Origins

Founded in 2000, by brother and sister team, Ed Reeves and Rachel Clacher, Moneypenny was born out of their frustration as users of existing telephone answering services. "Why can't a telephone answering service exist where the person taking the calls has a real understanding of the client's business?", "Why can't that person be as knowledgeable about the organisation and as accountable as they would be if directly employed by the client?" From a standing start with £15,000 investment, a £15,000 overdraft, a highly ambitious business plan, and buckets of determination and hard work, Moneypenny is today recognised as market leader not only in terms of size, but also innovation and service. This was recognised in 2008 with the presentation of the Queen's Awards for Enterprise: Innovation.

Success Factor

Moneypenny has worked incredibly hard to develop a service that meets the very demanding needs of clients. The company speaks to its clients every day and have a pretty good idea of what they need and how the firm can work better for them. In addition, the PAM technology has enabled invoicing to be fully integrated into the same technology that enables receptionists to answer their calls. To maintain the excellent level of customer service that clients are used to, each receptionist can look after only a certain number of clients. As the firm gains more clients, they need more receptionists. So the company has built a solid recruitment strategy that ensures it employs the best calibre of staff. Staff work in small independent teams of three or four and increasing the number of those teams does not dilute the one-to-one relationship that makes Moneypenny so special. This allows Moneypenny to maintain its astonishing growth rate without compromising its extraordinary focus on clients and their needs.

The Future

2009 will being another 30% growth in the business: the company has just expanded into an additional 12,000 sq.ft of office space, the efficacy of Outsourced Reception within large blue chip environments has been proven, and partnerships with such organisations as RICS and REC are yielding good results. The current economic climate also brings new opportunities as increasingly companies look to replace fixed costs with variable costs. Many new clients have discovered that this is not the only benefit of Moneypenny; they also improve service levels. Though companies are finding more and more reasons to use Moneypenny, the company will not be complacent. With the demanding goal of being the first and obvious choice for telephone answering and outsourced reception services for any business in the UK , the company will continue to focus on its clients and its staff to develop its services further.