The short answer
A letting agency can now hand AI most of the repeat work between the first call and rent day. With Voco, an AI receptionist built for UK small businesses, AI can answer applicant calls, give the facts of a specific property and book a viewing while the caller is still on the line. It can also sort the enquiries inbox and draft replies, confirm and remind viewings, keep every enquiry moving on one board, track gas safety, EICR and EPC renewals, and send polite rent reminders. Your team still makes the decisions.
This guide follows one lettings week and shows where each job goes. Every section links to a fuller guide if you want the detail.
How is AI being used by estate and letting agents to handle enquiries and viewings?
Mostly at the front door. Applicants ring, email, message on WhatsApp and use the chat on your website, often in the evening and often to several agents at once. The useful job is not answering for the sake of it. It is giving the applicant the right facts about the right property, booking the viewing, and leaving a record your negotiator can act on in the morning.
Behind the front door, the same tools now carry the enquiry forward. The viewing gets confirmed and reminded. The enquiry moves along a board instead of living in someone's notebook. Once a tenancy starts, renewals and rent reminders run on a schedule rather than on memory.
The week below shows each of those jobs in the order a lettings office meets them.
Monday evening: an applicant rings about a flat
It is twenty past seven and the office is shut. An applicant has seen one of your flats on a portal and rings the number on the listing. Voco answers in your agency's name.
The applicant asks whether the flat is still available, what the rent is and whether pets are allowed. Voco looks the property up in your property list while they are talking and answers from what you have entered: the rent, whether bills are included, the deposit, the date it is available from, furnishing and the pets policy. If the flat went under offer this afternoon, it says so and offers one that is still available.
Two things it will not do. It never reads out your viewing notes, which is where key safe codes and alarm details tend to live. And it never guesses anything you have not entered. If the applicant asks about something that is not in the record, Voco says your team will confirm it.
Then it offers the viewing times you set for that property and books the one the applicant picks. If they want to check with a partner first, Voco texts them a link so they can choose a time later.
Here is how that call might run, as an illustration of the steps rather than a recording:
| Who | What is said |
|---|---|
| Voco | Good evening, you're through to [Your agency]. How can I help? |
| Applicant | I'm ringing about the flat on Linthorpe Road. Is it still available? |
| Voco | Yes, the two-bed flat on Linthorpe Road is available from 1 December. It's £850 a month with bills on top, unfurnished, with a deposit of £980. |
| Applicant | Can I bring my cat? |
| Voco | Pets are by request, and the landlord considers each one. I can note that you have a cat so the team can come back to you on it. |
| Applicant | Please. When can I see it? |
| Voco | There are viewings on Thursday at 5.30pm or Saturday at 11am. Which suits you? |
| Applicant | Saturday. |
| Voco | That's booked for Saturday at 11am. You'll get a text now to confirm it, with a link if you need to change the time. |
By the time the applicant hangs up, the viewing is in the diary, the cat is noted, and the enquiry is on your Lettings board under Viewing booked. Nobody in the office had to do anything.
The detail behind this is in how an AI receptionist answers questions about your properties.
If your agency welcomes tenants on benefits, Voco can also ask the questions you have chosen, in your wording, the same way every time. Nobody is ever refused on the call, and the answers wait for you on the enquiry. Letting to tenants on benefits covers how that works, and what the Renters' Rights Act changed.
Tuesday morning: the portal emails are waiting
Most portal leads arrive by email, and by the morning there is a stack of them. If you forward your enquiries inbox to Voco, each email is read and put into one of six groups: enquiry, booking, complaint, supplier, spam or other.
Enquiries, bookings and complaints get a drafted reply. For a lettings enquiry the draft can check your property list, so it answers with the real rent and availability rather than a holding line. Nothing goes out until you send it, with one tap, under your agency's name or from your own domain.
See answering Rightmove and Zoopla email enquiries faster for the set-up and what a draft looks like.
Wednesday: the viewings
A viewing booked on Monday night is only worth something if the applicant turns up. So each booking gets a confirmation text with a private link, and a reminder at 6pm the evening before. If you switch it on, anyone who has still not confirmed gets a short check call on the morning of the viewing.
Applicants who cannot make it can move or cancel the viewing from the link, or by ringing, and only see times that are genuinely free. A cancelled viewing frees the slot for someone else instead of leaving a negotiator waiting outside a locked door.
How letting agents can cut viewing no-shows sets out the full sequence.
One board from enquiry to let
The part most agencies feel straight away is the board. Every call, email or chat about renting lands as a card on a Lettings board, with the property and the applicant's details already on it. The columns follow the way a let actually happens:
- Enquired
- Contacted
- Viewing booked
- Viewed
- Referencing
- Holding deposit
- Let
- Lost
Nobody retypes a message slip into a spreadsheet, and anyone in the office can see where each applicant has got to. You can also have Voco text a viewing link to new enquirers as soon as their card lands with a property chosen and a mobile number. That is set to ask you first, so nothing goes out until you are happy with it.
Repairs and certificates have their own boards, so a tenant's leaking tap does not end up in the same queue as a new applicant.
Thursday: the applicants who did not get the flat
Every popular property leaves behind a list of applicants who missed out. Most agencies mean to ring them when something similar comes up, and most never do.
On inbound calls Voco can ask: "Would you like us to ring you when something comes up? It may be our AI assistant calling." Everyone who says yes joins a list they agreed to. When a suitable property comes up, a campaign rings them. It opens by reminding them they asked to hear, gives the facts, and books a viewing on the call.
You can also upload your own list as a spreadsheet, with a column such as budget or area turned into a note that Voco uses on each person's call. Every number is screened against the TPS and CTPS. Calls run only between 8am and 9pm, and anyone who asks not to be called again is not called again.
Database calling for letting agents explains who you may ring and how to do it properly.
Friday: certificates and rent
Once a tenancy starts, the work changes from speed to memory. Two jobs suffer most when they depend on someone remembering.
Certificates. Voco keeps the gas safety record, EICR and EPC for each property. Upload a certificate and it reads the dates for you. Each one shows as valid, due soon, expired or missing. Sixty days before one runs out, Voco opens the renewal and offers the job to your own gas engineer, electrician or energy assessor, puts a card on the Compliance board and texts the tenant. Gas safety, EICR and EPC renewals has the detail.
Rent. Voco can text the tenant a friendly reminder shortly before rent is due. If rent is still not marked paid three days after the due date, it sends one polite chase text. Chasing is set to ask you first, so a tenant who has already paid you some other way never gets an awkward message. Chasing late rent includes the exact wording.
Is a chatbot or a human answering service better for handling lettings enquiries?
The better option for lettings enquiries is whichever one ends the conversation with a viewing booked and the details recorded. A message-taking service and a basic chatbot usually stop short of that; an AI receptionist connected to your property list and diary does not.
| Option | Answers out of hours | Gives the facts of a specific property | Books a viewing on the call | Leaves a record your team can act on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voicemail | Takes a recording | No | No | Only if the caller leaves a message |
| Divert to a negotiator's mobile | Only if someone picks up | If they remember the details | If they have the diary to hand | Only if they write it down |
| Message-taking answering service | Depends on the plan | Usually not | Usually not | A name, number and message |
| Website chatbot with general answers | Yes, on the website only | Rarely | Rarely | A chat transcript |
| Voco with your property list | Yes, on phone, chat and WhatsApp | Yes, from your records | Yes, from each property's viewing times | A card on your Lettings board |
It depends on what happens at the end of the conversation. A message-taking service gives you a name and a number, and your team still has to ring back, qualify the applicant and arrange the viewing. A basic website chatbot can answer general questions but often cannot see your properties or your diary.
A lettings enquiry is only finished when the applicant has the facts of the specific property and a viewing in the diary. Whichever route you choose, judge it on that. Voco answers on the phone, on your website chat and on WhatsApp with the same property list and the same viewing times, so the answer does not depend on how the applicant got in touch.
What does Voco not do for letting agents?
It is worth being clear about the edges, because they matter when you are choosing a tool.
- It does not connect to Reapit, Alto, Street, Jupix or Arthur Online yet. It works alongside them: it books into Google, Outlook and Apple calendars, sends repair reports into Fixflo, and other software can ask it to ring someone through webhooks.
- Its property tools are built for lettings. It answers sales calls and passes them on, but it does not hold sales listings or asking prices.
- It does not decide. It does not accept or reject applicants, authorise repairs or give legal advice. It asks, records and passes things to your team.
- It chases rent by text, not by phone.
How does AI help a letting agency stay on the right side of the rules?
AI helps a letting agency stay compliant mainly by doing the same thing the same way every time, and keeping a record. Most compliance problems in a lettings office are inconsistency and forgetting, not ignorance of the rules.
Fair enquiries. Since 1 May 2026, landlords and agents in England must not do anything that makes someone less likely to rent because they receive benefits, according to the government's guide to rental discrimination. Voco's tenant questions are asked in the same words for every applicant, never refuse anyone on the call, and will not ask about health, age, nationality, race, religion, sex or sexuality.
Marketing calls. The ICO's telephone marketing guidance requires screening against the TPS and CTPS. Voco screens every campaign number, only rings people who agreed, and only between 8am and 9pm.
Pets. Under the government's guidance on pets, a tenant can ask in writing to keep a pet and a landlord cannot refuse without a fair reason. Voco never gives applicants a flat no on pets; it says each request is considered.
Certificates. Gas safety records, EICRs and EPCs each renew on their own cycle. Voco starts each renewal sixty days ahead so it does not depend on someone checking a spreadsheet.
None of this is legal advice, and Voco does not decide whether a property or an applicant meets the rules. It makes the routine steps consistent and recorded.
What should you set up in your first hour?
You can be live with Voco in minutes, and about an hour is enough to set it up properly for a lettings office. Work through it in this order:
- Forward your calls. Choose whether Voco answers all the time, only when nobody picks up, or only when the office is shut.
- Add your available properties. A descriptive reference, rent, bills, deposit, available from, pets and furnishing for each.
- Set viewing times per property, with a realistic slot length.
- Decide what Voco does on its own. Viewing links to new enquirers, rent chases and certificate renewals can each be set to act, act and tell you, or ask you first.
- Turn on the tenant questions if you welcome tenants on benefits, and read the statement before accepting it.
- Forward your enquiries inbox so portal emails get drafts.
- Ring your own number as an applicant and listen to the whole call.
If you only change one thing
Not every agency needs all of this at once. Start where the leak is biggest:
- Enquiries going unanswered in the evening? Start with calls and the property list, so applicants get facts and a viewing on the first call.
- Portal emails waiting until the next morning? Start with the inbox, so every enquiry has a draft ready when someone gets to it.
- Viewings booked but empty? Start with confirmations, reminders and the morning check call.
- Managing as well as letting? Start with certificates, because a missed renewal costs more than a missed enquiry.
Each part works on its own, and each one adds to the same record for every applicant and tenant.
What does it cost, and how do you start?
Voco costs about 29p a minute with no monthly fee and no contract. Calls forward from the number already on your listings, so nothing changes for applicants.
You can be live in minutes. Allow about an hour to tune it properly: add your properties and their viewing times, choose your questions, and decide what Voco should do on its own and what it should ask you first. The letting agent calculator shows what your missed enquiries are worth, and the letting agent answering service page covers call handling in more depth.
The quickest way to judge it is to hear it. Ring the property demo and ask about a flat.
