A receptionist on a desk costs a wage and goes home at five. A virtual one shouldn't cost a wage, and shouldn't need telling what a stopcock is. Adminmate answers your calls as your assistant, asks what you'd ask, and books the job into the hours you've opened.
Fifteen minutes on Teams, with a real person.
The word receptionist suggests a desk, a diary and someone who knows the business. For a one-van trade that was never on the cards, so the phone rang out or went to voicemail, and the customer rang the next name. A virtual receptionist is the desk without the wage, and the useful question is whether it knows the business.
Adminmate's does, because it's built for trades and nothing else. It answers in your business's name, as your assistant. It knows that water through a ceiling is today and a bathroom refit is next month, and it asks accordingly. It books into hours you've opened, not into a calendar it guesses at. It texts the customer to confirm, in your name, before the call has ended. And the job is in the app alongside your quotes, invoices and diary, because the receptionist and the paperwork are the same account.
What it is not is a person pretending. Ask it whether you're talking to a human and it tells you. Ask it for a price and it tells you the tradesman will confirm, because nothing with a price on it leaves without your yes.
The receptionist asks what you would. A plumber's flood gets the stopcock question; an electrician's rewire gets how many rooms; a roofer's leak gets whether it's coming through now. The answers are on the job when you ring back.
You open the hours you'll take work in. The receptionist offers from them and only them. A Saturday stays a Saturday unless you've opened it.
The confirmation goes in your business's name. A reply lands on the job, not in a receptionist's inbox you have to ask about.
A genuine emergency gets the safety words and reaches you at once in the hours you cover. A big quote gets taken carefully and waits in the app for your morning. Neither is treated like the other.
Enquiry to booked job in 90 seconds, while Dean was under a sink two streets away.
An example call, written out. Not a recording.
People search for a virtual receptionist when they want the desk covered and for an AI receptionist when they've heard the covering can be done by software. Adminmate is the second kind doing the first job: software that answers as your assistant, follows the rules you set, and never gets tired of the 7am call. The honest difference from a person is that it won't improvise a price or a promise, which for most trades is the point.
Where a person wins is the conversation that needs judgment nobody wrote down. Adminmate's answer to that is to take the job carefully, text you at once if it's urgent, and leave the judgment to you with everything the caller said in front of you. The page comparing an AI receptionist with an answering service goes through this honestly.
A virtual receptionist that's any good is still a monthly fee, and the fees across the market run from pocket money to a few hundred a month, usually with call limits and often with a setup charge. Adminmate's call answering isn't priced on its own: it comes with Solo and Team, from £99 a month, with the quotes, invoices, chasing and diary in the same price. The price you see is the whole price, you can cancel any time, and sales calls never count towards fair use.
Put against a desk, the comparison isn't close, and it isn't the one that matters. The one that matters is against voicemail, where the customer with the flood is already ringing the next plumber.
It knows the trade from the day you start: each trade's questions are in the script. You tell it your business name, your hours and the jobs you take, in the app's settings, and it takes it from there.
No. It never takes money or quotes a price on a call. The deposit goes on the quote you send, and the customer sees it when they accept on the quote page.
If they ask, yes, because it tells them. Most don't ask; they want the job booked and the text confirming it, and that's what they get.
It takes the message and texts you at once if it's urgent. It never puts the call through, so you're never caught halfway up a ladder, and you ring back when you can with everything they said in front of you.
Two plans, printed in full. No tier you have to call to find out the price.
You, your van and your phone.
Up to ten of you, ten diaries.
Pay for the year at ten months' price. Cancel any time and the unused time is refunded.
Fifteen minutes on Teams with a real person. Bring the call you lost last week and we'll show you how it would have gone.
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