The office manager at a twelve-person architecture practice in Clerkenwell had used a call answering service for years, and the receptionists there were friendly, quick, and good at spelling unusual surnames. What the practice paid for, in the end, was a stream of emails saying that somebody had called and would like a call back, which the architects returned between site visits, sometimes three days later and sometimes not at all.
The businesses in this article are illustrative examples, not named StartAutomate clients.
Key takeaways
- A UK call answering service puts a real person on your phone and passes on messages, and it is usually billed per call or per minute.
- An AI receptionist answers the same calls and can also do something with them, such as booking a meeting, checking a project status, or sending a document.
- Businesses whose callers expect a human voice, or whose calls are mostly messages for one person, may still be better off with a person.
What a call answering service provides
UK call answering services such as the large national providers and many smaller local ones answer your calls in your company name, follow a script, and forward messages by email, text or an app. Many will also transfer calls to your mobile if you want them to and diary appointments in a shared calendar.
They do this well. The limit is structural, because a receptionist answering for dozens of businesses cannot work inside each business's own systems, so most calls end with a message.
What an AI receptionist adds
An AI receptionist is connected to the tools the business already runs on. For an architecture practice that might mean the Outlook calendars of each partner, the project list, and the address of every current site, so a client asking when their planning drawings will be ready gets told the date the project lead has put against it, and a builder asking for the latest drawing issue gets a link sent to their phone.
Callers who want a meeting get one booked while they are on the phone, and the architect's inbox receives a summary instead of a request to ring somebody back.
Cost and billing in the UK
UK call answering services usually charge either a monthly package with a set number of calls or a per-call or per-minute rate, often somewhere around a pound or more per call once VAT is added, and busy months cost more.
AI receptionists are typically a setup fee plus a monthly amount tied to call volume, and an extra call costs very little. The bigger saving for most practices is the time spent returning calls, which does not appear on any invoice but is easy to recognise on a Friday afternoon.
When a person is better
Some businesses should keep a human answering service. A private client practice whose callers are often elderly, a funeral director, or a firm whose callers expect to be greeted by name may reasonably prefer a person, and we say so when it applies.
Plenty of businesses run both, with the AI answering first and handing certain calls to the answering service, which is a sensible way to compare them on your own callers before deciding anything.
Common questions
Is an AI receptionist cheaper than a UK call answering service?
At moderate and high volumes it usually is, because answering services charge per call or per minute. The larger difference is that the AI can complete tasks during the call rather than pass on a message.
Can callers tell it is AI?
We recommend the agent says it is an AI assistant at the start. Most callers are more interested in getting an answer than in who gives it.
Can I keep my answering service as well?
Yes. The AI can transfer certain calls to your existing service, so you can use both while you compare them.