Telephone answering specialist Moneypenny has reported a sharp rise in lettings-related calls handled by its property receptionists over the past three months.

In a ‘like-for-like’ comparison of calls taken for agents in Q2 and Q3, lettings viewings were up by 34.2%, lettings valuations up by 19.9% and property detail requests by 29.9%.

The findings come as the company, which looks after over 1.2m overflow calls a year for agents of all shapes and sizes, announces the results of its third quarterly review of 2015, taking a look at property calls handled between July 1 and September 30.

On Tuesday, September 1, not only were more calls taken by Moneypenny’s property receptionists than any other day of the year so far, but the same day was also the busiest in the company’s 15-year history.

September was the busiest month so far this year, followed by August and July. I

In previous reviews, Mondays have been found to be the busiest weekday. However, over the last three months,  Wednesday proved to be the day agents needed most telephone answering support.

More calls on average came in during the mornings than in the afternoons with the hours between 10am and 11am, 9am and 10am and 11am and midday respectively, receiving the highest volumes.

Friday was the only exception to this, with between 3pm and 5pm the busiest hours of the day. The largest number of valuation calls were received during  9am to 11am.

Samantha Jones, Moneypenny’s commercial manager for corporate and property, said: “Our property team has been very busy over the past three months and we are seeing many highly encouraging signs in terms of the position of the property sector.

“Our activity generally mirrors what is happening out there for agents – the busier they get, the busier we are handling those calls they are struggling to get to themselves.

“We still appear to be experiencing a knock-on effect from the General Election with a renewed confidence in the market, and while we typically see an increase in call volumes over the summer months as agents take their annual holidays and rely on us more, we saw no slowing down in September, which we would normally expect, as routines return to normal.

“Lettings calls in particular have been buoyant.”