Everything we know about the phone ringing out
35 guides on missed calls, answering services and AI receptionists. Written for people who run the kind of business where the phone is the front door, with real numbers rather than adjectives.
Ring +44 330 912 2553. It answers, and you can try to catch it out.
Costs and pricing
4 guides
2 min read
Is an AI receptionist worth it?
For some businesses this is the highest return spend available to them. For others it is an answer to a question they do not have. The difference is predictable.
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2 min read
Working out whether an AI receptionist pays for itself
The maths is easy. The discipline is measuring the before, because once the phone is being answered you have lost the ability to prove what it was like when it was not.
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2 min read
What UK call answering services really cost
Published rates and final invoices are rarely the same number in this industry, and the gap is almost always in how time is rounded.
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3 min read
How much does an AI receptionist cost in the UK?
Most quoted prices hide the thing that actually decides your bill, which is whether you are charged for the calls you receive or a flat fee for all of them.
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Comparisons
6 guides
2 min read
Switching from an answering service
The switch itself takes about a day. The contract you are already in is usually the thing that takes three months.
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2 min read
How to choose an AI receptionist
Almost every product in this category demos well on a scripted call. The differences show up on the calls nobody scripted.
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2 min read
AI receptionist versus press one for sales
A phone menu asks the caller to do the work of routing themselves, using categories invented by somebody who does not have their problem.
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2 min read
Voicemail is not a safety net
Voicemail was designed for a world where people had no alternative. They have alternatives now, and the alternative is the next result on Google.
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2 min read
AI receptionist versus a traditional answering service
Both answer your phone when you cannot. The difference is what happens next, and how the bill behaves when you get busy.
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2 min read
AI receptionist versus a human receptionist
These are not the same product and pretending otherwise helps nobody. One of them greets people at the door and knows your customers by name. The other one works at three in the morning.
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Missed calls
6 guides
2 min read
The weeks your phone volume doubles
Every trade has two or three weeks a year when demand arrives all at once. They are entirely predictable, and almost nobody staffs for them.
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2 min read
Your ad budget is leaking through the phone
You pay for the click whether or not anybody answers the call it produced. The dashboard records a conversion. The customer records a business that did not pick up.
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2 min read
How to measure your call answer rate
Almost every business overestimates how many calls it answers, because the ones it misses leave no impression to remember.
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2 min read
When your customers actually ring
Most businesses staff the phone for the hours they work. A significant share of enquiries arrive in the hours they do not.
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2 min read
Why nobody leaves a voicemail any more
Leaving a message is a commitment. It asks the caller to wait, to be available when you ring back, and to trust that you will. Most people ringing a business for the first time will not make that commitment.
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2 min read
What a missed call actually costs
A missed call leaves no trace anywhere in your business. No enquiry, no note, no record. Which is exactly why it is the easiest loss to ignore and the most expensive to keep making.
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How it works
6 guides
2 min read
Cutting no-shows starts on the booking call
A no-show costs exactly what a missed call costs, with the added insult that you held the slot open for it.
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2 min read
What happens when it does not know
Every assistant meets a question it cannot answer. What it does next is the most important thing about it, and the least demonstrated in any sales call.
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2 min read
How the booking actually works
Taking a message is easy. Putting the right appointment in the right slot with the right person is where the value is, and where the configuration matters.
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2 min read
Setting one up, step by step
The technical part takes about ten minutes. The part that decides whether it works is writing down what your business says to callers, which most businesses have never done.
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2 min read
Do they actually sound human?
The voice is rarely the problem. What gives most of them away is timing.
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3 min read
What is an AI receptionist?
An AI receptionist answers your business phone, has a conversation with the caller in ordinary language, and completes the task they rang about.
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Rules and compliance
5 guides
2 min read
TPS and CTPS, explained properly
If you make outbound calls to find customers, these registers decide who you may legally ring. The trap is that business numbers are not automatically fair game.
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2 min read
Security questions worth asking
You are about to send every conversation with every customer through somebody else's system. It is worth ten minutes of questions.
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2 min read
Should you tell callers it is an AI?
Yes. The interesting question is not whether, but how to say it in a way that costs you nothing.
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2 min read
Is it legal to use an AI receptionist?
Answering your own inbound calls with software is lawful. The rules that matter are about data and transparency, not about automation itself.
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2 min read
Recording calls under UK GDPR
Recording business calls is lawful and routine. Doing it without telling anyone, or keeping the recordings forever, is where businesses get into difficulty.
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By trade
7 guides
2 min read
For veterinary practices
A frightened owner with a sick animal will ring until somebody answers, and they remember for years which practice did.
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2 min read
For salons, barbers and beauty clinics
Everybody's hands are occupied with somebody's hair. The phone rings anyway, and every one of those calls is a booking.
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2 min read
For garages and MOT centres
Almost every call to a garage is bookable work, and almost nobody is free to answer it.
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2 min read
For solicitors and law firms
The line is simple and absolute: gather information, book appointments, give no advice. Everything useful sits on the right side of it.
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2 min read
For estate and letting agents
Portal traffic peaks in the evening and on Sunday afternoon. Almost no agency in the country is answering the phone at either time.
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2 min read
For plumbers, electricians and trades
You cannot answer a phone with your hands inside a boiler, and the call you cannot take is worth more than the ten minutes stopping would cost.
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2 min read
A practical guide for dental practices
Dental reception is one of the hardest phone jobs in any small business, because the person answering is usually also the person checking somebody in.
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Or just ring it and see
Every post here argues the same thing from a different angle, which is that an answered phone is worth more than anything else you could spend the money on. Thirty seconds on the line will make the point faster than reading about it.
Talk to our AI assistantNo form, no sales call. Thirty seconds on the phone with the thing itself.