For estate agents

A phone system for UK estate agents — built around the property record.

UK estate-agency phone needs don't look like accountancy or dental — the call profile is sales-led, the integration story sits with property-management software (Reapit, Alto, Vebra, Jupix, Street.co.uk), and the operational pattern is "click on a property, call the vendor". Multi-branch chains add reception cover between sites; weekend viewing-booking peaks add inbound capacity stress. This page covers the estate-agent version of our managed-3CX offer.

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What estate agents actually need from the phone system.

Six features tuned to the estate-agent call profile:

Click-to-call from the property record. Negotiator looks at a property in Reapit / Alto / Vebra / Jupix, clicks the vendor's number, the phone dials. Saves 15–20 seconds per call. Across 80 outbound calls per negotiator per day, that's 25 minutes of recovered selling time per negotiator per day.
Screen-pop on inbound matching applicant or vendor record. Inbound number matches a known applicant; negotiator sees their applicant profile, properties of interest, last contact date, and current pipeline stage before picking up. The opening line lands warm rather than generic.
Weekend viewing-booking queue. Saturday and Sunday morning are peak inbound. Most calls are viewing requests for properties listed in the previous week. Queue management with callback-on-busy keeps the conversion rate up.
Multi-branch routing. Small chains (2–5 branches) want the main number to ring at each branch's reception. Some chains want central reception with overflow to branches; some want branch-first with overflow to central. Configurable per chain.
Call recording for compliance and dispute defence. The Property Ombudsman (TPO) and the Property Redress Scheme (PRS) both look at call records when investigating complaints. Records of the vendor briefing call and the offer-acceptance call are the defensive evidence. 3CX PRO recording with retention by call type covers this.
Out-of-hours routing to negotiator mobiles. Sales-led firms take calls late. Out-of-hours rota sends inbound to duty negotiator mobile with rotation through the team.

How 3CX delivers each.

Click-to-call from Reapit, Alto, Vebra, Jupix, Street.co.uk: 3CX PRO integrates with each via their CRM/screen-pop bridge. Depth of integration varies — Reapit and Alto have the deepest 3CX integration; Vebra and Jupix integrate via webhook + browser extension; Street.co.uk via REST API.
Screen-pop on inbound: caller ID matches a record; the relevant Reapit / Alto applicant profile opens automatically. Configurable to also match vendor records on outbound caller ID.
Weekend queue management: 3CX PRO queues with announced wait time, callback-on-busy, music-on-hold. Configurable schedules for weekend rotas.
Multi-branch routing: 3CX Call Flow Designer builds the routing logic. Central versus branch-first versus branch-only patterns all configurable. Cross-branch transfer is standard.
Compliance recording: on-demand or always-on per extension. Retention by call type. UK-hosted (DigitalOcean LON1) for data residency.
Out-of-hours mobile routing: Call Flow Designer chains time-of-day + day-of-week + rotation through nominated mobiles.

Two agency profiles.

Single-branch agency, 8 negotiators, 14 staff.

Typical setup: 14 extensions, 8 SC PRO licence (handles weekend peaks comfortably), Reapit or Alto integration. Recording on negotiator extensions, retained 24 months. Weekend queue with callback. Out-of-hours to duty negotiator mobile.

Cost: roughly £120–160/month all-in. Setup: roughly £1,200–1,800 for handsets, install, PMS integration configuration, training. Compares to typical estate-agency-MSP quotes of £220–300/month all-in.

Multi-branch chain, 4 branches, 35 staff, 22 negotiators.

Typical setup: 35–45 extensions across 4 sites. 16 SC PRO licence. Central PBX with branch-local handsets. Cross-branch reception cover during quiet periods. Centralised IVR routing to branch-specific direct dials. Reapit integration shared across the chain. Recording on negotiator extensions.

Cost: roughly £280–360/month all-in. Setup: roughly £5,000–7,000 across all sites.

What you probably don't need.

AI transcription on viewing calls. Viewing calls are short, scripted, and don't benefit much from transcription. PRO tier with standard recording is enough.
Power-dialer for outbound. Estate agency outbound is conversation-led, not list-led — power-dialer features are useful for sales-rep call centres, not for negotiators making considered vendor calls. Aircall-style dialer features are over-spec for most agencies.
Per-negotiator analytics tiers. Some MSPs sell upgraded "negotiator productivity dashboards" as an add-on. The basic 3CX wallboard and reports cover what most branch managers actually look at.

Migration timing for estate agents.

Two practical points:

Avoid spring property-listing season. February through May is peak listing volume for most UK agencies. Cut-overs land in late summer or January — when phones are quieter and reception bandwidth is freer to handle any transition friction.
Port branch numbers cleanly. Multi-branch chains often have branch numbers on different carriers picked up over years of acquisition. Audit the carrier list, plan the porting waves, schedule the cut-overs branch by branch if needed. Single Friday cut-over works for chains under 4 branches; larger chains cut over branch by branch over consecutive Fridays.

What an audit covers.

Free, no commitment. We look at: current monthly phone spend, branch count, property management system, integration list, current carrier, weekend / out-of-hours patterns, any compliance escalations from TPO or PRS in recent history. Transparent quote follows. Book an audit.

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