See how it works: Voice AI for Service Businesses hub with live demos, feature breakdown, and ROI calculator.
- The problem: Plumbing and HVAC companies miss 30-40% of after-hours calls. Each one is worth $300-$1,200.
- The old fix: Answering services cost $300-$800/month, answer slowly, make mistakes on your pricing, and cannot book jobs.
- The new fix: Voice AI answers in under 2 seconds, qualifies the emergency, books the job, dispatches your on-call tech, and sends an SMS confirmation - all without a human.
- Cost: $297-$497/month. Most companies recover the cost on the first call of the month.
- Setup time: 5-18 days depending on your dispatch software.
The math on missed after-hours calls
Here is a calculation I do with every plumbing and HVAC owner I talk to. Take the average value of an emergency call (burst pipe, no heat, AC out in summer). Typically $400-$800 for the diagnostic and first repair. Multiply it by how many after-hours calls you miss per month.
Most companies I work with are missing 8-15 calls per month after 6pm and on weekends. That is $4,000-$12,000 in revenue walking out the door every single month, not counting the repeat business you lost because that customer called the competitor who answered.
The worst part: your competitor does not need to be better than you. They just need to answer the phone.
Why answering services are not the answer
I have talked to dozens of plumbing and HVAC owners who tried the traditional answering service route. Here are the complaints I hear over and over:
- Speed: Calls go to a call center queue. Customers sit on hold for 90 seconds before a human picks up. In a plumbing emergency, that feels like forever.
- Accuracy: The agent reads from a script. They get your pricing wrong, promise things you do not offer, and take incomplete information. You show up to the job not knowing what you are walking into.
- No booking: They take a message. You call back in the morning. By then, the customer has already found someone else who could schedule them.
- Cost: $300-$800/month for a service that still loses you jobs.
- No analytics: You have no idea how many calls they handled, what customers said, or which calls converted to jobs.
What voice AI does differently
A voice AI agent answers your phone line in under 2 seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It sounds like a natural phone conversation - not a robot menu, not "press 1 for emergencies." It asks the right questions, qualifies the situation, and takes action.
Here is what a typical after-hours interaction looks like for a plumbing company:
Customer calls. AI answers immediately, introduces itself as your company's scheduling line. Asks what's happening. Customer says water is coming through the ceiling from the floor above. AI identifies this as an emergency, confirms the address, asks if they can shut off the main water supply (and walks them through it if not). Tells them an on-call tech will call them back within 15 minutes. Texts your on-call technician with the job details, customer name, address, and issue summary. Sends the customer an SMS confirmation with the tech's name and expected arrival window. Logs the full interaction in your CRM or job management software.
That whole sequence takes about 90 seconds. No hold music. No message-taking. No callback in the morning.
The 5 things voice AI handles for plumbing and HVAC
1. Emergency dispatch (after hours)
The AI qualifies whether the situation is a true emergency (water running, no heat below 40F, gas smell) vs. something that can wait for a scheduled appointment. For real emergencies, it immediately triggers your on-call dispatch workflow. This alone stops the bleeding on missed revenue.
2. Appointment booking (business hours overflow)
During business hours when your office is swamped, calls that would have gone to voicemail get answered. The AI checks your live calendar (connected to ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, Jobber, or your scheduling software) and books the appointment directly. Customer gets a confirmation, you get a booked job.
3. Estimate request intake
Customers calling for quotes get walked through a structured intake: what type of work, property type, location, timeline. You get a clean lead record with all the details needed to send an accurate estimate. No more "let me call them back to get the rest of the info."
4. Job status updates
"Is the tech still coming?" and "When will you have a part?" calls get answered automatically. The AI can pull status information from your job management system and give the customer a real update without tying up your team.
5. Review and follow-up requests
After a job closes, the AI can proactively call or text the customer to check satisfaction and request a Google review. Plumbing and HVAC companies live and die by local reviews. This is where you stop leaving them to chance.
The comparison that matters
| Feature | Answering Service | Voice AI Agent |
|---|---|---|
| Answer speed | 60-120 seconds | Under 2 seconds |
| Books appointments | No - takes messages | Yes - live calendar sync |
| Emergency dispatch | Leaves a message | Texts on-call tech immediately |
| Accurate pricing info | Often wrong | You control every word |
| Handles simultaneous calls | One at a time | Unlimited parallel calls |
| Call recording + transcripts | Rarely | Every call, searchable |
| CRM / job software sync | Manual or none | Automatic |
| Monthly cost | $300-$800 | $297-$497 |
Real scenario: what happens without voice AI on a Friday night
It's 9:15 PM on a Friday. Homeowner's water heater dies. They find you on Google, call your number. Gets voicemail. Hangs up. Calls the HVAC company listed below you. That company answers - actually, their voice AI answers in 2 seconds. Appointment booked for Saturday morning. Job value: $1,400 (heater replacement).
Monday morning you see a voicemail. By then the customer already has hot water again, and it's not from your company.
If you recover just 4 emergency calls per month that would have gone to voicemail - at $600 average job value - that's $2,400/month in recovered revenue against a $297-$497/month tool cost. Payback on the first call of the month.
Integrations: what works with what
The most common setups I deploy for plumbing and HVAC:
- ServiceTitan: Full two-way sync. AI reads your live availability, books jobs directly into ServiceTitan, creates customer records, logs calls.
- Housecall Pro: Appointment booking, customer creation, job notes. Works cleanly.
- Jobber: Quote request intake and appointment scheduling. SMS confirmation flows.
- Google Calendar / Simple setups: For smaller shops not using field service software yet - the AI can work with a shared calendar and text dispatch.
If you use a different system, I have integrated with most major platforms. The integration is the part of the build that takes the most time - typically 5-18 days total from kickoff to live calls.
What this costs and what you get
Our Voice AI for home services starts at $297/month for a fully configured agent that handles after-hours calls, emergency dispatch, and appointment booking. The $497/month plan adds appointment scheduling during business hours overflow, review collection, and full CRM integration.
There is no per-minute charge. No per-call charge. The agent can handle 50 simultaneous calls at 2am during a winter storm freeze without any degradation. That's a scenario where an answering service would either drop calls or charge you heavily for overflow volume.
Setup fee covers the build, integration work, voice configuration, and testing. Most clients are live within 2 weeks of signing.
The onboarding conversation I have with every plumbing or HVAC client
I always start by auditing what is actually happening with after-hours calls right now. Most owners do not know their actual miss rate because voicemail does not show you who called and hung up before leaving a message. Sometimes we run two weeks of tracking before building - just to establish a baseline so we can measure the actual lift.
The build itself involves three things:
- Voice and persona: What does your company sound like? Friendly and casual or professional and efficient? What is the agent's name? This matters more than you'd think - it is your brand on the phone.
- Call flows: Emergency vs. appointment vs. estimate vs. existing customer. Each flow has its own logic.
- Integration: Connecting to your scheduling software, your dispatch process, and your CRM.
Then we do test calls. A lot of them. We simulate the weird scenarios: customer who is panicking, customer who gives the wrong address, customer who wants to haggle on pricing at 11pm. The agent needs to handle all of it gracefully.
Frequently asked questions
Will customers know they are talking to an AI?
If asked, the agent discloses. But most customers do not ask during an emergency call - they are focused on getting their problem solved. The average conversation is 90 seconds. Customers care that someone answered and that help is coming. The technology question is secondary.
What if someone has a complex question the AI cannot answer?
The agent has a fallback path for anything it cannot handle confidently. It can tell the customer it will have someone from your team call them back, and it sends you an alert. No customer gets stuck in a loop or abandoned.
Can we use it just for after-hours to start?
Yes. In fact, that is how most clients start. After-hours only is a clean, low-risk pilot. You run it for 30 days, see the call volume it captures, and then decide whether to expand to daytime overflow or other call types.
What about HVAC seasonal peak volume?
The agent scales to handle any volume. During a heat wave or freeze, you might get 40 calls in a 2-hour window. The agent handles all of them simultaneously. No queue, no hold time. This is actually when voice AI pays for itself most dramatically - the exact moment when your team is overwhelmed and calls are getting dropped.