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You cannot answer the phone from under a sink.
Every missed call in this trade is a job that rang the next number on the list. You are on a roof, under a floor or holding something with both hands, and the person calling will not leave a voicemail.
The calls you actually get
Not a feature list. These are the conversations that make the phone ring, and what happens to each one.
What is wrong, and where
The address, the access, what is leaking or not heating, how long it has been like that, and whether the water is off. That is most of a quote before anyone has driven anywhere.
How much to come out
The call-out fee is the question that ends half these calls and there is no reason a person has to be the one to answer it. The agent says the number you gave it.
Is this an emergency
Some of them are. The agent asks what makes it urgent, and a call about water coming through a ceiling reaches you differently from a call about a dripping tap.
Booking the visit
A window rather than a time, because that is how this trade actually works, and a text to the customer with what was agreed.
Evenings and weekends
Most of this trade's calls arrive when nobody is in an office. The agent answers at two in the morning in the same voice it uses at two in the afternoon.
What it will not do
The list that matters more than the one above it. An agent that guesses is worse than a phone that rings out, because a guess sounds like an answer.
- Quote a repair it has not seen. It gives the call-out fee and the rates you published and says the rest depends on the visit.
- Promise a time you have not agreed to.
- Decide what counts as an emergency. It asks and it flags; you decide what you get out of bed for.
- Take payment. Nothing on a call touches a card.
What it costs, for this kind of phone
18 calls a day, about 4 minutes each, 24 days a month. That is 1,728 connected minutes, which is the Volume plan at $500 a month.
What has to be connected
The build is the part you are paying for, and this is what it consists of.
- The calendar or job system your visits are already booked in.
- Your call-out fee and hourly rates, so the agent quotes yours and not a plausible number.
- Your area: what you cover and what you turn down, so the agent stops wasting the caller's time and yours.
- How an urgent job reaches you while you are working: a call, a text, or both.
Questions
Can an AI answering service quote a job?
It can quote what you have published: the call-out fee, hourly rates, fixed prices for standard work. It cannot quote a repair it has not seen, and a service that claims otherwise is setting you up to argue with a customer about a number software made up.
What happens to emergency calls out of hours?
The agent answers, asks what makes it urgent, and reaches you the way you asked to be reached, with the answers attached. It does not decide whether something is an emergency, because you are the one who has to drive there.
How much does an answering service cost for a small trade business?
Ours starts at $49 a month for 120 connected minutes, plus a one-time build. A typical one-van business taking eighteen calls a day works out at the figure shown on this page. There is a calculator on the pricing page that takes about ten seconds.
Will customers hang up on a machine?
Some will. That is worth knowing before you buy rather than after, which is why the trial runs on your own number with your own callers for two weeks and records every call. At the end of it you will know, for your customers, rather than for customers in a case study.
Other kinds of phone
The same agent, built around a different set of calls.
The part you can check
There are no plumbers or electricians on this page saying how pleased they are, because there are none yet. What there is instead: two weeks on your own line, your own callers, every call recorded and transcribed, and no card asked for.