AI receptionist for builders. Nobody rings a builder twice.
You do not miss call after call. You miss the odd one, and one of those was a double storey somebody has been saving up for. Carrie answers while the digger is running, finds out whether they have drawings and a planning decision, and books you a site visit for the ones that are real.
People who ring a builder are often a long way from starting. Knowing which ones before you give up an evening is the whole thing.
How does an AI receptionist work for a builder?
An AI receptionist answers the few calls you get, asks the things that separate a job from a daydream, and puts a site visit in the diary for the ones worth driving to. It is the same receptionist we set up for every trade and local service, with your own questions in it.
You cannot hear it and you would not get to it
Breaker going, mixer running, two lads asking where the lintels are. Your phone is in the van and it has been there since half seven.
Carrie finds out whether the job is real
Have you got drawings. Has it been through planning or is it permitted development. When are you hoping to start. Have you had other prices. Do you own it. Five answers and you know.
The real ones get a date
A site visit, in your diary, at a time you actually have. The rest are written up with where they have got to, so you can ring them in six months when they are ready and remember who they are.
The one you never knew about
Thursday, groundworks in Bures, and it rained all morning. Four calls between eight and one, none of them answered, none of them with a voicemail. You will never know what any of those four were about. One of them might have been the kitchen extension your mate mentioned. There is no way to find out, and that is the part that quietly eats a year.
With her answering, you look at your phone at one o'clock and you know exactly what all four were. Two were selling you something.
One is a rear extension with approved drawings, wanting to start in the spring, who has had one other price and is booked in for Tuesday evening. One is a lady thinking about a loft, no drawings, no decision, who is written up so you can ring her in the winter when she is closer.
You did not stop working, and you spent no evenings finding that out.
What builders ask before they take it on
Almost all of them are about qualifying: whether it can tell a real job from somebody who is dreaming, without putting off the one who is real.
Can it tell a real job from somebody who is just wondering?
It asks the questions that decide it, in an ordinary way rather than as an interrogation. Have you got drawings, has it been through planning, when are you looking to start, is the property yours, have you spoken to anybody else about it.
Somebody with approved drawings and a spring start answers all five in about a minute. Somebody who is nine months out says so, and that is useful information rather than a wasted call.
Will it put off the good ones by asking all that?
The opposite, generally. Somebody who has had four builders not ring them back is reassured by a firm that answers the phone and takes them seriously enough to ask proper questions.
It is not a script and it does not push. If somebody says they would rather talk to you directly, she takes their number and gets you.
What about the ones who are not ready? I do not want to lose them.
They are the most valuable thing on the list and they are the easiest ones to lose. She writes down where they have got to, what they are thinking about and roughly when, so in six months you can ring somebody and know their name and their loft.
Nobody can do that from memory, and now you have the notes.
People always ask for a ballpark. What does she say?
That prices come after a look, and that you will come and look. That is the answer that protects the biggest number you will quote all year.
A ballpark on an extension is a number the customer remembers long after you said it, and holds you to. Every builder who has been doing this a while has been caught by exactly that.
How does it handle architects and project managers?
They usually ring wanting to know availability and whether you take on work of that size and type. Those are questions with answers she has, so they get one straight away rather than a voicemail, and the drawings come by email into the same place.
Can it book a site visit properly?
Yes, into your own diary, only offering times you have got, and it goes to both of you. For this trade that matters because a site visit is usually an evening, and an evening you have already promised to somebody else is a bad start.
I get calls from lads looking for work. Does it deal with those?
They get answered and written up, with the trade and whether they have their own tools and transport. You go through them when you want subbies rather than when they happen to ring, which is the wrong way round today.
Does it answer out of hours?
Yes, and for a builder the evenings are when the good ones ring. Somebody comparing builders does it after their tea, and that is exactly when your phone would have gone to voicemail.
My work comes from word of mouth. Do I need this?
Word of mouth still arrives as a phone call, and a recommendation that rings out is a recommendation that gets given to somebody else next time. If anything it is worse for a recommended call: they were told you were good, and then you did not answer.
Does my number change?
No. Nothing on the boards, the van or the website needs touching.
How is it set up?
Twenty minutes: what you want asked, what size and type of work you take on, how far you travel, and when you are prepared to do site visits. Then you listen to the first one yourself.
Will an assistant put us forward to somebody planning a build?
People plan an extension for months and ask an assistant most of it. What it costs, how to pick somebody, what tends to go wrong. Those answers come back with names in them, and Google writes the same sort of answer above the blue links on an ordinary search.
- When you could start is the fact everybody wants, and it is worth saying out loud. A page saying you are booked into the spring, and taking enquiries for after it, is a page an assistant can quote.
- Being named is only half of it. Somebody handed your name rings within the minute, on a working day, while you are on site with your hands full.
- None of this is a fourth service to buy. Google's own guide says the best practices for search still apply, because its AI answers run on its ordinary ranking systems.
Where else does she answer?
The phone is one of seven. Architects and homeowners with drawings almost always send an email, and that is the same receptionist reading it.
The AI receptionist
All seven channels, and what she covers on each one. See the AI receptionist
A website for your trade
The site that shows finished work rather than a stock kitchen. See details
Email answering
Where the drawings and the specifications arrive. See details
What else is worth reading?
Every page here answers one question properly rather than skimming five. These are the others, and each one says what it is before you click it.
AI receptionist for cleaning companies
Most enquiries are one question: can you do Tuesdays. She answers it, takes the address and the hours, and the job reaches your rota.
AI receptionist for decorators
You are up a ladder in a front room with a brush in your hand. She answers, takes the rooms and the timescale, and books the look round.
Foothold AI: websites and AI for local service businesses
A website that gets found, a back office that runs the day, and an app for your team. From £295 to set up and £99 a month. Suffolk based, UK wide.
Where we work: Suffolk and north Essex
Twenty towns across Suffolk and north Essex, from Sudbury. Most are twenty or thirty minutes away, and the person who builds your site comes out.
What were the four calls you missed on Thursday?
You cannot answer that, and that is the whole problem. One of them a year is a job you never knew existed.
Twenty minutes with Chad. Nothing to pay and nothing to sign. The whole receptionist, and all seven channels, are on the AI receptionist page.