Emergency or routine
Asking the two or three questions that separate water on the floor from a dripping tap, and escalating the first straight to you.
TRADE FRONT DESK
AI receptionist for plumbers, electricians, HVAC and roofers
You cannot answer the phone from under a sink or on a roof. An AI receptionist on WhatsApp catches the enquiry, works out whether it is an emergency or a quote, gets the address and the details, and books the visit, so the job is still there when you climb down.
Send your website. See Elily answer as your business.
The short version
- Trade enquiries are lost to voicemail more than to competitors' prices.
- Sorting emergency from routine is the single most valuable thing to automate in this trade.
- Customers can send a photo of the problem into the same thread, so it is waiting when you look.
- Call-out charges and area coverage answered up front save the visits that were never going to work.
Voicemail is where trade work goes to die
Someone with a leak calls three numbers in five minutes and books whoever answers. It is not a considered purchase; it is panic with a phone. If you are under a sink, you lose it, and you never even knew it happened.
The old fix was an answering service that took a name and number, which turns one missed call into two phone calls later. The customer has usually solved the problem by then.
A messaging receptionist works better here because it can finish something. It can establish that the leak is active, that the address is in your area, that you charge a call-out fee, and that you can be there Thursday morning, all while you are still working.
The trade name changes by country and the problem does not. Plumbers, sparkies, HVAC engineers, roofers and tradies of every kind lose the same enquiries for the same reason: the phone rings while both hands are busy.
What it handles for a trade business
Are you in my area
Answered from your own coverage list, which stops the quotes that were never going to happen.
Call-out and hourly charges
Your published rates, stated the same way every time, before anyone books a visit they did not expect to pay for.
Photos of the problem
Customers can send a picture into the same WhatsApp thread. When you pick the conversation up, the photo is already there.
Booking the visit
Offering real availability from your calendar, including the window rather than a precise minute, and confirming it.
Job status questions
Where the part is, when you are coming back, what happens next. The questions that eat an evening.
The emergency rule is the one to get right
Every trade has a line that must not be crossed by software. Gas smells, water near electrics, exposed live wiring, structural damage: these need a person, and in some cases they need the customer to call an emergency line rather than wait for you.
So the first thing to configure is not the price list. It is the exact wording that triggers an immediate handover, what the customer is told in the meantime, and what happens when it is two in the morning.
Get that right and the rest is comfortable. Quotes, area checks, availability and job status are ordinary front-desk work, and there is a lot of it.
A sensible setup for a small trade business
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List what you do and do not do
Including the jobs you turn down, so the receptionist can decline politely instead of booking you into something you hate.
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Write your coverage area and call-out terms
Postcodes or districts, the call-out charge, minimum charges, and whether quotes are free.
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Define the emergency triggers
The words and situations that mean stop, hand over now, and what the customer should do while they wait.
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Connect the calendar you actually use
With realistic visit windows and travel time, so an offered slot is one you can keep.
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Test it on last week's calls
Especially the ones that came in at seven in the morning and the ones where the customer was not sure what was wrong.
Stop losing the job to voicemail
Send Elily your website on WhatsApp. She reads your services, your rates and your hours and answers as your business, so the enquiry that arrives while you are on site is still a job when you finish.
QUESTIONS BEFORE YOU START
Common questions
Can an AI receptionist tell an emergency from a routine job?
It can ask the questions you decide separate the two and escalate immediately when the answers match your emergency rules. The rules are yours to set, and the safe default is that anything ambiguous is escalated to a person rather than booked.
Can customers send photos of the problem?
Yes. WhatsApp is a messaging channel, so a customer can send a photo straight into the thread. It sits in the conversation for whoever picks it up, which is usually faster than describing a leak in words.
Will it quote a price for a job?
It should quote what you publish, such as a call-out charge or an hourly rate, and say that the job price depends on what is found. Quoting a repair sight unseen is how arguments start on the doorstep.
Does it work for a one-person business?
That is the clearest case for it, because there is nobody else to answer while you work. The Free plan covers a meaningful number of AI replies each month with no expiry, which is enough to see whether it catches work you were losing.
KEEP READING
Where this goes next
THE NEXT MESSAGE CAN BE HERS
Catch the job from the top of the ladder.
Send Elily your website on WhatsApp. She answers, checks the area, explains the call-out charge and books the visit while you finish the one you are on.
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