Calls you miss on the job
A furnace fails at 9pm, a pipe bursts on a Saturday, or a homeowner wants a roof estimate while your crew is on another roof. The calls that arrive during a job, after hours or at lunch go to voicemail, and a homeowner with water on the floor may not wait for a callback before trying the next company.
This page is the contractor version of our AI assistant. The assistant picks up those calls, asks the questions your dispatcher would ask and writes down the job. Then it books the estimate or hands the job to your team. It does not replace your techs or your dispatcher. It takes the first conversation so your team can do the work.
What a contractor call sounds like with the assistant
A homeowner calls at 7:40pm. The assistant says it is an AI assistant for your company and asks how it can help. The caller says the water heater is leaking. The assistant asks the questions you set: is water still coming out, can the caller shut off the supply, what is the address, is it a gas or electric unit, when can someone be home. If your rules treat an active leak as urgent, the on-call tech gets an alert with all of it. If not, the assistant offers the next estimate slot or tells the caller the office will call in the morning.
Your team gets the same summary either way: name, number, address, the problem in the caller’s words, the equipment if known and the time that works.
Emergency rules you write
You decide what counts as an emergency. Examples might be no heat in winter, no cooling in a heat wave, water coming through a ceiling, or a dead panel at a commercial site. We write those rules with you and test each one before launch.
When a call matches a rule, the assistant asks your questions and alerts the on-call tech you name, with the caller’s details. Whether a live call can also be transferred depends on your phone setup, and we agree that in the written scope. The assistant is not an emergency service. For a safety-critical call, such as a gas smell, the caller first hears the safety wording you wrote and approved, for example which emergency number to call. You write that wording, not the assistant, and we put it in the written scope.
An AI answering service built for HVAC, plumbing, roofing and electrical work
If you are looking for an AI answering service for your trade, this is the version built for contractors. It answers the phone while your crew is on a job, and it covers your after-hours line too: calls that come in at night, on weekends and on holidays get the same questions and the same job write-up as a call at noon.
What differs from a generic service is the intake. A plumber, an HVAC company, a roofer and an electrician each need different questions, and the assistant asks yours. For how after-hours answering works in general, see after-hours and 24/7 answering. For handling emergency calls in the field, read after-hours emergency calls for HVAC and plumbing.
Prices, service area and the jobs you do not take
The assistant gives only the prices and ranges you approve in writing, such as a service-call fee or a diagnostic charge. If a caller asks for anything else, it says a technician will confirm the price and books the estimate. It does not invent a number, promise a discount or promise a same-day visit unless you approved that answer.
The same goes for your service area and job types. If you do not go past Route 128, or you do not do mobile homes, the assistant says so politely and does not take the booking. That saves your office the call back to say no.
Setup for a contractor, step by step
- Listen to your calls. We review when you miss calls and what homeowners ask, by trade and by season.
- Agree the scope in writing: price, timeline and approval stages, before work starts.
- Write the job intake and emergency rules with you. You approve every answer.
- Connect the phone line, texting number and job tool. Tools we connect include Jobber, Housecall Pro, Square Appointments and Calendly, or we help you choose one.
- Test with real calls, including a fake emergency, a caller outside your area and a price question.
- Launch, with 30 days of help and fixes within the agreed scope.
What it costs
Setup is from $900 and takes 2-3 weeks. Phone answering is from $299/month (about 300 minutes), and website chat and messaging is from $199/month. The first month is included in setup.
Not included in any price: domain and hosting, new photography, third-party software subscriptions such as your job tool (billed at cost), SMS carrier registration (A2P 10DLC) and message fees, and AI usage above the plan allowance.
Texting, recording and AI disclosure for contractors
- AI disclosure. The assistant says it is an AI assistant. Callers can reach a person or leave a message.
- Call recording. Massachusetts requires all-party consent to record a call. If you record, the greeting says so.
- Texting. Texting customers needs their consent under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). We set up opt-in and STOP handling. A business texting number needs carrier registration (A2P 10DLC), which is extra.
This is not legal advice. Ask your own counsel how these rules apply to your business.
When a contractor should keep a person on the phone
This fits contractors who miss calls during jobs or after hours and want estimate requests booked without someone retyping a voicemail. A dispatcher still handles pricing exceptions, warranty disputes, complaints and anything outside your approved answers.
It is a weak fit if you get a few calls a week and voicemail already works, or if you want the assistant to diagnose a problem. If you would rather run a phone line yourself, our self-serve AI receptionist PhoneAnswer is one option. For how the phone answering works in general, see AI receptionist and phone answering.
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