Out of hours answering service
While You Work answers your phone in the evening, overnight, at the weekend and on bank holidays, in your business name, with no surcharge for the hour. Urgent calls are flagged so you can decide whether to act tonight; everything else is taken with a message saying you will ring back in the morning. One price, all 168 hours of the week.
Founding members pay £49 and their line switches on as soon as they finish the set-up form. The first week on a live line is free.
In one paragraph
Out of hours answering means somebody picks up your business line when you have finished for the day, and handles the call properly rather than recording a message. For a small business it often matters as much as daytime cover, because the competition out of hours is so much weaker: at eight on a Sunday evening almost every number a caller tries goes to voicemail. The one that answers wins the customer. While You Work answers every hour of every day for the same £49 a month, so there is no decision to make about which hours are worth covering.
When the calls come
The boiler that fails at 7pm, the client who wants to book after work, the parent ringing about lessons after tea. The caller will try three numbers until someone picks up.
The weekend is when people are home to notice the problem and free to ring about it. Most small businesses are not answering.
Almost nobody answers, which is exactly why the business that answers gets the booking.
Out of hours is not only nights. If you are under a sink, halfway through a colour or teaching a lesson at 11am, that call is out of your hours too.
Emergencies
In the set-up form you say whether you deal with urgent calls out of hours. The receptionist follows that, every time, without waking you for a dripping tap.
Sunday, 9.40pm
Receptionist: Hi, you’re through to Dave’s Plumbing. Dave’s finished for the evening, but I can take the details so he can come back to you. Can I take your name?
Caller: Tom. Our radiator’s leaking onto the floor.
Receptionist: Thanks, Tom. Is the water still coming out now?
Caller: A steady drip. We’ve put a bowl under it.
Receptionist: That’s the right thing to do. I’ll mark this as urgent so Dave sees it first thing. What’s your postcode?
Caller: BS7.
Receptionist: And the best number for him?
Caller: 07700 900 145.
Receptionist: So that’s 07700 900 145. Is that right?
Caller: Yes.
Receptionist: Thanks, Tom. Dave will ring you in the morning, and I’m sending you a text now to confirm.
Dave’s text: URGENT. Tom, 07700 900145, BS7. Radiator leaking, steady drip, bowl underneath. Sunday 21:40.
Cost
Human answering services pay people to work unsociable hours, so many charge a higher rate for evenings, weekends and public holidays, or cover them only on a dearer plan. Some charge the same around the clock, and we name those on our comparison pages.
A per-call or per-minute rate that can rise outside office hours, on top of the monthly fee. A bad night costs real money.
The cheapest plans at many providers stop at 6pm, which is the moment your callers start ringing.
£49 a month including VAT covers every hour of every day, with up to 150 answered calls and no surcharge at any time.
Published prices from named UK providers, including which ones charge more after hours, are in our call answering cost guide and on the comparison pages.
Questions
It answers your business calls outside the hours you work: evenings, nights, weekends and bank holidays. The caller hears your business name rather than voicemail, the details are taken, and the message is passed to you. While You Work does this 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, at the same monthly price as the daytime.
Some UK services charge a higher rate for out-of-hours calls, and some charge the same around the clock. While You Work is £49 a month including VAT for founding members, flat, with no after-hours surcharge and no per-call fee at any time of day.
No, and that is the point of setting it up properly. You decide what counts as urgent for your business. Urgent calls are flagged so you can choose whether to act, and everything else is taken with a message saying you will ring back in working hours. The caller still gets a proper answer and a text, so they stop ringing round.
Yes, and you control it from your own phone. Divert-on-no-answer sends the calls you do not pick up within 20 seconds through to your While You Work line, so during the day it only catches what you miss. Switch the divert on when you finish for the day and every call goes straight through instead.
The same greeting as at 11am: your business name, a natural British voice and one question at a time. There is no hold music and no queue, because the receptionist is not a night shift with one person on it.
Yes. Every day of the year, at no extra cost. Human services often charge a premium on public holidays or close entirely.
Most people who reach voicemail hang up and ring the next company. A recorded message tells a caller with a problem that you are shut; a receptionist takes the details and tells them when you will ring. That is the whole difference.
No. Monthly, cancel any time, and founding members keep £49 for as long as they stay. The first week on a live line is free.
£49 a month including VAT, locked for as long as you stay. First week free once your line is live. No contract. Your line switches on as soon as you finish the set-up form.