How Ekron Surveyors cut call-handling costs by 83% with an AI receptionist.

The problem: calls depended on human availability

Ekron Surveyors was paying £24K a year for outsourced reception while valuable calls could still arrive when the owner was on-site, travelling, or away from the office. Each missed call risked losing both the lead and the context needed to follow it up properly.

What we built: an AI receptionist connected to the CRM

We built and deployed an AI voice agent in two weeks. It answers inbound calls, asks the questions needed to qualify an enquiry, and records the relevant details in the CRM so the next person has context instead of a missed-call notification.

The implementation combines ElevenLabs for voice, Vapi for agent logic, Twilio for telephony, and the existing CRM workflow. The goal was not to imitate a generic call centre; it was to give every serious caller a useful next step while preserving the information the business needs to act.

What changed operationally

The prior call-handling cost reduced from £24K to £4K per year, an 83% reduction. More importantly, the business could capture and qualify calls when no one was available to answer them directly.

One lead worth £1,200 was captured while the owner was on holiday and later converted. In the first three months, Ekron reported around £10K in additional work/leads captured through the setup. That figure is client-reported captured work, not a claim of booked revenue.

Client feedback

“Yesterday alone, whilst on holiday, the agent helped me to capture a £1,200/$1,365 lead which we’ve now converted. With every tweak it only seems to be getting better too.”

— Enrico, Founder at Ekron Surveyors, in a public post

When an AI receptionist is a good fit

This type of system fits businesses where calls are a meaningful source of new work and the people best placed to answer are regularly unavailable: on-site, driving, working after hours, or serving an existing customer. It works best when the business can define the questions that determine whether a caller is a fit and what should happen next.