AI Answering Service for Contractors
Nobody books a plumber by leaving a voicemail.
LumisReach answers while your crews are under a sink, sorts the emergency from the estimate, and puts the visit on the board with the address and access details already taken.
- Answers
- first ring, nights & weekends
- Books
- your calendar, your windows
- Quotes
- only what you approve
- Emergency
- warm transfer to on-call
- Follow-up
- open estimates, on a cadence
- Overflow & after-hours
- Job qualification
- Scheduling
- Estimate follow-up
- Permits & supply houses
What stops happening
- 0Calls that ring outOn site, after hours, storm week
- 24/7Booking coverageSunday morning included
- 100%Of open estimates workedOn the cadence you set
- 1Number to publishOverflow and after-hours behind it
The four calls you're guaranteed to miss
Every one of them is a homeowner who will call the next company on the search results roughly eleven seconds later.
- TodayWith the agent behind the line
- Mid-jobEvery tech is on a roof and the phone rings outAnswered on the first ring, job type and address captured
- After fiveThe office is closed exactly when people notice the leakSame greeting, same booking rules, no evening shift
- Storm weekVolume triples for three days and the overflow is unhireableCalls answered in parallel instead of one at a time
- Sunday 7amAn answering service takes a message and loses the jobQualified, priced at your after-hours rate, and dispatched
- Old estimatesA folder nobody has time to reopenText, then call, then a final check-in, on your schedule
- EmergenciesBuried in the same queue as a quote requestEscalated on your trigger words, warm-transferred to on-call
One call, start to booked
The whole job of a good dispatcher, run the same way at 7am on a Saturday as at 2pm on a Tuesday.
How the agents work →- 01
Answer
Picks up under your company greeting, finds out what's actually happening, and tells the homeowner what happens next.
- 02
Sort
Emergency, standard call-out, or estimate: decided from what the caller describes, using the trigger language you define.
- 03
Qualify
Job type, property details, access, urgency and whether it's inside your service area, before anything touches the schedule.
- 04
Book
Onto real availability, respecting service windows, job durations and territory rules, then confirmed by text with the arrival window.
A Saturday at 7:50am
- Agent
Hallman Plumbing, this line is recorded. What's going on?
- Caller
There's water coming out from under the water heater.
- Agent
Okay. Is it still filling, or has it stopped?
- Caller
Still going.
- Agent
The shut-off is usually a valve on the pipe above the tank. Turn it clockwise if you can reach it safely. I'm putting you on the emergency board now. Is the address still 14 Colter Road?
- Caller
Yes.
- Agent
Good. Weekend call-out is the flat rate listed on our site, and Dev can be there inside two hours. Want me to confirm it?
- Caller
Please.
Dev gets the address, the access notes and the recording before he's in the van, and the job is on the board without anyone in the office being awake.
What it takes off the office
The agent runs your dispatch rules, not a generic script: different trades, different urgency language, different after-hours pricing.
Overflow and after-hours
Behind your existing line during the day and the whole line at night, so one published number covers both without a second answering service.
Emergency triage
Urgent language triggers the escalation path you define, with a warm transfer to the on-call tech and the address already captured.
Scheduling
Books onto the connected calendar against real crew availability, honoring windows, durations and territory rather than promising something you can't run.
Estimate follow-up
Open quotes worked on your cadence: a text with the number, a call to handle the objection, then scheduling options or a clean close-out.
Confirmations and reminders
Tomorrow's visits confirmed the night before, so the crew isn't driving to a house where nobody's home.
Seasonal and maintenance work
Service agreements, tune-up reminders and repeat-customer outreach run continuously instead of when someone finds an afternoon.
The desks that keep a crew standing around
Half of a lost day isn't the job; it's waiting on somebody else's phone queue to tell you whether you can start.
- Building depts.Permit state, plan-review progress and inspection slots, in whichever jurisdiction the job happens to sit in
- Utility locatesTicket status, positive-response confirmation and re-marks chased before a crew puts a shovel in the ground
- Supply housesStock, price and will-call readiness checked across every branch in range at once, not one call at a time
- ManufacturersWarranty claim state, RA numbers and part lead times pinned down before you quote a customer a date
- AdjustersApproval and supplement status on restoration and home-warranty work, chased to an actual decision
- Property managersAccess, scope sign-off and approval on multi-unit and commercial jobs, logged against the work order
The limits you set
It quotes only what you allow
Flat-rate diagnostics, trip charges, published after-hours rates. Anything outside that list gets a visit rather than a number the tech has to walk back.
It books what you can actually run
Service windows, job durations and territory rules are enforced at booking time, so the schedule stays something a crew can physically drive.
Everything is on tape
Recording and transcript against every job, so a dispute about what was promised is thirty seconds of listening rather than an argument.
Asked before signing
01Does it work as an after-hours answering service for HVAC, plumbing and roofing companies?
Yes. It answers 24/7, including nights, weekends and while every tech is on a job, and it can take many calls at once, so nobody hears a busy tone during a storm or a heat wave.
After-hours calls follow their own rules: emergencies are transferred to whoever is on call, and everything else is booked into the next open service window with a confirmation text.
02How much does an AI answering service for contractors cost?
AI voice is billed at $0.20 per minute, by the second, after your plan's included minutes, and texts are $0.012 per segment. There are no setup fees.
Compared with a full-time dispatcher or a per-call answering service, most shops pay for a fraction of the hours. Current plans are on the pricing page.
03How is this different from an answering service?
An answering service takes a message and hands you a callback slip. This qualifies the job, quotes what you've approved, and puts the visit on the schedule before hanging up.
You also get the recording and the transcript on every call, which an answering service will never give you.
04Can it book against real crew availability?
Yes. It books onto the connected calendar and respects the service windows, job durations and territory rules you configure.
Emergency and after-hours work can run on a completely different rule set from standard scheduling.
05Will it handle the permit office for us?
Yes. It calls the building department, works the phone tree, holds, and comes back with plan-review status or a booked inspection, including re-dialling the next morning for offices with short hours.
The same agent runs locate follow-ups and checks stock across your supply houses, so nobody on the crew is doing it from the truck.
06What happens with old estimates?
They get worked on the cadence you set: text with the quote, a call to handle price questions, then scheduling options.
Estimates that are genuinely dead get closed out, so your pipeline number stops lying to you.
07Can it tell an emergency from a quote request?
It sorts on the language you define as urgent for your trade, and when it isn't sure, it treats the call as urgent and escalates rather than guessing downward.
Escalation is a warm transfer to whoever is on call, with the address and the description already captured.
Keep reading
Start with the hours you already lose
Turn it on for evenings and weekends only, and count the jobs on the board Monday morning. Daytime overflow is a switch after you've seen the first week.