AI receptionist for plumbers and heating engineers. Only one of them can wait.
A burst pipe and a bathroom quote ring exactly the same. Carrie answers both, works out which is which while they are still talking, and only wakes you for the one that cannot wait. The other is written up and sat there in the morning with everything you need to price it.
She reads your Gas Safe number out when somebody asks for it, because it is on your record and it is the thing they were told to check.
How does an AI receptionist work for a plumber?
An AI receptionist answers everything, asks the questions that separate a leak from a quote, and only interrupts you for the ones you said you wanted interrupting for. The same receptionist answers for every trade and local service we work with, and the questions she asks change with the work.
The phone rings while you are under a sink
Both hands wet, an isolator half turned and somebody's kitchen floor up. There is no version of that where you take the call, and the person ringing does not know that.
Carrie finds out which kind of job it is
Is water still coming out. Have you got heat and hot water or neither. Can you get to the stopcock. Or, if it is the other sort: which room, what suite, when were you thinking.
You get woken for one and not the other
The leak reaches your phone straight away with the address on it. The bathroom is sat in the morning, written up, ready to price without ringing them back to ask the basics.
The first cold week
The cold arrives on the Sunday night and by Monday dinnertime you have had nineteen calls. You answered six of them, because you spent the day on your knees in front of boilers that had not run since March.
The other thirteen got a ringtone. You know from every other year that maybe four of them were no heat and the rest wanted a service, and you have no way of knowing which four.
With her answering, that Monday reads differently by teatime. Nineteen answered, four flagged as no heat with no hot water, one of them an elderly customer in Long Melford, which she told you about within the minute.
Eleven services booked into the fortnight, and four people who wanted a price on a new boiler, written up with the make, the age and whether the flue is on an outside wall.
What plumbers and heating engineers ask
Nearly all of them come back to the same worry: will it call something an emergency that is not one, or worse, miss one that is.
How does it know a leak from somebody wanting a quote?
It asks. Is water coming out now, is it coming through a ceiling, have you got heat and hot water, is there anybody vulnerable in the house. Those four answers sort almost every call on their own, and they are the same four you would ask.
Where it is not sure, it treats it as urgent and tells you. Being got out of bed for something that could have waited is annoying. The other way round costs you a customer and a ceiling.
Will it tell people I am Gas Safe registered?
Yes, and it reads out your actual registration number, because that is the thing a customer has been told to check before they let anybody near a boiler. It comes off your own record rather than being typed by anybody.
Every scheme she names is one you actually hold. Manufacturer approvals have their own registers, so a customer can check whichever ones you have.
Can it tell somebody how to turn their water off?
It can ask whether they know where the stopcock is and get them to look, which stops a lot of damage before anybody arrives. That is asking a question, not giving advice.
Anything on a gas appliance waits for you, because it needs somebody who can see it. Everything before that point is already done, so you walk in knowing what you are looking at.
I do landlord certificates. Can it book those?
Those are the calls that suit it best, because there is no urgency and there is a date. She takes the property address, whose it is, when the last one was done and whether there is a tenant to arrange access with, and it lands in the diary rather than on a scrap of paper.
What about the ones who ring at midnight and are not really urgent?
They still get answered, which is the point: somebody who feels ignored at midnight tells people about it. She takes the details, tells them when you work, and the job is waiting for you in the morning. You are not woken up.
Do I have to change my number?
No. Everything on your van, your website and your Google listing stays exactly as it is.
What happens when I am already out on an emergency and another one comes in?
You get told, with the address and how far it is, so you can decide. That is a decision only you can make and she does not make it for you. What she does do is keep the second customer informed instead of leaving them wondering whether anybody is coming.
Can it take photos? People try to send me pictures of the boiler badge.
Yes, on WhatsApp, on a text or through your website, and the picture stays with the job. The badge photograph is the single most useful thing a customer can send you, because the make and the model decide what you put in the van.
WhatsApp answering covers that channel on its own.
Does it work for a two-van firm as well as a one-man band?
Yes, and it gets more useful with two, because somebody has to decide who goes where. Every job arrives written up in one place rather than half of them being on one phone and half on another.
What does she get me before I set off?
The make, the model, the fault code and what they can hear. That is the difference between driving out blind and driving out with the part.
The price and the diagnosis stay yours. A boiler swap depends on the flue, the gas run, the pipework and what is in the loft. A number guessed on the phone is an argument on the day.
How long before it is answering?
It is set up with you, not handed over. We go through what counts as an emergency for you, what you want asked before you set off, and exactly how far you travel. Then you hear the first call yourself.
Does an assistant know what we count as an emergency?
People describe the symptom to an assistant now rather than searching for a trade, and the reply comes back with a name and a number. What it cannot tell them is whether you would turn out for their particular problem at six in the morning.
- Say what an emergency means to you, and what it costs at night. No heat with a baby in the house, or water coming through a ceiling: written down, they can be matched.
- The first cold week is when both halves matter at once. You are named more often and you can answer less often, and one without the other is a wasted day.
- It is the same work as ordinary search. Google's own guide says its AI answers are rooted in the ranking systems it already runs, so there is nothing extra to buy.
Where else does she answer?
The phone is one of seven, and for this trade the other six matter more than most. A bathroom enquiry often starts as a message rather than a call.
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 takes the enquiry in the first place, built for heating work. See details
One instant reply, and it takes the photograph of the problem with it. 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 roofers
One windy night and the phone goes forty times. She answers all forty, takes the address and the photo, and sorts the leaks from the quotes.
AI receptionist for salons and barbers
A missed call is an empty chair, and that hour never comes back. She answers while your hands are full and takes the booking.
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 did the first cold week cost you?
Not the jobs you did. The ones that rang while you were doing them, and went to whoever picked up next.
Twenty minutes with Chad. Nothing to pay and nothing to sign. The whole receptionist, and all seven channels, are on the AI receptionist page.