South Wales Evening Post
"Business Week" feature 6th October 2005

"MARCELLE MAKES THAT VITAL LINK"

Trying to organise skilled workmen and service technicians to visit your home can be a nightmare at times. They want your business, you want their services - but they don't want to spend time answering daytime calls when they could be earning money.

And your boss may take a dim view of you monopolising the phone during working hours for private calls.

Now a business consultant has come up with a new service which can help both traders and prospective customers.

Marcelle Llewellyn set up Call Catchers in Loughor this week, a telephone answering service with a difference.

Traders who sign up to the service get a phone number to either put on their business cards or divert their current phone number to.

When the trader gets a phone call, their business name comes up on a Call Catchers call centre computer screen, and the call is answered in that name by Call Catchers staff who then take details.

Those details are sent to the trader by text message and he or she can choose to reply immediately or later.

Marcelle works as a business adviser at The Business Centre in Swansea, helping others to start up. She had the idea of providing the service when chatting to clients.

She said: "Many trades people can't take calls when they are on jobs but know they were losing future business so I tried to find them a simple, cheap solution.

"I decided to apply the telecoms knowledge I got when I worked as an accountant at Hotline Telecom," she added.

"A simple, cheap telephone answering service will suit so many sole traders from every different background.

"There are many benefits, especially if you're a carpenter fixing a cupboard to a wall when your mobile rings, or a driving instructor in heavy traffic.

"Another advantage of the service is that when your customers phone you it sounds very professional to have a receptionist,'' added Marcelle.

Clients type a code into their phone in the morning which diverts their calls to Call Catchers.

The service costs around £50 a month.

Plumbers, carpenters, plasterers and hairdressers are among those likely to use the service.

Marcelle is offering traders a week's free trial to judge for themselves how much extra business Call Catchers is likely to bring them.

She can also provide the service on a daily rate for those who can't take phone calls at work but who need to be kept informed of urgent matters such as a relative's hospital condition or their house sale progress.