Guide
Ten questions to ask a UK answering service
Updated
Every provider will tell you their people are excellent. These are the questions whose answers actually differ.
Talk to a specialist Ten UK answering services, how each one actually charges, what the published entry price buys, and which two will not quote until you call.
Money
- What counts as a chargeable call? Wrong numbers, cold sales calls, hang-ups after five seconds. Get it in writing.
- Is there a connection fee on a transferred call? JAM states there is not, which tells you the practice exists in this market.
- What do message deliveries cost? Answer4u publishes £0.11 per email message and £0.17 per SMS message, and Office Answers 10p a text with email messages free. Others fold it into the plan, or do not say.
- What happens in a spike month? Excess rates published on 23 October 2026 are £1.10 a call beyond a ReceptionHQ MessageExpress bundle and £2.99 beyond a Pocket Receptionist plan; Answer4u states none for its bundles. Ask whether you can move tier mid-term without penalty.
People and cover
- Where do the agents physically sit, and what happens at 2am? Message Direct states 100 per cent in-house from Bournemouth, CallCare states 100 per cent in-house from UK offices, Answer4u states a Nottingham team, Face For Business states all its PAs are UK-based and trained in-house, Office Answers states its operators are based in the UK, and JAM, Pocket Receptionist and Moneypenny all state UK based receptionists. ReceptionHQ is the most candid: UK receptionists take the majority of UK calls during standard office hours, with overflow to its teams in Australia and the US after hours and during peaks. AnswerConnect does not state it on the pages we read. Ask directly rather than inferring from a UK phone number.
- How many people will know my account? A shared pool answers faster and knows you less well; a dedicated team is the opposite and costs more. CallCare offers both explicitly.
- What hours am I actually buying? 24/7 is common but not universal: Pocket Receptionist publishes 08:00 to 20:00, Face For Business 8am to 8pm on weekdays with shorter weekend hours, and Office Answers 08:30 to 18:00 Monday to Friday.
- What is the answer time commitment, and is it measured? Message Direct states it endeavours to answer every call within 3 rings. Ask whether you get reporting against whatever is promised, not just the promise.
Systems and exit
- Where do the messages land? Portal, email, SMS, or straight into your CRM. Pocket Receptionist names Zoho, HubSpot and Salesforce for CRM bookings and Google, Outlook and Calendly for calendars; Answer4u's diary management page states that service can be integrated with any diary or CRM platform, and Face For Business names integrations for Microsoft, Stripe and CRM systems. If your team lives in a CRM, a message that arrives by email is a message someone has to re-key.
- Who owns the phone number? If you are given a divert number or a new local or 0800 number by the provider, ask in writing whether you keep it if you leave. If that number ends up printed on a van, this is not a small question.
- How do I change the script? Ask how long a script change takes and whether it costs anything. This is the thing you will do most often and nobody publishes an answer.
- What is the notice period? Message Direct states you can upgrade, downgrade or pause at any time. Pocket Receptionist states month to month, and ReceptionHQ no lock-in. Moneypenny states a three-month minimum on its smaller schemes, then one month's notice, Face For Business a 90-day minimum and then 30 days' notice, and Office Answers a one month rolling agreement ended by the 25th of the month (all read 23 October 2026). JAM, AnswerConnect and CallCare publish nothing, which usually means the answer is in the contract rather than on the website.
Use the trial properly
Free trials here run from 7 days (ReceptionHQ, Pocket Receptionist, Face For Business) to 14 days (Message Direct) to 30 days (Answer4u). Moneypenny references one on its quote form, and Office Answers states none. The mistake is treating a trial as a formality.
Divert your real number, brief them properly, then call yourself as a customer twice: once with a simple question and once with an awkward one. Ask a colleague to do the same at 7pm. Twenty minutes of that teaches you more than every comparison table on the internet, including this one.
Every provider statement above is what that provider published on its own pages on 15 August 2026. Where a figure carries 23 October 2026, and for Face For Business and Office Answers, it was read then. Terms change without notice, and what counts as a chargeable call usually lives in a contract rather than on a web page.