AI answering service
The AI answering service forUK small businesses
Every call answered in seconds by a natural British voice, 24 hours a day. Messages taken, questions answered, appointments booked, and nothing charged per call. From £39 a month.
What is an AI answering service?
An AI answering service answers a business's phone calls with software instead of a human operator. The caller hears a natural synthetic voice that holds a real conversation: it takes messages, answers questions from the business's own knowledge base, books appointments into the calendar, and transfers calls to a person when needed. Unlike a traditional telephone answering service, it picks up instantly rather than queueing callers behind other clients, works 24/7 with no out-of-hours surcharge, and charges a flat monthly subscription — Maeby starts at £39 a month — rather than a fee per call or per message.
In short
- Every call answered in seconds, 24/7, with no out-of-hours or weekend rate
- Takes messages, answers questions, books appointments, transfers when it matters
- From £39/month with 400 minutes included — no per-call or per-message fees
- Set up in about 10 minutes; test it free in your browser before it touches a real number
Everything an answering service doesand the things it can't
Answers on the first ring
No queue behind other clients, no hold music. Every call is picked up in seconds, including the ones that arrive while another is in progress.
Takes a message you can act on
Name, number, and what the caller wanted, captured as a structured record and sent to you straight away — not a scribbled note read back over the phone.
Answers real questions
Opening hours, prices, what you do and don't cover — answered from the knowledge base you upload, not deflected with 'someone will call you back'.
Books appointments
Reads real availability from Google or Outlook Calendar, offers a slot, and confirms it before the caller hangs up.
Transfers the calls that need you
Warm transfer to a number you nominate, with the caller's details already gathered so nobody repeats themselves.
Logs everything to your CRM
Every call gets a summary and an outcome against the right contact, so the morning after a busy night is a list, not a mystery.
Telephone answering service vs AI answering service
The traditional model puts a shared human operator on your line and charges per call. Here is what changes when the operator is software.
| Human answering service | Maeby AI answering service | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Monthly retainer plus a charge per call or per message; out-of-hours usually extra | From £39/month with 400 minutes included, then £0.11/min. Nothing per call |
| Speed to answer | Depends on how many other clients' calls are in the queue | Seconds, every time, however many calls arrive at once |
| Hours | Office hours as standard; 24/7 as a premium tier | 24/7 at the same price, or only when you choose |
| Answering questions | Reads from your script; anything else becomes "someone will call you back" | Answers from the documents and pages you upload, in your wording |
| Bookings | Usually a message asking you to call back | Booked into Google or Outlook Calendar during the call |
| Where the record ends up | An email or text with the message | Summary and outcome logged to your CRM, plus the message by email |
| Judgement calls | A person can improvise | Won't guess. Takes a message or transfers to you instead |
Full plan details on the pricing page. Prices exclude VAT. If you'd rather think of it as a receptionist than an answering service, the AI receptionist covers the same product from that angle.
A 24/7 answering service for out-of-hours calls and daytime overflow
Start with an out-of-hours answering service for evenings, weekends and bank holidays. Maeby takes the caller's details, answers from your business information and captures a message for your team. Your plan's included minutes and overage rate apply at any hour.
During the day, use your phone provider's divert-on-busy or divert-on-no-answer setting to cover calls your team can't take. Or forward all calls for round-the-clock cover. Our guide explains how to keep your number with call forwarding, including what to check about your provider's forwarding charges.
How it works
Step 1
Tell it about your business
Write the greeting, upload your website or price list, and connect your calendar. About ten minutes, no technical setup.
Step 2
Call it from your browser
Test the agent for free before it touches a real number. Change the wording, try the awkward questions, and hear how it handles them.
Step 3
Forward your number
Forward your existing number, or take a new UK one. Run it 24/7, or only for overflow and out-of-hours. Switching back is turning the forward off.
More on numbers in Can you keep your phone number with an AI answering service?, and on the rules in What UK GDPR requires when an AI answers your phone.
AI answering service questions
How much does an AI answering service cost?
Maeby starts at £39 a month with 400 minutes of call time included, then £0.11 a minute beyond that. There are no per-call or per-message fees, no out-of-hours surcharge, and no setup charge. Traditional UK answering services typically charge a monthly retainer plus a fee for every call or message taken, so the gap widens the more calls you get.
How does an AI answering service work?
You forward your business number to the service, or take a new UK number from the dashboard. When a call comes in, the AI answers with your greeting, holds a natural conversation in a British voice, and does whatever the call needs: answers a question from your knowledge base, books an appointment, takes a message, or transfers the caller to you. Afterwards it writes a summary to your CRM and, if you want, sends you the message by email.
Is an AI answering service better than a human one?
It depends on what you need. A human answering service is better if callers need judgement calls the AI has no information to make. An AI answering service answers faster, never queues callers behind other clients, works 24/7 at the same price, handles several calls at once, and answers questions from your own material rather than a script. For most small businesses the calls are questions, bookings and messages, which is exactly what the AI does well.
Can I keep my existing phone number?
Yes. Forward your existing number to your agent, or take a new UK number from the dashboard. Callers see no difference, and switching back is a matter of turning the forward off.
Does it work 24/7 and after hours?
Yes, and at the same price. There is no out-of-hours rate, no weekend rate, and no bank holiday rate. You can run it around the clock, or only when your team can't pick up: overflow when the line is busy, evenings and weekends, or while you're on a job.
What happens when it can't answer a question?
It says so. A platform-level guardrail stops the agent inventing answers. Anything outside its knowledge becomes a message with a callback number, or a warm transfer to your team if you've set one up.
Is it legal to have an AI answer my business phone in the UK?
Yes. No UK law requires you to tell callers they're speaking to an AI, though we recommend it and you control the greeting word for word. Call transcripts are personal data under UK GDPR, which is why Maeby processes and stores everything in the EU (Ireland) and deletes caller-identifying data on a fixed schedule.
Hear it answeryour phone.
Set up your answering service, talk to it in your browser for free, and forward your number when it sounds right.