What does avirtual receptionistdo? Tasks, a typical day and what it costs

A virtual receptionist answers every call under your brand during the hours you set, takes messages and schedules call-backs, books and moves appointments in your own diary, screens enquiries with the questions you agree, covers live chat and a shared inbox between calls, and logs each conversation in your CRM. A dedicated one is a single named person who learns your business; an answering service is a rotating pool who read a script. At Ant Assist a dedicated virtual receptionist costs from £5 per hour on the entry rate, on UK hours, with a UK team supervising quality.

The role, as it is actually delivered, rather than the marketing version of it. Each task below is what our dedicated receptionists do from day one on the virtual receptionist UK service, so the description and the service agree. It covers the tasks, the limits, a typical day, the comparison with the alternatives and the price. It does not cover phone systems, which are your subscription and stay in your name, or the AI products sold under the same name, which are a different thing.

Inbound call handling

Answers every call under your brand during the hours you set, so callers reach a person rather than voicemail. Urgent calls are routed to you straight away; everything else is handled on the call or logged for you. The receptionist works from a greeting, a set of common scenarios and escalation rules documented in onboarding, so the answer sounds like your business.

Message taking and call-backs

Takes the caller's name, reason and best time to reach them, sends the message to the right person by email or chat, and schedules the call-back so nothing waits on a sticky note. A message from a dedicated receptionist carries context: who the caller is to your business, what they asked for last time, and what they were promised.

Diary and appointment booking

Books, moves and confirms appointments in your own calendar or booking system, following the rules you set for lead times, buffers and who can be booked where. Confirmations and reminders go out the way you want them, and the diary is defended against the double booking and the impossible gap.

Live chat and email overflow

When the phone is quiet, the same person covers your live chat and shared inbox, replying within the response times you agree and escalating anything outside their scope. One person on all three channels means the customer who rang, then emailed, is recognised.

Caller screening and escalation

Asks the three or four questions you agree, records the answers, and passes qualified enquiries to you the same day. Calls you do not want, the sales pitch, the wrong number, the caller who needs a different business, are handled politely and logged, so your time goes to the calls that deserve it.

After-call CRM updates

Logs every call in your CRM or shared inbox, sends any follow-up promised on the phone, and keeps the record clean so the next conversation starts with context. This is the task most answering services do not do, and the reason a dedicated receptionist's messages are worth reading.

What a virtual receptionist does not do. They do not give advice that needs your qualification: a receptionist for a clinic books the appointment and does not discuss the treatment; for a solicitor, takes the enquiry and does not comment on the case. They do not make decisions with your money in them. They do not act outside the escalation rules you agreed. And they are not in your building: post, visitors and anything physical need someone on site.

The times are an example; the pattern is what matters.

9 a.m. The phone line opens on your greeting. The first call is a new enquiry; the receptionist asks your screening questions, books a consultation into your diary inside your rules and logs the call in your CRM with the answers. You see a booked appointment with the context attached.

Late morning. A supplier calls for you; you are with a client. The receptionist takes the message, checks your rules (suppliers wait, clients do not), and sends it to you by chat with the best time to call back. A live chat opens on the website while the line is quiet; the receptionist answers it in your tone and turns it into a booked call.

Early afternoon. An existing customer rings to move an appointment. The receptionist moves it, confirms the new time by email, releases the slot and offers it to the caller from this morning who wanted something sooner. A complaint call comes in: the receptionist follows the escalation procedure, takes the details, calms the caller, and flags it to you immediately with everything written up.

5 p.m. The line closes on your out-of-hours message. The receptionist sends the day's summary: calls answered, messages taken, appointments booked and moved, chats handled, the one complaint and what was promised. Tomorrow starts with that list, not with voicemails.

An answering service is a pool of agents who answer calls for many businesses at once, from a script, usually priced per call or per minute. Right for a business with a handful of simple calls a week; wrong for anything that needs your diary rules, your customer history or your tone, because the agent changes every time.

An in-house receptionist sits at your front desk, handles visitors and post as well as the phone, and costs a UK salary plus employer National Insurance, pension, holiday and the desk itself. Right when presence in the building is the job.

A dedicated virtual receptionist is one named person on your phone system, your diary, your chat and your inbox, for an hourly rate, without the desk. Right when the phone rings steadily, the calls are more than messages, and your callers deserve the same person every time. How the pricing of these compares is the subject of our guide to virtual receptionist pricing UK.

A dedicated receptionist from Ant Assist starts at £5 per hour on the entry rate: the first 6 months on the Entry tier, 3 months on Mid, 1 month on Expert. After the promotion, the customer service rate card applies: £5.95 per hour full time on the Entry tier (160 hours a month, £952) or £6.50 per hour part time (80 hours a month, £520), with Mid at £6.84 and Expert at £7.44 per hour full time for receptionists with longer experience. There are no per-call or per-minute charges and no platform fees; the rate includes the receptionist's time, our office facilities in Cairo, and the supervision and management that keep quality up.

Hours and tier set the price: part time for a phone that is busy half the day, full time for a line that needs cover all day, extended hours and weekend cover at additional cost where you need them. Put your own hours into the calculator for the comparison against a UK in-house receptionist once salary, employer National Insurance, pension, holiday and a desk are counted.

What the £5/hour entry rate includes

• Dedicated VA, never shared
• UK-hour aligned support
• Management and supervision included
• Recruitment and onboarding included
• Office infrastructure included
• VA replacement available
• No NI, pension, or holiday costs
• No long-term contract, rolling monthly

A dedicated virtual receptionist fits trades and field businesses that miss calls on site, clinics, salons and practices that live by the diary, professional services that need a human first answer, and online stores adding phone and chat cover, where the e-commerce customer service outsourcing page describes the wider role. At Ant Assist the receptionist is one named person, trained on your tone, your scenarios and your escalation rules before they take a call, with a UK team supervising quality; most clients have their VA active within 5 to 7 working days of signing up, and if the fit is wrong we replace the VA and carry the handover, with no re-recruitment and no restart from zero.