AI receptionist for landscapers and gardeners. You are behind a mower.
The first warm weekend in March everybody looks out of the window at the same time, and your phone goes all week while you are wearing ear defenders. Carrie answers every one, takes the address, the size of the garden and whether they want it once or every fortnight, and the round gets filled while you are cutting.
The spring decides the year. Missing calls in April is not the same as missing calls in November.
How does an AI receptionist work for a gardener?
An AI receptionist answers what you cannot hear, works out whether it is a one-off tidy or a regular slot, and builds the round instead of a list of numbers. The same receptionist answers for every trade and local service we work with, tuned to the work.
Ear defenders and a ride-on
You could not hear a fire alarm, never mind a phone in your back pocket. Between eight and five in April you are effectively unreachable, and those are the weeks that matter.
Carrie works out what kind of customer it is
Front, back or both. Roughly how big. Is there access down the side or through the house. Do you want it once to get it back under control, or every fortnight. Is there anything to take away.
The work lands as a round, not a pile
Regulars grouped by where they are, so a Tuesday is one village rather than four. One-offs slotted where there is room. All of it in front of you at five o'clock instead of thirty numbers.
The first warm week
Second week of March, it hits sixteen degrees on the Saturday, and by Wednesday you have had thirty-one calls. You cut all week with the defenders on and rang back what you could in the evenings.
You picked up eleven customers out of thirty-one, and you have absolutely no idea whether the other twenty were regulars or one-off tidies, because a gardener who does not ring back by Thursday in March has been replaced by Friday.
Answered, that same week gives you all thirty-one written up by the Wednesday teatime. Nineteen wanted a regular fortnightly slot, which is the difference between a good year and a hard one, and eleven of those are within a mile of each other on the Halstead side.
Eight wanted a one-off clearance, which is spring money. Four wanted something you do not do, and you found that out without driving anywhere.
What gardeners and landscapers ask
Mostly about the spring, about whether it can tell a regular from a one-off, and about the winter, which is the half nobody plans for.
Can it cope with the spring rush?
That is the week it is bought for. Thirty calls on a Wednesday all get answered at the same time, and none of them hears an engaged tone or a voicemail.
Your year is decided in the spring. Losing the enquiries that arrive in those weeks is the difference between a full round and a thin one.
Does it know a regular customer from a one-off?
It asks straight out, because for you they are two different businesses. A fortnightly slot is worth far more than a one-off tidy over the years, and the two want completely different conversations.
Where somebody says one-off, she asks whether they would want it keeping on top of afterwards, which is where a good proportion of a round comes from.
What does she get me before I price a garden?
The size, the access and a photograph if they will send one. That is enough for you to say a range or to book a look.
What about access? Half my jobs turn out to have no side gate.
She asks. Down the side, through the house, or is it a rear garden with no access at all. It is two seconds on the phone and it is the thing that turns a booked job into a wasted trip.
Same with what they want taking away, because that decides whether the trailer comes.
I want to fill the winter. Can it help with that?
That is the argument nobody makes to a gardener and it is the one worth most. Hedges, turfing, fencing, clearance and planting are winter work, and they are sold in the summer to people who are already your customers.
Every enquiry she takes is written down with what they wanted, so in September you have a list of people to ring rather than a hope.
Does it answer in the winter when I am not working?
Yes, at the same speed. A gardener who answers in January is a rarity and it is worth being. The person ringing in January is usually planning something big.
Can it deal with commercial? Some of my work is grounds maintenance.
Yes, and those calls are worth separating, because a management company asking about a communal area is a contract rather than a job. She takes who they are, which site, how often and whether it goes out to tender.
What about the ones who want their trees doing?
She asks what it is and how big. Anything beyond what you take on is sorted out on the phone rather than in somebody's garden, so you get the ones you can do, described properly.
I work on my own. Is this too much for a one-man round?
A one-man round is exactly who loses the most in March, because there is nobody else to pick up the phone. When you are on a mower you are not answering it.
Does my number change?
No. Everything already printed stays right.
How long to set up?
Twenty minutes, and best done before February. Exactly what you take on, how far you travel, whether you take waste away, and what you want asked. Then it goes live.
Will an assistant send us regulars rather than one-offs?
People ask an assistant who does garden maintenance near them, and the reply comes back with names in it. Google writes the same sort of answer above the blue links, so it reaches people who have never opened an assistant at all.
- Regular round or one-off tidy is the fact that decides your year. A page saying you take fortnightly customers, and what a round costs, sorts the enquiries before they arrive.
- March decides it and March is when you cannot answer. The week the weather turns is the week the calls come and the week you are out cutting all day.
- None of it is a fourth service. Google's own guide says the best practices for search still apply, because its AI answers are built on its ordinary ranking systems.
Where else does she answer?
The phone is one of seven. A lot of garden enquiries arrive as a photograph on Facebook, and that is the same receptionist.
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 the garden rather than the company. See details
Facebook Messenger
Where a lot of local garden work actually starts. 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 physios and instructors
You are with somebody for an hour and that is exactly when the phone goes. She answers, takes the booking, and never interrupts the session.
AI receptionist for plumbers
No heating at ten at night and they ring three firms. The one who answers gets the job. She answers every call, at any hour, and writes it up.
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.
How full is the round, honestly?
If there are gaps, they were made in March, by a phone nobody could hear.
Twenty minutes with Chad. Nothing to pay and nothing to sign. The whole receptionist, and all seven channels, are on the AI receptionist page.