AI receptionist for UK businesses: an automated phone receptionist, day or night
Ella is Telappliant's AI receptionist - a UK-built voice agent that answers calls straight away, books appointments and hands warm transfers to your team, 24/7. She delivers what a virtual receptionist or telephone answering service promises, without queues, scripts or office hours.
For UK businesses
A virtual AI receptionist for your business
Ella is an AI virtual receptionist built for UK businesses, from single offices to multi-site organisations. She answers on your existing business numbers, greets callers in your company's name, and passes the right calls to the right people, so a virtual receptionist service no longer depends on someone being at a desk.
- Data stays in the UK, with configurable retention
- Works alongside your cloud phone system and team
- Plans from £49 per month + VAT on a 12-month term
- Set up and supported by Telappliant's integrated team
Compare your options
AI receptionist vs virtual receptionist vs telephone answering service
All three stop calls going to voicemail. Only one answers at 2am without charging extra for it, books the appointment itself and scales instantly when call volume spikes.
Ella AI receptionist
- Answers immediately, 24/7
- Extra concurrent calls available as you grow
- Books, reschedules and cancels appointments
- Call routing to your team from the Growth plan
- From £49 / month + VAT, 24/7 answering included
Virtual receptionist
- Human answering, usually office hours
- Queues at busy times, one call at a time
- Message taking; limited booking capability
- Handover quality varies by operator
- Per-call or per-minute billing adds up fast
Telephone answering service
- Scripted message taking and relay
- Limited concurrent capacity
- Rarely books into your systems
- Summaries arrive by email afterwards
- After-hours cover usually costs extra
Want the full breakdown? Read Ella vs traditional answering services
What Ella handles on a call
The core capabilities you get out of the box.
How Ella works
From incoming call to a useful outcome
- 1
Customer calls
A customer calls your business telephone number.
- 2
Ella answers
Ella responds in natural speech using the greeting and business knowledge you have approved.
- 3
Understands the enquiry
Ella uses that information to answer routine questions and determine the next step, escalating rather than guessing.
- 4
Resolves or hands over
She answers, takes a message or transfers to a person when available, according to configured call flows.
Natural voice
Calm, British-sounding speech with no awkward pauses, and no IVR menus or robotic prompts for callers.
Knowledge-grounded answers
Ella draws answers from your website, FAQs and policies. She cites sources rather than guessing.
Warm handoff to a person
From the Growth plan, transfers come with a written summary, caller intent and full transcript, so the caller never has to repeat themselves.
Appointment booking (Custom plan)
Confirm, reschedule or cancel bookings over voice, written back to your calendar. Scoped on a discovery call.
Room to grow
Starter takes one call at a time and Scale takes three. Extra concurrent calls are available from Growth upwards, so a busy period does not need extra hires.
Multiple languages
30+ languages from the Growth plan, useful if a share of your callers are not calling in English.
Guardrails built in
Configurable confidence thresholds and a graceful handover when a query falls outside her remit.
Updated in minutes
Change a price or a policy and Ella reflects it on the next call, not after a retraining cycle.
UK-hosted and GDPR-aligned
Data stays in the UK with configurable retention and audit logging.
Insights dashboard
Call volumes, intents, sentiment and outcomes in one view, with anomaly alerts.
A real example
How Ella handles a call
She answers straight away, checks your systems while the caller waits and confirms the outcome before the call ends.
What Ella does, and what she does not
- Ella answers questions your knowledge base covers. Anything outside it becomes a message or a transfer, rather than a guess.
- Transfers need somebody available. Out of hours, or when nobody picks up, Ella takes a message instead.
- Strong accents, heavy background noise and complicated calls are handed to a person rather than pushed through.
- Ella depends on your phone line and internet connection. If the line itself is down, no answering service can pick up.
Want to hear her first? Try Ella at ella.telappliant.ai, hear Ella in your industry or see full plan details
What a real call looks like
An example AI call answering an enquiry, looking up the answer in your systems and handing off cleanly.
- CallerHi, I'm trying to book a table for four tonight, around 7.
- Ella (AI)Lovely - let me check what we have. One moment.
- Tool call - Calendar lookupTonight 19:00 - 1 table for 4 available; 19:30 - 2 tables for 4 available
- Ella (AI)We've got a table for four at 7pm tonight. Shall I book it under a name?
- CallerYes please, under Khan. Can you also note we have a high-chair request?
- Ella (AI)Booked for Khan, 7pm, table of four, high chair noted. You'll get a confirmation text shortly. Anything else?
- CallerNo that's perfect, thanks.
What you can expect to pay
From £49 per month + VAT
Prices from the Ella pricing page. All prices exclude VAT. All plans are on a 12-month contract billed monthly; annual billing saves 10%. A one-off setup fee from £50 applies.
Indicative UK list pricing. Final quote depends on user count, sites, integrations and contract length. All prices exclude VAT.
- Starter £49/month - 150 minutes, 1 concurrent call, UK number, message taking (40p per extra minute)
- Growth from £199/month - 500 minutes, call routing, 30+ languages, integrations available (30p per extra minute)
- Scale £299/month - 750 minutes, 2 AI skills, 3 concurrent calls, transcripts and summaries
- Custom (Enterprise) - custom minutes, advanced routing, analytics, dedicated account management, plus calendar, booking and CRM connections scoped on a discovery call
- Free 14-day trial available for businesses of any size
- Extra concurrent calls £10/month each from Growth upwards
- Integration to bespoke CRM or systems (quoted separately)
- Additional minutes beyond your plan (bought in 100-minute blocks)
How we get Ella answering your calls
Most deployments are measured in weeks, and the bulk of the time is teaching her your business rather than technical work.
- 01
Knowledge ingestion
We load your website, FAQs, price lists and policies so Ella answers from your material rather than a generic script. Anything outside it becomes a message or a transfer.
- 02
Greeting, persona and call flows
We agree the greeting, the tone, which enquiries she resolves herself, and exactly when she hands over to a person.
- 03
Integration and test calls
On the Custom plan, calendar, booking or CRM connections scoped on your discovery call are wired up and tested. You and your team make the first calls, not your customers.
- 04
Go live against an agreed checklist
We sign off the checklist together before any customer hears her, then review the first weeks of real calls and tune the answers.
Where a virtual phone receptionist earns its keep
Multi-site reception cover
One Ella across every branch with site-aware routing and greetings.
Out-of-hours and holidays
Enquiries that arrive when the office is closed are answered and captured, with the callback booked and the brief ready.
Tier-0 contact-centre deflection
Routine enquiries resolved without queueing an advisor, which pulls average handling time down.
Virtual assistant call answering
Ella answers as your virtual assistant: she takes messages with a written summary and books, reschedules or cancels appointments, so bookings keep coming in while your team is busy.
Enquiry triage
Sales, support and general enquiries sorted automatically with sentiment and priority scoring.
Where it is not the right tool
Complex complaints, safeguarding concerns and regulated advice lines need people. Ella is configured to recognise those situations and hand over to a human rather than improvise.
AI receptionist questions, answered straight
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Industries we work with
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