Receptly vs a phone answering service
A human answers. Then what?
Answering services are a real option and on some calls a person is better. The question is what happens after they say hello.
1300 556 520Ring it, then ring an answering service, and compare what lands on your phone.
The case against us
Where a person genuinely wins
Do not let anyone tell you a human answering service is obsolete. On some calls a person is better and it is not close.
The upset customer who has had two trades let them down. The commercial enquiry with a procurement process behind it. The call that needs someone to read a tone and back off. A good operator handles those; software does not, and any vendor who says otherwise is selling.
There is also a legitimate brand reason. If your work is high-end residential and a human voice is part of what people are paying for, that is a real argument and it is yours to make.
What we would push back on is the assumption that you are choosing between a person and a machine. On most trade calls you are choosing between a booked job and a message.
The catch
Where it falls over
An answering service takes messages. That is the product. The operator does not know a Rheem from a Rinnai, cannot tell you whether the job is a two-hour or an all-day, and is not logged into your ServiceM8. So they write down a name, a number and a rough description, and email it to you. You still ring back. You still book it.
Then there is peak. One operator covers a lot of businesses, and the first cold Monday of winter is the first cold Monday for every plumber on their book at the same time. Your callers do not get a person, they get hold music, and hold music converts worse than voicemail.
And the billing. Most services bill per call or per minute with a minimum billable time, and the meter does not know the difference between a $4,000 bathroom and a wrong number.
Due diligence
What to ask before you sign
- Per call or per minute? And what is the minimum billable call, and does it round up? A 15-second hang-up billed as a minute changes the maths.
- Are wrong numbers billed? Telemarketers, hang-ups, silent calls. Some services bill all of them. Ask for it in writing.
- Is after-hours a surcharge? The calls you most need covered are often the ones on the higher rate.
- Does it book, or does it message? If the answer is ‘we can take booking details’, that is a message. Ask whether they write into your job software.
- How many clients does one operator cover? Ask what happens at their peak, and what their answer-time target is when it is busy, not when it is quiet.
- What is the script change turnaround? You change your service area or your pricing. How long until the person answering knows?
- Who owns the call recordings? And can you get them when you leave.
If a service answers those seven straight and the numbers work, take it. We would rather you bought the right thing than bought ours.
Side by side
Line by line
| A phone answering service | Receptly | |
|---|---|---|
| Answers 24/7 | Usually, often at a higher rate | Yes, one rate |
| Knows your trade | Reads your script | Set up on your jobs, your questions, your area |
| Books into your job software | Rarely | ServiceM8, simPRO, Fergus, AroFlo |
| Behaviour at peak | Hold queue | Every call at once |
| Billing | Per call or per minute, minimum applies | Monthly plan with included minutes |
| Wrong numbers cost you | Often yes | Counted in minutes, seconds each |
| Handles the difficult human call | Better than us | Takes details and escalates to you |
| Cost | Quoted per call | From $249/mo |
Instead
What Receptly does with the same call
It answers on every line at once, so there is no queue on the first cold Monday. It asks the questions your trade actually needs answered, because it was set up on your jobs and not on a one-page script. It writes the job into the software you already run, with the address and the access notes on it.
And when it hits the call that needs a human, it does the thing an answering service does: takes the details properly and gets you on the phone.
Questions we get
Straight answers
Can I run both?
Some businesses do. Receptly takes the overflow and the after-hours, the service takes business hours. It works, but you are paying twice for the same call to be answered. Most people pick one after a month.
Will my customers hate a robot?
Some will. The honest framing is that you are not comparing it to a person answering, you are comparing it to the phone ringing out. Callers who get a booking are not the ones who complain.
What about accents?
It handles Australian accents, trade vocabulary and suburb names, because that is what it is set up on. It is not perfect. When it does not understand, it says so and asks again rather than guessing at an address.
Pricing
One monthly number instead of a meter
Starts the day it goes live. Nothing charged until it’s answered your calls for a week. Cancel inside the week and you pay nothing, setup included.
One monthly number instead of a meter.
No surprise bills: go over two months running and we tell you before we move you up. Full pricing and what’s included.
Book a setup callSet up for your trade: plumbers, electricians, air conditioning, roofing, painters, landscaping, pest control, locksmiths, builders. Other comparisons: vs voicemail · vs hiring a receptionist · Buying one in Australia.
Compare the two on the same call.
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1300 556 520