an offence in England to give botulinum toxin, or a filler by injection for a cosmetic purpose, to anyone under 18. It also covers making the arrangements, including a booking made on a business's behalf, with exceptions where a doctor is responsible for the treatment.
So for anti-wrinkle injections and dermal fillers, the caller is asked to confirm the age of the person being treated, which is not always the person on the phone. The question and the answer both go into the call log, alongside everything else said on the call.
What about a client who rings worried after treatment?
This is the call you most need to hear about, and it is not one to reassure anybody through. The caller hears the aftercare wording you have supplied, including when you want them to ring NHS 111 or 999, and nothing beyond it. Their description of what is happening is written down exactly and sent to you as an urgent text on any plan. On Growth and Premium you can choose to have it transferred to you there and then.
Growth and Premium include out-of-hours options, which matters here, because swelling does not wait for opening hours. On Light and Essential answering covers business hours, so your own out-of-hours aftercare arrangements still apply outside them.
Which plan fits a clinic?
The deciding question for a clinic is not how many calls come in. It is what you want those calls to become.
If you want the phone answered kindly, the questions you have written answers for dealt with, and everything else sent to you, Light at £59 a month or Essential at £129 does that, with 30 or 50 calls included. The answering is identical on both.
If you want consultations and treatments booked into the diary while the caller is still deciding, that is Growth at £249 for 100 calls, which also adds out-of-hours options and calls put through to you. Premium at £399 for 150 calls adds outbound calls on your behalf, customer follow-ups, full calendar management, and includes two hours a month of admin support.
The one-off setup fee is from £49.50, normally £99. Setup is where your treatment menu, your approved answers, your aftercare wording and your age question get written down. Everything each plan includes is listed under plans and pricing.
What does the free trial involve?
Seven days of calls answered, at no cost and with no card. Use it on your treatment days, when the phone is hardest to reach, and read back the call log at the end of each one. Your clinic's number does not change, so clients see nothing different.
To ask anything first, ring 01709 222834 or write to us through the contact page. The general mechanics of how calls are answered, for any business, are on the telephone answering page, and the other kinds of business we answer for are under who we help.