The viewing starts. The phone rings. Who answers?
You are showing a flat when the office phone rings. The prospective tenant is standing in the hallway, so you cannot step away to answer. You tell yourself you’ll call back later, then the next viewing begins and the call slips down the list.
A missed call becomes another job
After the viewing, there is a voicemail to check, a caller to identify and a reason for the call to work out. Then you need to find a quiet moment to return it. If you are between viewings, dealing with a tenant issue or updating a landlord, that callback has to fit around everything else.
It is a familiar problem across the trade. A Teams By Design UK mystery-shop of 3,147 estate and letting agents found that 65% of calls went unanswered during business hours, and 61% of voicemails were never returned. The study’s published page describes its methodology.
Keep the call moving
WorkMate OS has a voice module designed to answer a real phone number. While you are at a viewing, a voice mate can take the call, find out why the person is ringing and record their details for the team. They might be a prospective tenant asking about a property, a landlord with a question or someone looking to rearrange an appointment.
The conversation does not have to end at voicemail. The mate can save the call information to the shared Brain for the rest of the crew to use. When another mate picks it up, the caller does not have to explain the request again.
In Goodlord’s State of the Lettings Industry Report 2025, 44% of surveyed agents said reducing administrative time was a priority. Call handling is one part of that workload. It is also where new instructions, viewings and tenant support can begin.
You approve the answer
A voice mate should not guess at availability, promise a repair date or offer a viewing slot it cannot verify. It can record the question and prepare a next step. For outward-facing work, WorkMate uses a draft, review, send process. The owner approves before a message goes out.
The caller gets an initial response while you are busy, and you decide what the agency promises. Once the viewing ends, you can review the details and choose what happens next.
What changes in your week?
You can use the WorkMate OS voice module to answer a real phone number. The shared Brain carries call details into the rest of the work, and the approval step leaves you in charge of what the agency says and does next.
For more on handling calls while the desk is busy, read The call can keep moving while the answer is found. For the wider problem of work returning to the owner’s desk, see Everything still comes back to your desk.