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In need of a temporary answering service?

Our team of virtual receptionists can provide the short-term help your business needs, answering your calls 24/7 if needed. Whether you are facing a staffing issue, need holiday cover or expect higher call volumes than usual, you’ll find our services are reliable, flexible and cost-effective.


Affordable short-term receptionist support that ensures your inbound business calls continue to be answered

UK receptionists

Calls are answered by professionals in the UK, with overflow support to ensure the fastest possible speed of answer.

24/7 live call answering

We operate all day, every day, so we can seamlessly answer your calls around the clock if you want us to.

Custom call greetings

We answer your calls with your custom greeting to ensure your callers enjoy a seamless experience.

Instant emails or texts

Receive email or SMS messages after each call, containing caller details and their reason for calling.

Appointment Icon

Your tools are our tools

We can input leads, book appointments, raise support tickets and more using your preferred software.

No lock-in contract

No long-term contracts or cancellation fees gives you flexibility to use our services for the time period you need.

Help is at hand, whatever your situation

Illness & ad hoc coverage

Are staff absences making it hard to maintain productivity while ensuring the phone is answered? We can provide same-day service coverage!

  • Staff off sick
  • Staff on breaks
  • Staff in meetings
  • Staff in training
  • Staff at conferences
  • Staff working remotely

Periods of peak demand

Swamped with calls and don’t have the capacity to handle them effectively in-house? We can assist during unusually busy periods, whatever the cause.

  • Promotions or campaigns
  • Class actions for law firms
  • Tax time for accountants
  • Seasonality factors
  • Event registrations
  • Product recalls
  • Fundraisers

Holiday & leave coverage

Need someone to answer the phone while you’re out of town or your in-house receptionist is away? Enjoy peace of mind that we have it covered.

  • Bank holidays
  • Annual leave or statutory leave
  • Maternity leave or paternity leave
  • Compassionate leave
  • Parental bereavement leave

Events and office closures

Is your office shutting during your business hours? Whether a planned or sudden unforeseen event, we can answer your calls remotely.

  • Staff functions
  • Renovations
  • Moving offices
  • Christmas shutdowns
  • Conferences or other events
  • Pandemic lockdowns
  • Flooding or other natural disasters

How our call answering services work

Our virtual receptionist services

A temporary answering service is like having a casual receptionist who is available 24/7, whenever the need arises! Best of all, it’s risk-free as you only pay for what you use.

Whatever your industry, complexity of calls or call volumes, if you need a short-term phone answering service, we can provide the solution.

  MessageExpress MyReceptionist MyAssistant MyDiary
Compare our
live call
answering
services

Call answering and message taking for one individual or team.

See pricing

Messages, support and call transfers for multiple staff or departments.

See pricing

Tailored scripting and virtual assistance for unlimited staff or departments.

See pricing

Appointment booking, using your preferred software, for unlimited staff or departments.

See pricing

Caller greeting Personalised Fully customised Fully customised Fully customised
List staff or departments One person or team Unlimited contacts Unlimited contacts Unlimited contacts
Collect information from callers 3 details 5 details Up to 11 details Up to 11 details
Warm call transfers  
Advise business hours/location  
Answer common questions  
Scripted questions & responses    
Quote fees & take payments    
CRM input or submit online forms    
Appointment scheduling      
Diary management      
  About MessageExpress Enquire now About MyReceptionistTry our 7-day free trial About MyAssistantEnquire now About MyDiaryEnquire now

MessageExpress

Call answering and message taking for one individual or team.

  • UK receptionists
  • No lock-in contract
  • Personalised greeting
  • Instant email or SMS messages
  • One person or team listed as message recipient
  • Mobile app & portal
  • 24/7 service upgrade option
  • an 0800 number upgrade option

MyReceptionist

Messages, support and call transfers for multiple staff or departments.

  • UK receptionists
  • No lock-in contract
  • Instant email or SMS messages
  • Mobile app & portal
  • 24/7 service upgrade option
  • 0800 number upgrade option
  • Fully customised greeting
  • Warm call transfers
  • Multiple staff or departments listed as message or transfer contacts
  • Collect 5 pieces of info
  • Advise business hours/location

MyAssistant

Tailored scripting and virtual assistance for unlimited staff or departments.

  • UK receptionists
  • No lock-in contract
  • Instant email or SMS messages
  • Mobile app & portal
  • 24/7 service upgrade option
  • 0800 number upgrade option
  • Fully customised greeting
  • Warm call transfers
  • Multiple staff or departments listed as message or transfer contacts
  • Advise business hours/location
  • Collect 11 pieces of info
  • Custom scripting or FAQs
  • CRM input or online form submissions
  • Quote fees & take payments

MyDiary

Appointment booking, using your preferred software, for unlimited staff or departments.

  • UK receptionists
  • No lock-in contract
  • Instant email or SMS messages
  • Mobile app & portal
  • 24/7 service upgrade option
  • 0800 number upgrade option
  • Fully customised greeting
  • Warm call transfers
  • Multiple staff or departments listed as message or transfer contacts
  • Advise business hours/location
  • Collect 11 pieces of info
  • Custom scripting or FAQs
  • CRM input or online forms
  • Quote fees & take payments
  • Appointment scheduling
  • Diary management

A reliable solution to short-term problems

You can use ReceptionHQ’s service for an hour, a day, a week … whenever you need our assistance.

Many clients use our live call answering for short-term needs, such as when their own in-house receptionist is away, when staff are at events or to cope with seasonal demands. We offer temporary relief without the HR headache.

It’s even possible to switch our service on and off as needs dictate. Be sure to ask about our pause package!

FAQs

Many callers hang up when their call goes to voicemail, so you can miss out on vital conversations or leads.  Ensuring your calls are answered by a live person, increases customer satisfaction, builds loyalty and improves your opportunity to create a rapport and obtain caller details. Live call answering also allows you to screen calls, as you can advise your receptionist to transfer or take messages for only those call types you wish to receive.  Once answered, you can see each message as it’s taken and prioritise who you will call back first. Live call answering increases revenue through better customer connections, reduces costs as you’re not paying for a full time receptionist and helps you to be more efficient with your time.

ReceptionHQ is based in Basingstoke, Hampshire, and is a subsidiary of OfficeHQ, a global virtual reception company headquartered in Australia.

Yes. This is referred to as “call overflow”.

A lot of companies require their phone calls to be answered only when they are unable to take the call themselves. For example, if you step out of the office for an hour or your in-house receptionist goes to lunch, is on leave or is busy on another call and you have multiple calls coming in at the one time.

You can set your business phone number to divert (to the unique local phone number we allocate your business during the Free Trial setup process) only when the phone rings for more than a specified period (such as after 5 rings) or if your line is busy/engaged.

In such instances our receptionists will then answer the phone as if we were in your office. You’re always in control and can relax knowing you will never miss another important call again! 

Forwarding your business phone calls to ReceptionHQ is easy. To have our team of virtual receptionists answer your calls, simply:

  1. Decide whether you wish to forward calls immediately to ReceptionHQ (the best solution for most businesses) or have delayed call forwarding.
  2. Identify the call forwarding codes for your telecommunications provider. Most providers publish these codes on their websites.
  3. Use the codes to enable call forwarding to the local or toll-free number you choose to have allocated to you (aka your Assigned DID).

For more information, check out our article Forwarding Inbound Calls to Our Team of Receptionists, which outlines:

Our clients range from small businesses including sole traders through to large enterprises including multinational corporations. We provide call answering and appointment scheduling services for a variety of industries, including estate agents, lawyers, accountants and healthcare (such as psychologists, physiotherapists, chiropractors and dentists). We support many businesses with mobile workforces, such as those in trades, building and construction or travel and tourism operators. We also assist a variety of start-up businesses, contractors, franchises, retailers and service providers including IT companies and website design or marketing agencies.

The MessageExpress service works best for those clients who just need messages taken for one person or team.  The receptionist will answer with a greeting such as “Good morning,  [your business name].  May I take your message please?” Messages can be instantly sent by email or SMS, however call transfers are not available on this service.  On the MessageExpress service, receptionists are focused primarily on message taking, so are unable to provide general business information to callers.

The MyReceptionist service offers more flexibility and customisation so we can give the impression we are part of your business.  It’s designed for those clients who would like to provide a more personal touch.  When subscribing to the MyReceptionist service, you’ll receive a fully customised greeting, the ability to take different messages or make transfer calls to different people or departments in your organisation, plus receptionists can answer basic questions about your business, such as the location, your website URL, what your business does and when calls might be returned.

If you’re not sure, please speak to our friendly consultants or sign up for a free trial of our MyReceptionist service so you can test it out.  Once you subscribe, you change between package types whenever it suits your business. No penalties apply.

Yes, we have a dedicated team of highly experienced receptionists who can book appointments for you. The MyDiary service is ideal for professionals who depend on appointments being made and managed while they are focused on their clients.  Our receptionists can schedule and reschedule appointments, manage cancellations and even take payments in your preferred software.  We support a large number of third-party appointment booking tools and CRMs.  Please contact us for more information.

Yes, messages can be sent to multiple email addresses and mobile numbers – it’s your choice.  We can also attempt to transfer calls to multiple people in sequential order.  How your calls are managed can be updated instantly via your ReceptionHQ online client portal or mobile application at any time.

Yes.  Each staff member and/or department can set their own availability status and decide whether to have their calls transferred or a message taken.  All settings can be updated individually and instantly via the ReceptionHQ client portal or mobile application.

Yes.  We are able to answer basic questions such as your location, directions to premises, fax number, website, pricing and other general questions. Depending on your plan, you can provide us with detailed call scripts or answers to FAQs to assist your callers.  Just let us know your needs and we’ll set up your account according to your preferred process.

There are no set up fees for the MyReceptionist and MessageExpress services – you can start using these services immediately.

Set up can take as little as a few minutes.  For a MessageExpress or MyReceptionist service, you can start using the service almost instantly. Simply set up an account yourself, using the free trial webform or have our customer service team do this for you.  Either way, it only takes a few minutes to get started.  Once your account is set up, you simply need to forward your phone line to us and we’ll start answering your calls.

If you’re interested in a MyAssistant or MyDiary plan, a short setup may be required, depending on complexity, to train our receptionists on your preferred software, business information or webforms.  Please contact us to find out more.


Let us manage your calls so you can manage your business

You can easily manage the receptionist’s greeting, call transfer availability and message preferences in real-time, plus add additional staff of departments as contacts for transfers or messages, using our online client portal or mobile app (iPhone and Android).

Answering service add-ons

+ Phone numbers

Add multiple additional local numbers or an 0800 freephone number to the free local number you receive with your live call answering package.

+ Voicemail to email

Have voicemails instantly emailed to you, on numbers not live answered, to ensure no important communications are ever missed.

What our customers love

Used ReceptionHQ to cover my office calls whilst I was on annual leave for 1 week … all calls were answered, messages were emailed to me instantly. Very professional.
EHT Accounting
Really good experience so far after having used a few terrible providers.
Jibran Qureshi
Taken all the worry out of missing calls and trying to cover phones at busy times when staff away on holiday. All this for a very affordable cost!
David Cheyette

Trusted by more than 25,000 businesses


Find out more

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Want to try our telephone answering services for free?

Put the United Kingdom’s leading virtual receptionist solution to the test! We’re ready to answer your phone FREE for 7 days.

Want to try our call answering services for free?

Put the United Kingdom’s leading virtual receptionist solution to the test! We’re ready to answer your phone FREE for 7 days.

What does the free trial include?

Our free trial is based on our MyReceptionist service, with remote receptionists able to take messages and transfer calls based on your availability settings.

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