Estate agents accused of missing up to 94% of evening calls, new AI tool aims to plug the gap
Research highlighted by trade press shows UK property firms miss the vast majority of out-of-hours enquiries, prompting a London AI firm to launch a voice-agent system aimed at recovering lost business.
Missed calls costing agents dear
New industry research suggests UK estate and letting agents are failing to answer the overwhelming majority of calls made outside standard office hours, at a time when many prospective buyers and renters are most likely to be searching for property.
A study of more than 3,000 UK property business phone numbers, carried out by InStep AI and reported by trade title Property Industry Eye, found that 94.1% of calls made to sales and lettings agencies between 6pm and 9pm on weekdays went unanswered, with only 4.1% picked up by a person.
The scale of the problem has previously been quantified in financial terms. A 2022 analysis by YourBusinessNumber, using data from AirCall and BT Comms, estimated that missed calls cost UK estate agents £119 million a year in lost business. BT’s own research has separately put the average cost of a single missed call to a UK business at £1,200.
AI voice agent developed to catch lost leads
London-based AI automation firm Talos Labs says it has built a system designed to ensure agents no longer lose custom to unanswered calls. The company’s AI voice agent answers calls in a natural-sounding voice, asking callers questions to establish details such as budget, chain status and timeline, and capturing contact information. It can also book viewings straight into an agent’s calendar, with enquiries logged overnight ready for staff to follow up the next morning.
Callers receive an instant SMS or WhatsApp message when they submit an enquiry, and agents can take over a call from the AI assistant at any point. The system is also designed to handle routine matters such as maintenance reports and tenancy queries, and includes a dashboard tracking call volumes, missed call recovery, booking conversions and lead quality. It is multilingual, which Talos Labs says is useful for international clients.
Founder says most enquiries can be automated
The system was developed by Johnson Ting, director of Talos Labs, who said his experience in the property sector showed him how often valuable leads were lost. He said around 90% of the enquiry process could be automated, with the system built to sound human and to ask questions tailored to whether a caller is a sales or lettings enquiry, such as mortgage position for buyers or chain status for sellers.
Ting pointed out that most people only have time to view properties after 6pm and at weekends, precisely when many agencies are closed.
Talos Labs says it is currently onboarding its first cohort of property sector clients ahead of a fuller rollout, with one letting agency reportedly expecting the time savings from automating after-hours and routine calls to be significant enough that its owner is planning to run the business remotely from abroad once the system is live.
Talos Labs describes itself as a London-based AI automation consultancy building voice agents, WhatsApp bots and workflow automation tools for the UK property industry, including estate and letting agents, property managers and related professional services.