The maths of missed property calls
Every unanswered ring is a competitor’s vendor.
These are the patterns that show up in every estate-agency P&L we’ve looked at.
Why estate agents in particular
Your phone rings while you’re busy doing your job.
Estate-agency work is, by design, out of the office. Viewings, valuations, market appraisals, branch handovers. The phone never stops, but the people who answer it do.
You miss calls every time you’re on a viewing
And every missed call is a potential vendor, buyer, landlord or tenant who calls the next agent on Rightmove.
Most property enquiries land outside office hours
Industry research suggests 60% of property enquiry calls arrive after 6pm or at weekends. Voicemail kills them.
Hiring a receptionist costs £30k+ a year
A full-time UK receptionist costs £30,000–£45,000 once you include NI, pension, training and cover for sick days.
Voicemails get ignored
Industry studies consistently find that around 85% of callers who reach voicemail won’t leave a message and won’t call back.
How it works
From first call to live calls in three steps.
Forward your office number
A simple divert from your existing landline or mobile to HiyaCalls. No new hardware. No new number for your callers. Works with any UK telecoms provider, BT, Virgin, Vodafone, Sky.
We script your AI for property
We build a custom call flow around your business: sales vs lettings, your branches, your fee structure, when to take a message vs book the viewing, urgency triggers on tenant maintenance, opening hours, named negotiators.
Get the summary, take the lead
Every call answered, every detail captured, every summary in your inbox in seconds. Caller name, reason, urgency, recommended next step, ready for your negotiator on duty to act on first thing.
What it handles
Every kind of call your office gets.
The AI is trained on the real conversations estate and letting agents have every day. Here’s what it’s built to handle out of the box.
Viewing requests
Captures property address, preferred dates, contact details and any specific requirements. Books straight into your diary or sends to the negotiator on duty.
Valuation enquiries
Qualifies the lead, sale or let, location, postcode, asking-price guidance, and forwards the brief to your valuer the same minute the call ends.
Tenant maintenance reports
Triages by urgency (gas leak vs leaky tap), logs the issue, sends an instant summary, and escalates emergencies according to your written protocol.
Landlord queries
Answers FAQs on rent collection, statements, compliance certificates, and routes anything complex to the property manager handling that portfolio.
Out-of-hours buyer enquiries
Most property enquiries arrive after 6pm or on weekends. The AI handles them with the same professionalism as your office, every hour of every day.
Vendor and landlord recruitment
When a vendor calls considering an instruction, the AI gathers details, books the valuation, and gets you in front of them before the competition does.
A real example
What lands in your inbox after a viewing call.
Caller’s on your line at 8:47pm asking about a Saturday viewing for the 3-bed semi on Albion Road. By 8:50pm, this is in your inbox.
- Caller name, number, and how they found you
- The property they’re asking about
- Their position: chain-free, AIP, current rental
- Preferred viewing slots
- Urgency score and recommended next step
- Full transcript and recording, on demand
Built for UK regulation
GDPR-ready and ICO-aware.
Property agencies handle some of the most sensitive personal data on a day-to-day basis: financial position, household composition, vulnerability disclosures from tenants. HiyaCalls is designed with that in mind.
Call data is hosted in the UK. Recordings and transcripts are retained according to your agreed policy, 30 days by default, configurable to anything from 1 day to 7 years. We provide a written Data Processing Agreement, a clear lawful-basis statement, and the documentation an ICO query or DPO audit would expect to see.
We’ve briefed our process specifically against ICO guidance for the property sector and the requirements of Propertymark’s code of practice. If your compliance officer wants a 20-minute call before signing off, we’ll book it.
The maths
Cheaper than a part-time receptionist. Available 8x more hours.
| HiyaCalls | Full-time UK receptionist | Traditional call centre | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hours covered | 24/7 | ~40 hrs/week | 8am–8pm typical |
| Concurrent calls | Unlimited | 1 | Limited by agents on shift |
| Written summary in seconds | Depends on note-taking | Usually no | |
| Estimated annual cost | Bespoke quote | £30,000–£45,000 | £3,500–£12,000+ |
Estate-agent FAQ
The questions every agent asks before signing.
- Will buyers and tenants know they’re talking to an AI?
- Only if you want them to be told. The AI uses natural British speech patterns and most callers don’t notice. You decide what your AI introduces itself as, your office, a 'virtual receptionist', or you can be fully transparent that it’s an AI. We’ve seen all three approaches work in property.
- How does it handle a vendor who wants to discuss valuation?
- It captures the address, the reason for moving, the timeframe, the price expectation if they offer one, and books a valuation appointment directly into the diary of the negotiator on duty. You walk into the office knowing exactly what to prepare for.
- What about emergency tenant calls, gas leaks, flooding, lockouts?
- You define the urgency rules. Anything matching your emergency criteria triggers an instant SMS or call to your emergency contact, plus the standard summary email. The AI also tells the caller exactly what to do (turn off the stop tap, evacuate, etc.) using your scripted advice.
- How do call summaries get to my team?
- By email to whichever inboxes you nominate, your duty negotiator, your branch manager, your office address, or all of the above. Each summary is structured (caller, reason, urgency, next step) so anyone on the team can scan and action it in seconds.
- Is this GDPR-compliant for handling tenant and buyer personal data?
- Yes. We are UK-hosted, GDPR-compliant, with a written DPA available before you sign anything. Call recordings and transcripts are stored according to your retention preferences (we recommend 30 days for property, configurable). We can give you documentation your auditor or ICO complaint response would need.
- What does setup actually involve?
- A scripting call to walk through your business, branches, sales vs lettings, the questions your callers tend to ask, urgency rules, named staff. Then a divert from your existing number. We agree a launch date on the call so you know exactly when you go live.
- What if my caller has a strong regional accent?
- The voice AI we use is trained on a broad range of British accents, Northern, Scottish, Welsh, regional London. If there’s a phrase or postcode it mishears, the system politely confirms it back. We tune the model on real call recordings during your first two weeks live.
- Can I have different AI behaviour for different times of day?
- Yes. Many of our estate-agent clients have one script for office hours (gentle qualification + transfer to a named negotiator) and a different script for evenings, weekends and bank holidays (full message-taking, urgency triage, no transfer). Set it once, runs forever.
- How does pricing work for a multi-branch agency?
- We quote per-branch, with bundle discounts. Whether you’re a single high-street office or a 25-branch independent, we structure the pricing around your call volume, not a per-seat licence. Book a demo and we’ll send a written quote the same day.
- What happens if the AI genuinely can’t handle a caller?
- The AI is built to fall back gracefully. It politely takes a detailed message, marks the call for your immediate attention, and sends you the recording and transcript so you can call back armed with the full context. You won’t get a confused or frustrated caller, that’s the bar we hold ourselves to.