An AI receptionist for home-service businesses, set up in your words: your trade, your service area, your service fee, what counts as an emergency. She books into your calendar and texts you what happened.
The demo answers for Saguaro Plumbing, a made-up shop in Phoenix, so you can call without bothering a real one. Lisa, the calendar and the texts are real, and she’s set up the same way for an HVAC company, an electrician or a roofer.
Within a minute of the call ending. Not a recording to listen to, the four things you need to act on.
To you, the owner
Saguaro Plumbing: new call !!! EMERGENCY - NOW Emergency Dan Herrera - (602) 555-0198 4120 E Cactus Rd, Phoenix Water heater failed, water in garage BOOKED: Thursday at 9:00 PM Call Dan back to confirm you’re on the way. (1.9 min call)
To the caller
Saguaro Plumbing: Emergency booked for Thursday at 9:00 PM. Name: Dan Herrera Address: 4120 E Cactus Rd, Phoenix Your number: (602) 555-0198 Mike will confirm. If anything above is wrong, reply to this message.
If a customer replies with a correction, it’s forwarded to you. If Lisa wasn’t sure of a name or a street, your text says so instead of guessing.
Setup is a thirty-minute call where I listen to how you actually answer the phone. What you do, what you never do, where you go, what you charge to come out, what you call an emergency, and the five questions people always ask you. That becomes Lisa’s job card.
This is Saguaro’s, the demo plumber. It’s the same file Lisa is running on right now, and this page is built from it. An HVAC company’s card has different questions on it; the shape is the same.
Honest list. The left column is running today for the demo line; the right is built in the order people ask for it.
Most of the damage a bad receptionist does is by saying yes. These are built in for every trade, not optional.
One business, one number, unlimited calls. Two at once if it comes to that. No contract.
One truck, one number.
Two to fifteen trucks.
Setup: free if you fill in the job card yourself, or $497 for the thirty-minute call where I build it with you. Fourteen days free either way, no contract, cancel any month.
| Calls you miss in a month while on a job | 20 |
| Callers who don’t call back or leave a message | 8 in 10 |
| Of those, ones that would have become a job | 1 in 3 |
| Average job, service fee included | $450 |
| Lost each month | ≈ $2,400 |
Those rates come from call-tracking studies of home-service businesses; your own numbers go in on the setup call. One saved emergency call covers the month.
Two to fifteen people, one business number, nobody sitting at a desk. Built for the US and Canada; it works anywhere with a phone line.
No. Your number stays on the truck. You set your phone to forward calls when you’re busy, when you don’t answer, or after hours, and Lisa picks up. Nobody sees a different number.
Call the demo and decide. Callers who ask are told it’s an AI. Most don’t ask; they want a plumber, not a conversation.
She takes the caller’s name and number and tells them you’ll call back. A Spanish-speaking version is next on the list; ask if you need it.
She takes the caller’s name and number and tells them you’ll call back. She never makes something up to close the call.
Your choice on the setup call. Either she puts the caller straight through to your phone, or she books the earliest slot and sends you an urgent text.
Google Calendar today. Jobber, Housecall Pro and ServiceTitan are next, in the order people ask for them.
Heinrich Viljoen, in Cape Town, South Africa. I build and set up each receptionist myself, and that’s why it costs $297 and not $500. Your calls are answered by software that doesn’t sleep; I answer email and WhatsApp through US business hours, which are my afternoon and evening. This is a young business; the demo line is how I earn your trust.
Call the demo line the way a customer would call you. If you’d want that answering your phone, email me and we set up a thirty-minute call.
Site Answered · Heinrich Viljoen, Cape Town, South Africa. Demo calls are recorded so I can improve Lisa; don’t share anything private on the demo line. South African businesses: WhatsApp me instead, here.