You are the sales team, the scheduler and the wrench. The phone does not care.
A small business misses calls for one reason: the person who answers them is also the person doing the work. Nobody is being careless. You cannot hold a phone and a torque wrench at the same time, and the caller with a real job does not wait — they press the next name on the list.
Hear it before you read another word. Dial (314) 784-8835. It answers right now: an A.I. voice, the same one that would answer your phone. The demo has no calendar or text line behind it, so it takes the job and hands it on; yours books and confirms.
The call you are not there for.
You are under a sink with both hands full when the phone goes. You let it ring, because the alternative is dropping what you are doing on a job someone is already paying for. At six you see one missed call and no voicemail. That was a job. You will never know which one.
Three calls a small business gets, and what happens to them.
What it gets out of the caller.
- 01
A name and a number, read back digit by digit, because for a one-van business a wrong digit is the whole job
- 02
What the work actually is, in their words, so you can price it in your head before you ring back
- 03
Whether it can wait, which on a small business is the difference between an evening off and a call-out
- 04
The address, and whether anyone is there now
- 05
Where they found you, so you stop guessing which advert is working
Why a general answering service loses this call.
- 01
It charges you for a wrong number.
Per-call and per-minute answering bills a hang-up, a supplier and a booked job identically. For a business doing forty calls a month, a quarter of which are not work, that is a bill built on the wrong thing.
- 02
It takes a message you already had.
A message that says call John back is a missed call with extra steps. The useful version carries the job, the address, the urgency and a number read back — everything you would have asked if you had picked up.
- 03
It needs you free for a week to set up.
Most services want a scoping call, a script workshop and a contract before anything answers. A small business does not have an afternoon for that, which is why the phone stays unanswered for another year.
- 04
It cannot tell an emergency from an enquiry.
For a one-person operation this is the entire product. Ringing you at nine at night about a price question is as bad as not ringing you about a burst pipe.
What it costs.
There is no published price yet. The first five businesses run it free for thirty days, with no card; before day thirty we tell you the monthly price, and you decide whether to keep it.
Questions small businesses ask.
How much does an answering service cost for a small business?
The market runs $0.75 to $2.00 a minute, $1.00 to $11.50 a call, or $135 to $600 a month for a bundle of minutes — and the overage rate is the part worth reading, because a storm week is where those bills land. Ours is a flat monthly fee, so a wrong number costs what a quiet day costs. The first five companies get thirty days free, with no card field anywhere on this site.
Can I hear it before I commit to anything?
Dial (314) 784-8835. It is live, it answers at any hour, and nobody is told you called. That is the whole test — an answering service is a voice, and no feature table tells you whether it sounds like someone you would put in front of your customers.
Is it worth it if I only get twenty calls a month?
Probably not, and we would rather say so now than take up a month of your time. Under about fifty calls a month there is not enough leaking to pay for a fix, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling. Come back when the phone starts beating you.
What happens out of hours?
The same thing that happens at eleven in the morning. It answers, works out whether it can wait, and either raises the job for the morning or transfers it to the number you nominate. It will not pretend you are open when you are not.
Do I have to change my phone number?
No. Your existing number forwards to it, and you choose when — every call, only the ones you have not picked up within a few rings, or only outside your hours.
Built for the call your trade actually gets.
A burst pipe, a knocked-out tooth and a conflict check are not the same call and cannot share one script. Each of these is the same service with the questions your callers are actually asked.
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