Comparison
Ella vs hiring a receptionist
A receptionist costs £28k - £40k a year fully loaded and covers one site, eight hours a day. Ella covers every site, 24/7, for a fraction of the cost - and most customers redeploy their reception time to higher-value work rather than replacing it.
Side by side
Total cost of ownership, head to head
Like-for-like across cost, coverage, consistency and where the human still wins.
| Feature | Ella Virtual Assistant | In-house receptionist |
|---|---|---|
| Annual cost (typical) Salary plus NI, pension, cover, training and equipment. | ~ £1,500 - £6,000 | ~ £28,000 - £40,000 |
| Coverage | 24/7/365 | Office hours, minus leave / sickness |
| Capacity at peak | Unlimited concurrent calls | One call at a time |
| Consistency of greeting | Identical every call | Varies by mood, day, person |
| Multi-site coverage | Yes | Requires receptionist per site |
| Routine enquiries handled end-to-end | Yes | Yes, but consumes their day |
| Captures structured CRM data | Yes | Manual entry, error-prone |
| Holiday / sickness cover | Not applicable | Temp agencies or team backfill |
| Soft skills (VIP greeting, complaints) Humans still win for emotional or VIP-facing reception. | Partial | Yes |
| Identifies returning callers | Yes | Depends on memory |
| Scales for a campaign launch | Yes | No |
Where Ella replaces reception
Best fit for replacement
- Single-site operations where reception is a cost-line not a relationship-line
- Out-of-hours and overnight cover for trades, services and on-call teams
- Multi-site rollouts where headcount per site doesn't scale
- Inbound enquiry funnels (sales, lettings, bookings)
Where humans still win
Keep the human on payroll when...
- VIP / executive reception with high relationship value
- Visitor management on a busy office site
- Regulated industries where every call must be human from word one
- Customer-success roles where 'reception' is a misnomer for relationship management
FAQs
Common questions
Talk to a technology partner
Get direct access to the people who manage, support and improve your technology. Our teams work together across our locations, so whether the issue is IT, communications, connectivity or security, we can bring in the right expertise without passing you between separate providers.
- One integrated support team
- Expertise across IT, communications, connectivity and security
- Connected support across our locations
