1. What is a Virtual Receptionist? A Virtual receptionist is like an in-house receptionist. The virtual receptionist performs the same tasks as an in-house receptionist only remotely and have been selected and trained to a high standard in customer care. Our virtual receptionists handle incoming calls, take messages, transfer calls and schedule appointments.
2. Why do I need a virtual receptionist and how will it help my business? A virtual receptionist will free up your time to focus on other aspects of your business. This will help you grow your business and increase revenues. We take away the stress you feel about missing customer calls and the need to spend a lot of contact time on the phone dealing with basic customer inquires. A virtual receptionist would manage all of these for you, so you can focus on other areas without losing new business. Sentics virtual receptionists will help your business grow by providing you affordable receptionist services to enable you keep your customers happy and engaged. This is important for a successful business. The average receptionist in the UK earns (£19,700 a year or £1,642 per month). Our plans begin at £25 a month.
3. What is the difference between an answering service and a virtual receptionist service? An answering service is an automated call handling service, and most people consider it too impersonal, while virtual receptionists are live friendly professionals who are trained to interact with your customers and respond to their needs. The virtual receptionist gives a personalised touch to every call received, making your customers feel welcome.
4. How can I sign up to your service? Signing up to our service is easy. It takes only 48 hours to get you all set up! First you fill out the contact form on our website or give us a call on 0330 001 1079. Then we will send you an onboarding form where you give us all instructions for handling calls. Then we set your phone system, provide you with a new line to use or redirect your calls to, and we go live!
5. Do I need to sign a contract? No, you do not have to sign a contract. You can opt-in or cancel at any time.  However, you need to give us 14 days notice if you need to cancel the paid plan. To work out which of our packages is right for you, we put you on a free trial for 7 days; you can cancel at any time within this period, and you will not be charged.
6. How does a Sentics Virtual Receptionist work? Once you complete the onboarding form with clear instructions on how you would like us to handle all calls, we will create an account for you. Then you will be assigned a dedicated number for your business. You can choose to use that number as your official business line or keep your existing number and forward your calls to your assigned number. It is your choice! We will receive your calls with a personalised greeting of your choice which would normally include the name of your company. Our receptionists will ask for the name of the caller, company, date, time, message, and other observations. This will be emailed to you immediately after the call or sent to you via text message. It is your choice! If we have been instructed to transfer certain calls (or calls from particular people) to you or specific members of your staff, we will transfer the call to the assigned member of your team as instructed in the onboarding form.  To do that we will keep the person on hold and call the person in your organization to know if they are available to take the call.  if they are, we will transfer, if not we will take a message and send by email or text.
7. Is there a set-up fee? There is an initial set up fee of £35 to be paid if you decide to move into a paid plan after completing the free trial.
8. Do you offer free trials? Yes, we offer a 30 day free trial. Within this period, we will be able to make a recommendation on the appropriate package for you. You can opt-out of the package at any time. We have three main packages – Bronze (£50) Silver (£220) or Gold (£630) These prices are exclusive of VAT. Visit our pricing page for more details.
9. How can I make payment for your services? Payments can be made by bank transfer, direct debit or through PayPal. An invoice will be sent at the end of each month which will have payment instructions.
10. Can I use my existing business number? Yes, you can. You can forward your calls to your assigned number as you wish using your phone provider.  You will need to turn on call forwarding from your phone or inform your phone provider that you will be forwarding calls.
11. Can you screen my calls for me? Yes, we can. You will just need to provide us with detailed information on your onboarding form.
12. Can you book appointments for me? Yes, we can. We will just need to share your cloud based calendar (google calendar or Calendly) with us.  Do not worry if you do not currently have one, we can work out a solution with you.
13. How will you send me messages received? At the end of each call, a summary of the call is recorded. Sentics will provide a summary of each call via email and/ or text message.
14. What happens to my calls if I am unavailable? If you are unable to take calls, we can transfer the calls to your voicemail, ask the caller if they want to speak to someone else, leave a message with the receptionists. We will follow your choice in this situation which will be explained in the onboarding form.
15. How will you know when I am available to receive calls? The onboarding form will have clear call handling instructions on how you want us handle  different calls. It would also be helpful that you update us on any change in your status. For example, if you have instructed us in the onboarding form that calls can be transferred to you from 9am-12noon every day, and on a particular day you will not be available to take calls within those specified times, kindly update us to inform us on changes to your availability. For example, let us know If you are stepping out for lunch or going for a meeting.
16. What hours will your receptionist be available? Our receptionists are available between the hours of 8am to 6pm from Monday to Friday and 8am to 4pm on Saturday. If you require special hours, you can book a consultation to discuss with the team to work out a solution.
17. How will the virtual receptionist know how to respond to our calls? Our receptionists will respond based on the call handling instructions described on the onboarding form.
18. How do you calculate my usage costs? We have an efficient system that captures all calls and computes the time spent per call. This information is available to you as a call summary record.
19. Will you charge per minute or per message? Our charges at Sentics are based on bundle of minutes pricing depending on your plan. If you use up the minutes in your plan before the month, you will be charged an overage rate of £1 per minute.
20. Can you make outbound calls on my behalf? We can make some outbound calls that involves calling back a client or following up with clients to confirm or cancel appointments. These will simply be billed as part of your incoming calls bundle.
21. Can you handle emergency calls on my behalf? Certainly! Just complete the call handling instructions for emergencies in the onboarding form. Our receptionists will follow that strictly in the event of emergencies.
22. How can I make a complaint if I’m unhappy with the Sentics Service? Our expectation is that our well-trained virtual receptionists would be able to resolve issues at first contact, but if you are dissatisfied with our services, we have a customer complaint process which outlines the steps to getting your complaint resolved. If any problems please email lucy@senticscustomercare.com

General FAQs

1. Does Sentics guarantee the privacy & safety of sensitive client information?Sentics virtual receptionist are professionals and treat customer information with discretion. Also, they sign a non-disclosure agreement to protect our client’s information. We take client confidentiality seriously.
2. Where are you located? Sentics Customer Care Ltd is a virtual operation with staff members located in different places. Our UK offices are registered at Tremough Innovation Center, Penryn, Cornwall, United Kingdom.
3. Who is answering the calls? All calls are answered by our team of friendly, well-trained receptionists. Lucy, Rose and Precious.
4. What services do you offer? We offer virtual receptionist services and broader contact center services.
5. What is the difference between Sentics virtual receptionist services and a virtual contact center? Our virtual receptionist services and prices are tailored to meet the needs of small businesses, and as the small business grow, our contact center services would be available to meet these growing needs. The contact center is tailored towards dealing with the more complex needs of bigger organisations.
6. Do you provide 24hours services? Not currently. Our current service hours are between the hours of 8am to 6pm from Monday to Friday and Saturday 9am to 4pm. If you need calls to be taken outside of these times please book a consultation with our team and we can see if we will do our best to accommodate.