We have a simple one month rolling agreement with no long term commitments. If you no longer need the service we ask that you let us know by the 25th of the month, otherwise the agreement rolls over for another month.
We do not normally ask for a deposit nor do we ask for several months up front. Instead we monitor new accounts closely and we may issue an interim invoice half way through the month if your usage is higher than average. This helps us with credit control and avoid busier customers getting a bigger bill than expected at the end of the month.
This is a good question if you are comparing providers. Some may be cheaper per month but if you have to pay for six months up front it is not going to help your cashflow.
We incur real costs in setting up a new account which we need to cover. One approach is to not have a set up fee but to charge a bit more each month and ask for at least a three month or six months agreement to ensure we recoup our set up costs. However as we deal only with small companies who do not want a long term agreement we prefer to have a set up fee and keep the monthly subscription as low as possible. This way customers have the flexibility to terminate whenever they like if their business does not go to plan and we are not left out of pocket. It also benefits long term customers as the set up fee helps keep the monthly subscription down.
There is no application form for setting up an account. About half of our new customers call us to ask some questions and we can take their details over the telephone if they want to proceed. The other half prefer to ask any questions by email and then order the service through our website. Either way we will confirm the details of what we are going to provide in an email and will state that the order is accepted according to our Terms and Conditions.
We do have an application form if you move onto paying monthly invoices by direct debit. To pay by direct debit we have a simple credit application form which needs to be signed and a direct debit mandate form. Let us know if you would like to pay by direct debit
Our hours are 0830 to 1800 Monday to Friday. This meets the needs of most of the businesses we deal with so, to keep costs down, any callers out of hours will hear a simple message stating that the office is now closed. If you expect to get calls out of hours we can provide a voicemail to email system with a greeting in your company name for £7.50 per month.
There is no charge for sending a message by text. The message is sent by email immediately after the call and we can send a text of the message to your mobile as well if you would like. We can copy multiple people in on the email, but we only send one text message per call.
Yes. If you have an established telephone number for your business you can divert calls to us when you want us to answer. There are a number of different ways of diverting calls and it also depends on the type of telephone line or phone system you have. If you are not sure how to divert calls please give us a call and we can help.
We can provide telephone numbers and these are separate from our telephone answering service so the simple answer is no. As standard we provide an 0844 number as this has no subscription charge and no call charges. If you no longer need the telephone answering service you can have the 0844 number pointed at any UK landline so you can answer calls yourself without any ongoing charges. This is important if you have printed the number on business cards and customers have got used to it.
As an alternative to an 0844 number we can provide any 01 or 02 area code number in the country. These do have a cost implication, typically £10 per month, but this is cheaper than having a new BT line installed. You can end the telephone answering service and just keep the telephone number, but you would need to continue to pay the £10 per month subscription to keep the number live.
No, sorry. Our mail forwarding operations in London and Manchester are run from small offices where the mail is sorted each day and forwarded on. We do not have the space to store mail and we are not geared up for people visiting the offices to collect post.
This is the same as the answer above due to the limited space at our addresses. Business address providers that offer meeting rooms tend to be more expensive due to the need to have receptionist staff to greet visitors. Most of our customers are looking for a cost effective address and if they do need the occasional meeting room they use one of the many independent locations in London or Manchester. If you need an address with a meeting room you probably need a provider like Regus, but expect to pay more for this type of address.
It is our policy to not open any post, so sorry, we can not scan post for you. This question comes up from time to time with people travelling abroad. We are happy to forward post overseas or alternatively if you have a friend or family in the UK that you trust we can forward the post to them and they can open and scan it for you.
Please call us to discuss your requirements
Or try online chat if you prefer
Office Answers Ltd was established in 2004 by Clare and Ian Marshall to provide telephone answering and virtual office services to small businesses.
Back then we only had 20 customers and gave each one our personal attention.
It's now 2012 and we will give you the same personal attention, leaving you thinking we still only have 20 customers, even though we have grown quite a fair bit over the years.
Review added by:
Mix UK Ltd
February 15th, 2012 9:20 am
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