Many estate agencies reach a point where the phones, the front desk and the inbox are too much for negotiators to handle alongside viewings. The natural answer is to hire a receptionist. Before doing so, it helps to understand the full cost and exactly what a receptionist covers, and what they do not.
This post works through a hypothetical example. The numbers are illustrative; use your own local figures.
The full cost of a receptionist
| Item | Hypothetical annual figure |
|---|---|
| Salary | $30,000 |
| Employer taxes and benefits | $4,500 |
| Holiday and sickness cover | $2,500 |
| Recruitment and training | $1,500 |
| Equipment and systems | $1,000 |
| Total | about $39,500 |
That is the cost of covering around 40 hours a week, during office hours.
What a receptionist covers well
A good receptionist is the voice on the office line, greets walk-in clients, books viewings, handles post and keeps the office running. They are warm, local and flexible. For an agency with a busy high-street office, that presence has real value.
They also absorb interruptions. Every question a receptionist handles is one a negotiator does not have to stop for, which makes viewings and valuations run smoother. That benefit is harder to put in a table but easy to notice when the receptionist is off sick.
The hidden costs of not hiring
Doing without a receptionist is not free either. Negotiators get pulled away mid-valuation, walk-in clients wait, and admin piles up at the end of the day. Those costs show up as slower sales and tired staff rather than a line on a payslip, but they are real.
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What a receptionist does not cover
Office hours are only part of the week. Many buyers browse listings and enquire in the evenings and at weekends, when a receptionist is not working. Website enquiries that arrive then still wait until the next working day. The cost of those waits is worked through in what a missed property enquiry costs an agency.
Comparing the options
Receptionist: covers phones and front desk in office hours. Highest cost.
Phone answering service: covers calls, often out of hours. Does nothing for website enquiries.
Website assistant: covers website enquiries at any hour. Does not answer calls or greet visitors.
Negotiators covering everything: no extra cost, but viewings and valuations suffer.
Where a website assistant fits
SpideyChat for real estate answers website enquiries at any hour from your listings, qualifies buyers and tenants, recognises sellers and landlords, and captures viewing and valuation requests. It works on your website only and does not answer phone calls. You can see the plans and compare the monthly cost with the table above.
Many agencies end up combining approaches: staff or a receptionist for phones and the office, and an assistant covering the website around the clock. Agencies serving international buyers also benefit from assistants that reply in the visitor's language, as covered in the multilingual AI receptionist.
Running your own numbers
Work out how many enquiries arrive outside office hours and how many are website versus phone. If most out-of-hours enquiries come through the website, covering them may be worth more than extending staffed hours. The free ROI calculator helps put a figure on faster replies.
Choosing carefully
Whichever option you choose, test it against your real enquiries. The buying questions are covered in choosing a website assistant for an estate agency, and the preparation work is similar to training an assistant for any business, including a retailer's catalogue, described in how to train a store assistant on your product catalogue.