Wayne Conn Plumbing: How AI Handles 200+ Calls/Week

The Problem: Missed Calls = Lost Revenue

Wayne Conn runs a residential plumbing and heating company with 5 plumbers and 1 office manager. They're good at what they do — 4.8 stars on Google, 20+ years in business.

But they had a problem that was costing them serious money.

Emergency calls don't wait. When a customer has a burst pipe at 9pm, they don't leave a voicemail and wait until morning. They call the next plumber on Google. By the time Wayne checked voicemail the next day, the job was already done — by a competitor.

Wayne tried an answering service. $300/month for humans who took messages. The problem? They couldn't tell the difference between "I need a quote on a bathroom remodel" and "water is flooding my basement RIGHT NOW." His on-call plumber was getting woken up at 3am for non-emergencies.

The Math That Made It Urgent

• Average emergency call value: $800-$1,500
• Missed calls per week: 3-5
• Lost revenue: $3K-$5K per week
• Annual cost of the problem: $150K-$250K

The Solution: AI That Knows Plumbing Emergencies

We built an AI voice agent specifically trained to handle plumbing calls. Not a generic chatbot — a system that understands the difference between "my toilet is running" and "water is coming through my ceiling."

The Qualification Script

The AI asks 7 questions designed to identify true emergencies:

1. "What's going on? Describe the issue."
2. "Is water actively leaking right now?"
3. "Do you have a shut-off valve you can access?"
4. "Is this affecting your ability to use water in the home?"
5. "What's your address?"
6. "What's the best callback number?"
7. "Does this need someone tonight, or can it wait until morning?"

The Routing Logic

• Emergency (active leak/flood): AI immediately texts + calls the on-call plumber with customer details. Customer gets "Someone will call you back in 5 minutes."
• Urgent (no water/heat, but not flooding): First-available slot next morning, customer gets confirmation text
• Routine (quotes, maintenance): Scheduled during business hours, logged in CRM for office manager

The Results: 18 Days to Payback

After 90 days of running the system:

• Call capture rate: 60% → 100%
• Recovered revenue: $5,000/month in after-hours emergencies
• Time saved: 15 hours/week in dispatch coordination
• Customer satisfaction: 93% positive across 500+ AI-handled calls
• False emergency escalations: Down 85% (AI filters correctly)

Payback period: 18 days. The system cost $1,497 to set up + $297/month. Wayne recovered that in the first three weeks from calls that would have gone to competitors.

Why This Works for Home Services

Plumbing, HVAC, electrical, pest control — they all share the same problem:

• Emergencies happen at inconvenient times
• Customers won't wait
• Your competition is one Google search away
• Human answering services can't qualify properly

AI solves this because it never sleeps, never gets tired, and can be trained to ask exactly the right questions for YOUR business. Wayne's AI knows plumbing. An HVAC company's AI would know heating and cooling. Same technology, different expertise.

What We'd Do Differently

After running this system for 90+ days, a few lessons learned:

• Add Spanish language support earlier. Wayne's service area is 30% Spanish-speaking. We added it in month 2, should have done it day 1.
• Build the callback confirmation. When the on-call plumber calls back, having the AI send a "Wayne Conn is calling you now" text increases answer rates.
• Track the "almost emergencies." Some calls start as routine but escalate. Building a follow-up sequence for these catches problems before they become emergencies.