Terms of agreement

1 Definitions

1.1 ‘Client’ means the client of the Provider.

1.2 ‘Contract’ means any contract between the Client and the Provider relating to the supply of Services.

‘Customer’ means the customer of the Client

‘Facilities’ means the reception centre from time to time provided by the provider for the benefit for clients, customers and service providers.

1.6 ‘Provider’ means Real Time Reception.

1.7 ‘Services’ means telephone call answering, messaging and appointment booking service, and other services as agreed.

2 Duration

The Contract shall commence on the date on which it is entered into and unless earlier terminated as provided below shall continue for three months until terminated by either party giving the other not less than 5 days’ notice taking effect at the end of a period of 1 month from that date.

3 Facilities And Services

3.1 The Provider shall provide the Facilities as follows:

3.1.1 Reception centre – Monday to Friday 08.30 to 17.00, excluding bank holidays, subject to these terms and conditions;

4 Charges

The charges are those referred to in our Price List current at date of agreement. These may from time to time be amended by the Provider under clause 7 applicable at the date of performance of the Service, exclusive of VAT.

5 Payment

5.1 The Provider’s invoices shall be paid in full not later than 10 days from the date of the invoice without any discount, set-off or other deduction whatsoever.

5.2 The time of payment of the Provider’s invoices shall be of the essence of the Contract.

5.3 Interest shall be payable on any overdue amount from the date on which payment was due to that on which it is made (whether before or after judgement) on a daily basis at the rate of 5% over the base rate from time to time quoted by the Provider’s bankers compounded monthly. The Client shall also pay all legal and other costs incurred by the Provider in recovering any amounts owing from them.

5.4 The Provider reserves the right to apply amounts received first in settlement of interest on overdue amounts and then of amounts due beginning with the oldest.

5.5 Without prejudice to any other of its rights, if the Client fails to make any payment when and as due the Provider shall be entitled by giving written notice to the Client at any time to exercise any one or more of the following rights:

5.5.2 To suspend performance of Services as referred to in the notice;

5.5.3 To require that all amounts invoiced by the Provider at the date of the notice shall become immediately due and payable;

5.5.4 To require the Client to pay the Provider’s charges in cash or cleared funds in advance and to refrain from performing further Services until such payment of its charges has been received; and

5.5.5 To refrain from providing Services if circumstances mean that additional costs will be incurred in completing that Services request.

5.6 All costs or income from the use of telephone numbers allotted by the Provider shall be borne by or, as the case may be, accrue to the Provider.

Any queries in connection with any invoice must be referred by the Client to the Provider within 10 days of receipt.

6 Change Procedures

The Provider reserves the right to change its charges and other terms and conditions of the Contract by giving the Client 14 days’ notice in accordance with Clause 17.

7 Performance

The Provider shall not be liable for any loss, damage or expense arising from any delay in the performance of any Services or in the provision of the Facilities from whatever cause nor shall any such delay entitle the Client to repudiate the Contract.

8 Liability

8.1 The Provider’s liability in respect of the Services is to provide the same with reasonable skill and care including, in respect of the supply of Services, the appointment of such Service Suppliers as it reasonably considers competent to perform the Services in accordance with the applicable Service Standard in such numbers as the Provider considers appropriate to sustain the supply of the Services throughout mainland England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, subject as provided in these conditions.

8.2 The liability of the Provider to the Client in contract, tort (including negligence or breach of statutory duty) or otherwise howsoever under or in connection with the Contract shall be limited as follows:

8.2.1 For death or personal injury resulting from the Provider’s negligence or that of any of the Provider’s Service Providers or for fraud on the part of any of its or their employees whilst acting in the course of their employment, no limit shall apply;

8.2.2 The Provider shall have no liability for any consequential loss or damage suffered by the Client or any Customer under or in connection with the Contract occasioned by any act or omission in the part of the Provider whether directly or indirectly, including but not limited to wasted time or expenditure, loss of profits, use, revenue or goodwill;

8.2.3 The Provider shall have no liability in respect of any claim relating to the Services unless the Customer or the Client gives the Provider written notice of the claim promptly and in any event within 15 days after the Customer or the Client becomes aware (or should reasonably have become aware) of the circumstances giving rise to the claim and affords the Provider or its Service Providers not less than 30 days following such notification in which to remedy the Services concerned; and

8.3.4 The Provider shall be discharged from all liability to which these conditions apply unless proceedings are begun within 6 months after the Client or the Customer became aware (or should reasonably have become aware) of the facts giving rise to such liability.

9 Termination

9.1 The Provider shall have the right by giving written notice to the Client at any time to immediately terminate the Contract if:

9.1.1 There occurs any material breach by the Client of any term of the Contract which is irremediable or if remediable is not remedied to the Provider’s satisfaction within 15 days of a written notice by the Provider specifying the breach and requiring it to be remedied; or

9.1.2 The Client has a receiver, manager, administrator or administrative receiver appointed for all or any part of its undertaking, has a resolution passed for its winding up or a petition presented to any court for an administration order or for its winding up or enters into any composition or arrangement with its creditors whether formal or informal or suffers any similar action in consequence of debt.

9.2 No failure or delay in exercising any of the Provider’s rights shall constitute a waiver of the same or any other of its rights.

10 Force Majeure

The Provider shall not be liable for any delay or other failure to perform any Services or for any temporary breakdown in the Provider’s coverage by reason of any cause whatsoever beyond its reasonable control and the time for performance shall be extended by the period of any such delay.

11 Personnel

The Client during the currency of the Contract and for the period of 12 months after its expiry or termination shall not solicit directly or indirectly any of the personnel of the Provider who have been employed or engaged in connection with the Contract or in the provision of Services to the Client or its Customers.

12 Confidentiality

The subject matter of the Contract and any information acquired by either party relating to the business of the other party or, as the case may be, its Service Providers or Customers is confidential and neither party shall, without prior written consent of the other party make any use or disclosure thereof except for the purposes of the Contract save to the extent such information is or becomes publicly available otherwise than in breach of the foregoing obligations.

­­­­­­­­13 Assignment And Sub-Contracting

The Provider reserves the right to assign the Contract and to sub-contract to its Service Providers or others all or any of its obligations but the Contract shall not be assigned by the Client without the Provider’s prior written consent.

14 Rights Of Third Parties

No person other than the Provider, any person to whom the Provider assigns the contract and the Client shall acquire any enforceable rights under or in connection with the Contract.

15 Entire Agreement

The Contract contains all the terms which the parties have agreed in relation to its subject matter and supersedes all previous oral or written communications between the parties and the Provider does not authorise the giving of representations on its behalf by any person unless confirmed in writing and signed by the director of the Provider or the Provider Secretary.

16 Relationship Of The Parties

Nothing in the Contract shall create or be deemed to create a partnership or a joint venture between the parties or constitute either party as an agent of the other.

17 Notices

Any notice given in writing if sent by email, text message, on the Real Time Reception website, telephone or voicemail message to the receiving party shall be deemed to have been given on the date of transmission.

18 Law And Jurisdiction

The law applicable to this agreement shall be English law and the parties consent to the jurisdiction of the English courts in all matters affecting this agreement.

 

SCHEDULE 1

The Services

Hours Of Service

The services provide for an online reception service: Monday to Friday 08.30 to 17.00, excluding public holidays (as defined for England & Wales).

Level Of Service

Level of service will be dependent to an extent on external factors including the service provided by the client’s diary software provider. An important responsibility of the Client is to notify your diary software provider and Real Time Reception immediately if they detect any inconsistency in their diary.

Bookings will be made on behalf of the client using the information supplied by the client, and information will be passed to the clients’ customers using the same information as supplied and updated by the client. It is the Clients’ responsibility to ensure the information we hold is current.

Where the Client has requested the Provider to cancel bookings, the Customers are contacted initially by telephone, and if necessary followed up by SMS. If any Customer has failed to respond to these methods the Provider will inform the Client who will be responsible for making further contact with the Customer.

All calls are treated equally – no Client has any preference over another.

Real Time Reception analyse call frequency and volumes constantly and adjust staffing as appropriate. However there will inevitably be some calls which go unanswered. Callers are not kept on hold or left to ring for longer than 10 seconds. They are then invited to leave a voicemail.

Real Time Reception have set a standard grade of service which states that 85% of calls are answered within 10 seconds, (85/10) and abandoned calls of less than 5%.

Real Time Reception interrogate the Voicemail regularly and messages are followed up as a matter of urgency.

Voicemail left outside normal office hours is actioned during the morning of the next working day.

Whilst making best endeavours to maintain its levels of service, Real Time Reception will not hold itself responsible for circumstances beyond its control, e.g. ISP, email or telephone problems.

The Standard Service

We provide a standard service on which our pricing is based.

• Use of a web based diary/calendar
• Collect the name and contact detail of new customers, which are recorded only on the client diary.
• Book a single appointment.

We will happily vary this service but there may be additional charges, eg. Using different software, credit card transactions, series of bookings, emails to customers (new patient letter), etc.

Fees

Charges are per unit (as defined below), or per minute.

Each of these counts as one unit.

• An incoming call.
• An outgoing call or email to one of your customers at your request.
• An out of hours call which has gone to voicemail.
• Action required from an out of hours’ voicemail eg. call back.
• Emails or texts to your customers including new client information
• Incoming emails from your website that require a response.
• A credit or debit card transaction.

We monitor the length of time that calls take and may suggest that some clients pay by the minute rather than per unit.

Fees are reviewed regularly and may be updated at any time.

Billing

All clients (with the exception of holiday cover) pay by direct debit. Invoices are sent on the first of the month for the previous month, and the monies collected from the client bank account on the 7^th of the month by Fast Pay Ltd. The first collection from a new customer or when bank details have changed is on the 20^th of the month. Clients pay in arrears for all the services.

 

SCHEDULE 2

Security, Data Protection And Confidentiality

Security

Real Time Reception does not store any information regarding your customers or clients. Any information collected: name, address, contact details, is written directly into your diary software and is your information.

The company is registered with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) and adheres to their policies.

1. None of our clients or their customers contact details is passed to any other party without the express permission of the client or customer.
2. Wherever possible emails, and data is encrypted.

It is the client’s responsibility to ensure that their data is protected in accordance with the EU directive on data protection, or future legislation.

Data Protection

As a company we do not store any data on clients customers.

Real Time Reception can access your database of customers and contact details to rebook existing customers, and to confirm contact details. The security of this data is in the remit of the software provider and yourselves.

Recordings of phone calls and voicemail messages are held for 3 months on the password protected servers of our Telecomms provider, and then automatically deleted.

Confidentiality

Real Time Reception hereby undertake that they shall:

I. Not communicate, disclose or make available all or any part of any Confidential Information to any third party;

II. Not directly or indirectly use, or permit others to use, the Confidential Information other than for the purpose of booking or otherwise affecting appointments;

III. Not make any announcement or disclosure in connection with any Confidential Information.

The obligations of confidentiality will not apply with respect to any of the following:

I. Information which is generally available to the public at the date of this agreement;

II. Information already known to the party at the time of disclosure;

III. Information which is subsequently disclosed by third parties having no obligations of confidentiality;

Information which is or becomes generally available to the public in printed publications in general circulation in the United Kingdom through no act or default on the part of the Real Time Reception or their agents, employees or professional advisers.

PCI Compliance

Our procedures are based upon the PCI DSS below. As a small business with less than 1 million transactions per year we do not need to register, but we do abide by these requirements.

PCI DSS is the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, and this is a worldwide standard that was set up to help businesses process card payments securely and reduce card fraud. The way it does this is through tight controls surrounding the storage, transmission and processing of cardholder data that businesses handle. PCI DSS is intended to protect sensitive cardholder data.

There are 12 high level requirements, and they fall into the six categories below:

Build and Maintain a Secure Network

1. Install and maintain a firewall configuration to protect data
   2. Do not use vendor-supplied defaults for system passwords and other security parameters.

Protect Cardholder Data

3. Protect stored data (use encryption)
   4. Encrypt transmission of cardholder data and sensitive information across public networks

Maintain a Vulnerability Management Program

5. Use and regularly update anti-virus software
   6. Develop and maintain secure systems and applications

Implement Strong Access Control Measures

7. Restrict access to data by business need-to-know
   8. Assign a unique ID to each person with computer access
   9. Restrict physical access to cardholder data

Regularly Monitor and Test Networks

10. Track and monitor all access to network resources and cardholder data
    11. Regularly test security systems and processes

Maintain an Information Security Policy

12. Maintain a policy that addresses Information Security

 

Last updated:  15/04/2026