Scale your business without hiring.
Every call nobody answered is a job that went to someone else. Every quote that went out late, and every enquiry nobody chased, is work you paid to attract and then lost. AI staff answer every call, book the job, send the quote the same day and chase every enquiry until it is a yes or a no. So you win more of the work that is already coming to you, and you grow without adding a single salary.AI staff answer every call, send every quote and chase every enquiry, so you win more of the work already coming to you, without adding a salary. It starts at less than the cost of one junior hire.
It is a live video call with Clara. She is an AI, and she is the same one that answers our phone. Or ring 01423 227770.
Connecting…
What is possible
Two people. $401 million in sales.
In April the New York Times reported on a company that sold $401 million in its first full year, with two people and a stack of AI tools doing the rest.
Nobody is promising you that. But it shows how much a business can sell without a big payroll, once AI is set up to do the job and not just talk about it.
Source: The New York Times, "How A.I. Helped Two Men Build a $1.8 Billion Company", 2 April 2026.
What AI can really do
AI that does the work, not just the talking.
Most people have only met AI as a chat box. You ask, it answers, and you still do the job yourself. The new kind is called agentic AI. An agent is given a job, the tools to do it and the rules to follow, and then it gets on with it: it answers your phone, reads your inbox and drafts the replies, updates your CRM, sends your quotes and automatically follows every one up for you.
It works every hour of every day and never forgets to call anyone back. It takes many calls at once, so nobody is put on hold and nobody gives up and rings a competitor. It speaks over 30 languages, so you can sell across borders as easily as down the road. Set up well, it carries the routine work of a whole team, and it adds nothing to the wage bill. Here is what that looks like in a real business.
Your phone, answered by your best salesperson
Picture your best salesperson on their best day: warm, quick, knows every price and never lets a caller go without a next step. Now put them on every call, at 7am, at lunchtime and on a Sunday, in over 30 languages. Those are the calls that go to a competitor today.
Answers every call
First ring, day and night. No voicemail, no hold music, no caller trying the next business on the list.
Knows your business
Answers questions on your services, prices, hours and areas, from what you give it. If it does not know, it says so and takes a message.
Qualifies the caller
Asks the questions you would ask, so you know who is a real job, who is just browsing and who needs you today.
Puts the right calls through
An urgent job or a big client goes straight to the right person. Everything else is handled without interrupting anyone.
Books it on the call
Finds a free slot in your diary, books it while they are still on the line and sends the confirmation.
Sends the quote before they hang up
Worked out from your own prices, sent by email or text, with a secure link to pay the deposit.
Remembers every caller
Knows who rang before and what they wanted, and picks up where the last conversation left off.
Takes a proper message
Name, number, what they need and how urgent it is, texted to you the moment the call ends.
Never has a bad day
Calm with the angry caller, patient with the confused one, and never rushed, even when ten people ring at once.
Find your next customers
Most businesses do not have a lead problem. They have a time problem: nobody has the hours to find the right companies, research them and pick up the phone. So new business stops whenever the team gets busy. An agent does the finding every day.
Builds your ideal client profile
Looks at your best customers and works out what they have in common: the trade, the size, the area and the problem you solved for them.
Finds the companies that match
Searches every day for businesses that fit, and for the signs that now is the time, like a new job advert, a new office or a new contract.
Researches every one
Reads their website and Companies House, checks they are real, trading and the right size, and drops the ones that are not.
Finds the decision maker
Works out who actually runs the place, the owner or managing director, and shows you where it found them.
Adds them to your CRM, scored
Each company lands in your CRM with the research, a score and the reason to call now, ready for your team.
Writes the opening line
A first line for every call or email, based on what it found out about that company.
Follow-up that never slips
Most sales are lost in the follow-up, not the first call. People get busy, the quote just sits there, and the job goes to whoever rang back first. An agent never gets busy.
Follows up every lead
By email and text, at the right time and in your words, until they say yes, no or not yet.
Chases the quiet quotes
A quote with no answer gets a friendly nudge after a few days, then another, then a call back in the diary.
Sorts the replies
Reads what comes back and separates the ready to buy from the just looking, so your time goes on the right people.
Rebooks the no-shows
A missed appointment gets a message and a new time, not an empty slot in the diary.
Brings customers back
Service reminders, renewals, and a request for a review after every finished job.
Wins back missed calls
Anyone who rings off before they are answered gets a text straight back, so the enquiry stays with you and not the next business on the list.
Your inbox, under control
The enquiry that goes cold is usually sitting in an inbox, under forty other emails. An agent reads everything as it arrives, so the ones worth money are answered first and you only touch what needs you.
Sorts every email
Reads everything as it arrives and puts what needs a reply today at the top. Newsletters and noise go out of the way.
Drafts the replies
Writes each reply in your tone, using the facts from your CRM and your past emails.
You approve, it sends
Read the draft, change a word if you want, press approve and it goes. Minutes, not hours.
Flags what matters
The unhappy customer, the big order and the deadline come to you first.
Files the rest
Invoices, orders and enquiries go where they belong, and the details go into your systems.
Answers the simple ones itself
Where is my order, when are you open, did you get my form: answered straight away, within rules you set for what it may send on its own.
The admin nobody wants to do
This is the work you pay good people to do by hand: typing up notes, copying between systems, chasing invoices. It is also why the next hire always feels overdue. An agent does it, and the hire can wait.
Keeps your CRM up to date
After every call and email the record is current. Nobody types up notes again.
Turns calls into actions
Every call becomes a short summary, the tasks that came out of it and who is doing what.
Quotes and invoices
Made from your price list, sent with a pay link, and chased politely when they are overdue.
Reports on itself
A short weekly report: calls, leads, bookings, money in, and anything that is stuck.
Keeps your systems in step
Your website, CRM, diary, accounts and email kept in sync, with no copying and pasting.
Books the work in
A confirmed job goes into your diary or job sheet with the address, the details and the notes, ready for whoever does the work.
You stay in charge. Anything that matters, like a price, a refund or an email to a big client, can come to you to approve first. Every call and message is recorded, so you can always see exactly what was done.
You do not get all of this on day one. We start with the job that costs you the most, and add the next one every month.
The proof is on this page
We don’t offer you anything we don’t use ourselves.
The face you can talk to is Clara, our AI assistant. She answers our phone. She books meetings into our diary, emails our flyer and puts every caller into our CRM. If she can do that for us, an agent can do it for you.
What it costs
From less than the cost of one junior hire. No build fee.
Before you spend anything, we work out what it is costing you now, on your own numbers: the calls you miss, what a job is worth to you and how many enquiries turn into work. The enquiries slipping away are usually only half of it. Add the wages going on work an agent can do, and the return comes quickly. You don’t pay for the build. You pay a monthly retainer, far less than employing an AI specialist or hiring consultants.
Start here
A free consultation
A quick call, then a free scoping session. We work out with you what the missed calls, the late quotes and the admin are costing, and find the first job worth doing. You pay nothing until you decide to go ahead.
One agent
from £1,000a month
One job, done end to end. Your phone answered, qualified and booked. Or every lead followed up. Or your inbox sorted and the replies drafted.
- Built around the way you already work
- Hosted, watched and kept running
- A monthly check-in and improvements
Agent team
from £2,500a month
Several agents working together, passing work between them like a good team: the phone, the follow-up, the CRM and the inbox.
- Everything in One agent
- Usually three connected jobs
- Lead follow-up that never stops
- A monthly review of the results
Full AI operations
from £5,000a month
AI across sales, service and admin, growing every month. For businesses that want to take on more work without taking on more staff.
- Everything in Agent team
- A new job added every month
- New leads found to your ideal client profile
- A monthly strategy session with us
- No setup fee. The build is part of the retainer.
- Three-month minimum. Long enough to build it, bed it in and see the return.
- Usage on top, at cost. Call minutes, texts and video minutes are billed at the providers’ published rates, with no mark-up. For a small business that is usually tens of pounds a month.
- Prices in pounds, no VAT added.
Why a retainer, not a one-off project?
Because AI is not something you install and forget. We bring it in one job at a time, so your team gets used to it and nothing in the business is disrupted. We watch it every week, fix what needs fixing and keep adding the next job. You are never left with a clever system that nobody looks after.
How it works
Three steps.
We talk.
A free consultation. You tell us where the time and the enquiries go, and we show you what it is costing you.
We build.
We start with the job that costs you the most, and build the system that does it for you, around the way you work.
It runs.
We host it, watch it and keep it working. Then we pick the next job with you and do it again.
A word on AI
Wary of AI? That’s sensible.
The headlines are full of AI getting things wrong, and plenty of businesses have tried a chatbot that made things worse. We understand the caution. That is exactly why we start small, with one job you can watch, check and approve, and only add more when you are happy.
But AI is not going away. It is already changing how work gets done, and the businesses that put it to work now will be answering faster, quoting sooner and carrying lower costs than the ones that wait.
Questions people ask
Straight answers.
What does an AI agency do?
We find where you are losing work, and where you are paying wages for jobs a machine can do. Then we build the AI agents that do those jobs, and we keep them running. You pay a monthly retainer for that, rather than employing an AI specialist full time, which most local businesses couldn’t justify anyway. So you get the expertise without the salary, and we only take on as many businesses as we can look after properly.
Is it worth £1,000 a month?
That depends on your numbers, so that is where we start. On the free call we work out what it is costing you now: how many calls you miss, what a job is worth to you and how many enquiries turn into work. If one extra job a month is worth more than the retainer, the sum is simple. If the numbers don’t add up for your business, we’ll tell you, and it will have cost you fifteen minutes.
Why choose you?
Because we don’t offer you anything we don’t use ourselves. Robert Ward, who founded the agency, has spent the last two years doing nothing but AI, and that doesn’t mean reading about it. He built Buildova, which writes complete software applications from a brief in plain English. He built Zoccio, a tracker for anything, where you ask it questions in English and it answers. He built ColdCall Simulator, which trains salespeople against an AI prospect on a live call, and our own Dialler for running cold calls. And Clara, the AI assistant on this page, answers our phone and books our meetings every day. This is a new service, so we’ve set the rates to reflect that, but the experience behind it isn’t new.
What if something happens to you?
Fair question when you’re dealing with a small agency. Everything we build for you is documented from A to Z, and we keep the documentation up to date as things change, so another AI specialist could pick it up and carry on without starting again. You’re not tied to us.
How long does it take?
Usually the first job is up and running within a few weeks of the scoping session. After that we add the next job when the last one has settled in, normally one a month.
What if it makes a mistake?
It will now and again, the same as a new member of staff would. The difference is it only works from what your business tells it, and if it isn’t sure it says so and takes a message rather than guessing. Every call and message is recorded so you can see exactly what happened, and anything that matters, a price, a refund, an email to an important client, can come to you to approve before it goes. That’s why we start with one job you can keep an eye on.
Is my data safe?
Your data stays where it is now, in your CRM, your diary and your email. The agent only gets access to what it needs for its job and nothing else. The AI services we use are business-grade and don’t train on your data. Calls are recorded so you can go back and check them, and we delete them whenever you ask.
Do I have to change my phone number or my systems?
No. You keep your number and forward it to the agent, and it works with the diary, CRM and email you already use. If there’s something it can’t connect to we’ll tell you before we start, not after.
Will it replace my staff?
It is there so you can grow without taking on the next person, not to get rid of the last one. It takes the repetitive work off your people, the phone, the follow-ups, the typing up afterwards, so the hours you already pay for go on customers and on the work that brings money in.
Do I need to be technical?
Not at all. You tell us how your business works and what you want done, we build it, and you approve what it does. You never have to touch the technical side.
Can I cancel?
Yes. There’s a three-month minimum, because that’s how long it takes to build it, bed it in and see the return. After that you can stop whenever you like. There’s no setup fee, so there’s nothing sunk.
What happens on the free consultation?
It’s a 15-minute video call with Robert, who runs the agency. You tell him where your time and your enquiries are going, and he tells you honestly what AI could take on for you and roughly what that would be worth. If it makes sense we do a free scoping session to agree the first job. You don’t pay anything until you decide to go ahead.
Do you only work with businesses near you?
No, we work with businesses anywhere. Being in Harrogate means we can meet local businesses in person, which we enjoy, but most meetings are on a video call anyway and everything we build runs online.
About us
We run our own business on it first.
ForwardX is an AI agency in Harrogate, founded and run by Robert Ward.
Robert has been writing software for more than thirty years, and has built and sold businesses in the UK and the US. When AI agents became good enough to do real work, he did what we now do for every client: he started with our own business.
Today a team of AI agents carries most of our day-to-day. Clara answers our phone and our website, and she tells you she is an AI. One finds and researches new clients. Others send the quotes, chase the follow-ups and keep the CRM up to date, around the clock.
That leaves us free to do what people should be doing: getting to know our clients, bringing their new systems in smoothly and planning what comes next.
So when we build for you, it is not a theory. We don’t offer you anything we don’t use ourselves.
Find out what it is costing you.
Ask Clara what it costs. She will ask you three quick questions and show you, on your own numbers, what missed calls are costing you each month. Then she can book you a call with Robert.
Or ring 01423 227770. Clara answers there too.