After-Hours AI Receptionist
This is the single highest-ROI workflow in the Plumbing Snapshot for GHL.
The AI receptionist picks up every call your shop receives — whether at 9 AM Tuesday or 3 AM Sunday — and handles it the way your best dispatcher would: polite, calm, fast, and accurate. The economics are simple: residential homeowners call 3 plumbers when their water heater fails. The shop that picks up first wins the job 70% of the time. The shop that goes to voicemail loses.
What the receptionist does
- Picks up in 1 ring — voice + SMS channel, both wired
- Identifies your shop by name in your shop’s voice (we tune this during install)
- Asks 3 qualifying questions:
- Is the water shut off?
- Do you smell gas?
- Is water actively flooding the property?
- Routes severity:
- True emergency → escalates to your on-call phone, 90-second retries through the rotation
- Non-emergency → books into your next-available dispatch slot, sends confirmation SMS
- Quote request → captures details, routes to your follow-up sequence
- Texts the caller an acknowledgement so they know you’ve got it
- Logs everything to your GHL customer record
How is this different from an answering service?
Answering services pick up. They do not qualify, they do not dispatch, they do not book. They bill you $1.50–$3.00 per call regardless of outcome. The AI receptionist costs a fraction of that, qualifies the call, dispatches the right tech, and books the appointment automatically.
Most shops we install for replace their answering service within 30 days.
Compliance
The receptionist only sends SMS to inbound callers who provided their number for the express purpose of service — TCPA-friendly. STOP keywords are honored automatically. A2P 10DLC registered for you free during installation.
Gas-leak edge case
The receptionist’s first response to a gas-leak callback is: “Please leave the property immediately and call your utility’s emergency line.” Then it captures contact info and escalates to your on-call. We do not give plumbing advice to gas-leak callers — that’s a safety standard, not a software feature.