The van is not where the phone should be.
Trades lose work in the gap between jobs. Somebody rings while you are under a sink, it goes to voicemail, and they call the next number because a leak does not wait. By the time you check, the job is done by somebody else.
The calls this is about
A burst pipe at 11pm, from somebody who needs to be told what to do right now
A boiler quote request while you are on a roof
A landlord with six properties who wants one number that always answers
Three voicemails, none of which say what the job actually is
None of these show up in a report. That is what makes them expensive.
What it will not do
The questions it refuses to answer.
Every assistant is described as careful. Here is the actual list for a trades business, because the rules are written into the code rather than asked for politely in a prompt, so publishing them costs us nothing.
“Just give me a number for a new boiler.”
It will not quote. It captures the job parameters and books the estimate instead, so you price the work after seeing it rather than over the phone.
“Can I turn the gas back on myself?”
Hard stop. No guidance on gas, electrical, structural or water safety, ever. If the caller is describing an emergency, the agent gives them your emergency instruction and routes them to a person immediately.
“Will this be up to code?”
Not answered by an assistant. It goes to you, because a wrong answer there is a failed inspection or worse.
Every refusal ends the same way: it says plainly that it needs a person, and puts them through. It does not hedge, soften, or answer most of the question and stop.
Where we would start
With Communications.
In trades the first company that answers usually gets the job. That is the whole market, and no other department competes with it.
Applications
What the agents do for a trades business.
Specific work, not capabilities. These are the jobs the departments take on once they are running.
Communications
Emergencies routed before anything else
The agent works down a ladder and an emergency sits at the top of it. The caller gets your emergency instruction, then a person, without waiting through a booking flow.
Communications
Job details captured properly for the estimate
What the job is, the property, access, when they need it, and their number read back. An estimate you can schedule beats a voicemail saying it is about a boiler.
Communications
Sales calls ended without reaching you
Somebody selling you leads or marketing is classified as a pitch and ended politely. It never becomes a message you have to listen to between jobs.
Sales
Quotes chased so they do not go cold
The estimate you gave three weeks ago gets a follow-up in your name, and stops the moment they reply. Most quiet quotes were never chased rather than refused.
Presence and reputation
Local listings that win the map
Most trades work is found on a map rather than a website. Listings, hours, service area and reviews kept accurate, and every review answered.
Not a trades business?
We build custom agents and custom solutions.
These pages exist because we launched into these trades first, not because the work only fits them. Most of what we build is shaped around one business rather than picked off a list.
A custom engagement starts the same way: we learn how your business actually works, write down the facts an agent is allowed to state, and decide what it must refuse. That last part is the work. Every industry has questions where a confident wrong answer costs more than no answer at all, and finding yours is the first thing we do.
Custom websites, custom agents, custom integrations into whatever you already run. If your business is not on this site, that is not a no. It is a conversation.
Tell us what you runWhat it costs
Published, not quoted.
This is the usual shape for a trades business. Your own numbers come from the call, but they start here rather than somewhere you cannot see.
| Line | Setup | Monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Custom website | $3,750 | $350 |
| Communications, attached | $1,200 | $450 |
| Site Care | included | included |
| Lead Ledger and monthly report | included | included |
| Total | $4,950 | $800 |
Plus your own call minutes, roughly $60 a month at 200 minutes, billed to your card by the phone provider. A 24 hour answering service runs considerably more and still cannot book into your calendar.
What people ask.
- Does it answer at 3am?
- Yes, the agent runs around the clock. Our support does not: that is business days, next business day response. We will not contract to a 24 hour human SLA we cannot staff, and anyone who does is either lying or charging you for it.
- What does it do with an emergency?
- Gives the caller the emergency instruction from your own facts, then routes to a person. It does not attempt to diagnose the problem or advise them on gas, water or electrical safety, which is a hard stop regardless of how simple the question sounds.
- Can it quote simple jobs at least?
- No, and this is deliberate. Once an assistant quotes anything, every caller believes the number, including the ones where it was wrong. It captures the job and books the estimate.
- We already have an answering service.
- Then the comparison is what happens to the message. A service takes a name and a number; this captures the job parameters, classifies the call, books it where it can, and puts it in one ledger you can actually work from. If yours already does that, keep it.
Thirty minutes, and we tell you which one to fix first.
It is usually not the expensive one. If nothing we do would help your trades business, we would rather say so on the call than build you something that does not.