


UK Call Answering Service For Small Businesses | Message Direct
Based on authentic user experiences
Hugh May
6732 reviews
N/A
9 months ago
Declining Quality of Service Leads to Termination of Partnership
I have been a client of this company for the past eight years When we initially started our partnership I was highly satisfied with the quality of service The attention to detail and the efficiency of the telephone answering service significantly contributed to the smooth running of my business However over the last four months the quality of service has been on a decline Errors started cropping up from incorrect client names to even my name being wrongly stated These mistakes not only caused confusion but also led to a noticeable decrease in efficiency This declining service quality was particularly felt during my recent two-week holiday Despite providing explicit instructions regarding my absence these were not adhered to resulting in me having to address work-related issues from Sri Lanka This greatly disrupted what was supposed to be a relaxing break with my family Upon returning and voicing my concerns the company acknowledged their mistakes But the proposed solution a new email address for future vacation notices I applied to seek reimbursement for 12 mishandled calls via the Customer Service department were not only inadequate but also ignored The final straw came when despite my recent issues and ensuing discussions the account manager asked for my contact number which is readily available in my email signatures This not only reflected the lack of attention to detail but also hinted at a broader organisational issue Considering these persistent issues I was left with no choice but to terminate our eight-year-long partnership It s a decision I made with a heavy heart While I remember fondly the initial years of excellent service the recent experiences have been stressful and disappointing I hope my feedback is taken constructively and necessary improvements are made I believe every customer deserves better Lastly I have just been advised that the Review service they use for their 5 star rating is a subscription review service that is rated 2 stars on trustpilot I will leave you to draw your own conclusions from these reviews
Honest Reviews
6732 reviews
N/A
9 months ago
Oh wow now it all makes sense
REPLY Oh how different the tone changes when on a public forum As a reminder here is just a snippet from your CFO s email on 31st May We do not feel that we have in anyway breached the contract between us and we do not feel that the company or any of its employees have acted inappropriately or unprofessionally as claimed by you on several occasions We have reviewed the information from you and your letter of claim and feel that we have responded fully to and explained all points you have raised and have via my previous email sought to obtain further information to be able to decide on whether further action is required For clarity we deny any fault and feel we have acted reasonably and professionally We do not accept your claims for losses and do not feel you have justified your reasons for the claims or your calculation of the values of losses I was promised multiple times that you would update the call preference sheet and that things would improve but they got worse There was absolutely no contractual obligation to pass on every messages against my wishes - stated multiple times In fact you breached contract as a result The problems only arose when you took over - it was fine for years prior to your involvement There is absolutely a valid legal claim here something you may wish to remember ORIGINAL I was contracted with Virtually There sadly inherited automatically without any choice following a very silent buyout of the company I originally contracted with who clearly outsource their call answering service to this outfit who in turn white label their services as Virtually There Reading through all these genuine reviews here and Google everything is adding up and in line with my own horror story about this absolutely abysmal company and staff Not one genuine call message handed over - all were clearly scam and spam calls such as Caller requested to speak with Mylo as he said you have been robbing his bank account and he would like to discuss further Caller advised he is furious and wants to speak with someone urgently I run a professional consultancy business This is the last thing a busy director wants to be burdened with Regularly ignored and when escalated to complaint handling kept getting told they would resolve things but nothing improved - it got worse Evolved into a pre action legal claim matter and appallingly handled by this shameful company and its CFO who collectively refuse to take any responsibility for their shameful conduct If you have the fortune to be researching this company before entering the snake pit hopefully you will be better informed than I had a chance to be
jenny thompson
6732 reviews
N/A
9 months ago
Telephone call lengths are a scam Do not use this company
We initially swapped to this company as were unhappy with the service of our last one and the lower fees were attractive However we have found that our monthly bill has doubled whist using message direct for the simple reason that calls are showing as taking anything from 4-7 minutes All they were instructed to do was to take a simple message of who the caller was their telephone number name and and email address How on earth can this take longer than 2 minutes They are clearly either not terminating calls once they have ended or they are a scam company There is absolutely no way any call should be lasting 7 minutes Please do not use this company thinking your bill will stay at the 19 20 they advertise In fact please do not use this company at all
John
6732 reviews
N/A
9 months ago
Dishonest and complete blaggers
Dishonest and complete blaggers Be aware any small business looking for help with answering the phones This company will keep clients on the phones for upto 12 minutes even after they have had a strict remit to work to just to answer the phone take basic info and pass it on They do this to keep the clock ticking as they charge per minute
The Musculoskeletal Ultrasound
6732 reviews
N/A
9 months ago
A lot of new untrained staff keep
A lot of new untrained staff keep making mistakes in call answering I was surprised by a large bill at the end of the month although the number of calls received was small
Darren Hutton
6732 reviews
N/A
9 months ago
I have never known such an underhand
I have never known such an underhand dishonest company Completely mis-sold the service and it got worse from there Calls not being put through messages not forwarded a d worst of all lies told to our customers we had call recording from a third party We were charged in some cases for 12 minute calls when corresponding recordings showed 30 seconds Avoid like the plague
Julie
6732 reviews
N/A
9 months ago
Be warned
Be warned this company put your customers on hold and keep them waiting to make out they are a receptionist when they have no intention of putting a caller through to you All this practice does is increase the time that they bill you each month They never asked me or informed me that this is typical of their service and I ve complaint and got a blunt response that they are not prepared to compensate me for all the unnecessary call time charged Plus the frustration of keeping clients holding a deceiving them to think they might get put through to me Please try Moneypenny instead
O A
6732 reviews
N/A
9 months ago
Trust the bad reviews
If we could give Messagedirect negative stars we would We deeply regret not trusting our instincts and ignoring the negative reviews before signing up Unfortunately those reviews were spot on To start we were charged for a number that hadn t even been activated on their end and we re continually being charged for a service we re not receiving Before signing up our owner raised concerns about their bad reviews The company reassured her that those reviews didn t reflect their current service and she believed them They were quick to onboard us but as soon as we signed up they backtracked on their promises claiming they needed more time to train their staff on an incredibly simple system The process is as straightforward as clicking on a time slot and typing the client s details into a pop-up box This is far simpler than the Cliniko system Messagedirect claims to be familiar with Our owner who is incredibly patient trusted their assurance that training their team would take just a couple of weeks It s now been three months and we re still not receiving the service we signed up for We signed up for an appointment booking service but are instead stuck with call transfers where their staff asks our owner to book clients herself If we wanted a glorified voicemail service we would have signed up for one This experience has been nothing short of a scam They continue to charge us monthly keep delaying resolutions and fail to respond to our communications Despite countless follow-ups including an email sent 20 days ago and a direct request for a callback there has been no response The only positive feedback is that the salesperson our owner dealt with was lovely which is why she signed up in the first place However the lack of integrity in how this company operates is shocking If you re looking for a human voicemail service they might be fine But if you want an actual appointment booking service save yourself the money time and frustration go with another provider The bad reviews are there for a reason heed them
Vanessa Buckle
6732 reviews
N/A
9 months ago
The feedback I got from my clients was
The feedback I got from my clients was great however their billing and lack of tranparency regarding call length and therefore charges put me off I agree with other comments that they keep clients on phone for longer than necessary and if you get obvious fake calls from inland revenue or other they will listen to the whole call and then charge you for that Feel that they are out for the short term gain and not long term users
Mr Jabs
6732 reviews
N/A
9 months ago
It s a very good all round service
It s a very good all round service we feel we now miss less calls