AI receptionist for roofers. Then everybody rings at once.
The morning after a gale is the busiest phone day you get and the worst day you have ever had for answering it, because you are already up on somebody's roof in the wind. Carrie answers every one, takes the address and the photograph, and sorts the water coming in from the ones who can wait for spring.
A lot of them will try to send you a picture of a stain on a ceiling. That picture stays with the job.
How does an AI receptionist work for a roofer?
An AI receptionist answers every call in the spike, gets a photograph out of them while they are still stood under the stain, and hands you a list sorted by how wet it is. The same receptionist works for every trade and local service we look after, with the questions changed to suit.
The spike lands on the worst possible day
Everybody who lost a tile rings the same morning. You are strapped on somewhere with both hands busy and the wind still up. One person cannot answer them all.
Carrie asks for the picture
Where is the mark, is water still coming in, is it a bedroom ceiling or the garage, how old is the roof, is it a bungalow or three storeys. Then: send me a photograph of it.
You get a list in the right order
Water coming in now at the top, with the pictures. Missing tiles and gutters underneath. Quotes for a full roof at the bottom, where they belong, ready for when it settles down.
The morning after
The wind gets up on the Thursday night, and by nine on Friday your phone has rung nineteen times. You are on a scaffold in Halstead making a ridge safe, and the answer to every one of those calls is the same ringtone.
You get down at two, look at your phone, and there are thirty-one missed numbers. You start ringing back and the first four have already had somebody out.
The version where she is answering: at two you look at your phone and there is a list. Six with water actively coming in, each with a photograph, two of them within a mile of where you are stood. Eleven missing tiles and blown flashings that will keep until next week.
Fourteen who want a price on a whole roof, written up with the age, the pitch and the access, which is three weeks of work to quote when the weather breaks.
What roofers ask about it
Most of them are about the spike. Whether it really does answer them all at once, and whether the order it puts them in can be trusted.
Can it really answer a whole morning's calls at once?
Yes, all of them at the same time if that is how they land. There is no queue and there is no engaged tone, which matters more for this trade than for any other on our list, because your demand arrives in a lump.
A person in an office answers them one at a time, so the caller at the back of the queue waits or hangs up. That is the whole reason a storm morning costs a roofer money.
How does it know what is actually urgent?
It asks whether water is coming in now, whether it is going into a room somebody is using, whether there is anything electrical near it, and whether they have got buckets under it. Those four sort a storm morning almost perfectly.
Missing tiles with no water coming in are not an emergency and are not treated as one, which is what stops you driving across the county for something that will keep.
Will it get me a photograph?
It asks for one every time, because a picture of the ceiling from inside and, if they can safely get one, a picture of the roof from the garden, tells you more than five minutes of description. It arrives attached to the job rather than in a separate text you have to match up later.
Everybody is told to stay on the ground, and a picture from the garden is all she asks for.
Can it tell them what is wrong from the picture?
The diagnosis is the part people pay you for, and it stays yours. What she does is make sure the photograph is in front of you before you decide whether to drive out.
What about insurance work? People always ask.
She takes down that it is an insurance job, who the insurer is and whether they have a claim number, so you know before you ring back. Whether you take that work, and on what terms, is yours to decide and she does not commit you to anything.
Does it answer during the night in a storm?
Yes. Two in the morning with water coming through a bedroom ceiling is a real call and it is one of the ones worth being woken for. You set what is worth waking you for, and everything else is waiting at seven.
Half my quotes never come to anything. Does it help with that?
It gets you better ones. A quote enquiry that arrives with the age of the roof, the pitch, whether there is scaffold access and a photograph is a quote you can shape before you drive out, and the ones that were never real are visible before you have spent a morning on them.
What does she get me before I price a roof?
The age, the pitch, the access and a photograph. You know what you are quoting on before you leave.
The price stays yours, decided when you have seen the roof.
I work with one other bloke. Is this for firms bigger than that?
It is aimed at exactly your size. A firm with somebody in an office already has a way of coping with a storm morning. Two of you on a roof do not.
What happens the rest of the month, when it is quiet?
The same thing, on a normal week's calls instead of a whole morning's worth. The quiet weeks are when the big quotes come in, and those are the calls it is worst to miss.
How long does setting it up take?
Twenty minutes with you: what counts as an emergency for you, how far you travel, whether you do insurance work, and what you want asked before you set off. Then you hear the first call.
Do the AI answers say whether we come out in the weather?
The morning after a storm, people ask an assistant what to do about water coming in before they ring anybody. The reply weighs it up and names somebody, and Google writes the same kind of answer above the blue links.
- Making safe before quoting is the fact that wins that call. A page saying you will get a sheet on it today and price the repair afterwards answers what they are really asking.
- The rest is stated facts as well. The roof types you work on, whether scaffolding is included, your guarantee, and the towns you cover.
- On the morning it matters your phone is up a ladder with you. She answers all of them and sorts water coming in now from a tile off, so you come down to a list.
Where else does she answer?
The phone is one of seven, and for a roofer the picture channels matter more than for anybody: a photograph is the enquiry.
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 photograph with the enquiry. See details
WhatsApp answering
Where the picture of the ceiling usually arrives. 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 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.
AI receptionist for vets and opticians
Somebody frightened about their dog needs answering now, not at nine. She answers calmly, gets the detail, and knows when to fetch a person.
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 last gale actually pay you?
Not what it could have. What it did, after the ones you never rang back.
Twenty minutes with Chad. Nothing to pay and nothing to sign. The whole receptionist, and all seven channels, are on the AI receptionist page.