For plumbers
You can’t answer with both hands under a sink.
Plumbing is the trade where the caller is least willing to wait. Something is leaking, and they are working down the list until someone picks up.
- Price
- $50 a month, no contract.
- Your number
- Stays exactly as it is.
- Setup
- Two minutes. We do it.
- Reply time
- Seconds, not this evening.
01 The moment
Why plumbers miss calls
Not because you are careless with the phone. Because of where your hands are.
You are lying under a vanity with a basin wrench in one hand and a torch in your teeth. The phone goes in your pocket. By the time you are out from under there, back to the ute and washed up, it has been twenty minutes.
02 What they get
The text that goes out
Within seconds of the call dropping, in your words, with your name on it.
Your business
Hi, it’s Dave from Dave’s Plumbing — I’m on a job and can’t pick up. What’s happening and what suburb are you in? If it’s water going somewhere it shouldn’t, say “urgent” and I’ll ring you first.
The caller, a minute later
Hot water system’s died, no hot water at all. Northcote. Can you come today?
That reply is the job written down. You ring back knowing what it is, where it is and whether it is worth stopping for.
03 What changes
What it changes for plumbers
- 01
Urgent and not-urgent get sorted before you look
A burst flex hose and a dripping tap read the same in a call log — both are just a missed number. In a text thread the caller tells you which one it is, so you know whether to ring back from the ute or at the end of the day.
- 02
You get the suburb before you commit
Half the callback conversation is working out whether the job is even in your run. That lands in the first reply instead, so you can knock back the ones across town without spending ten minutes finding out.
- 03
Photos of the actual problem
People describe plumbing badly. They can send a photo of the fitting, the meter, the puddle, or the model number off the hot water unit, and you turn up with the right part instead of coming back tomorrow.
04 Questions
What plumbers ask
The questions that come up on the phone, answered the way we'd answer them there.
I do emergency call-outs. Won’t a text slow that down?
It does the opposite. The text goes out within seconds of the call dropping, which is faster than you can get out from under a sink. It asks them to say if it’s urgent, so genuine emergencies flag themselves and you can ring those back first instead of working through the call log in order.
What if I’m in a roof cavity with no signal?
The text-back happens on the network, not on your handset. It fires whether your phone has signal or not, so the caller is held even when you are somewhere your phone isn’t. The enquiry is waiting for you when you come back into range.
I work with a couple of other plumbers. Can they see the jobs?
Yes. Enquiries can go to more than one person, so whoever is closest or free picks it up rather than everything funnelling through whoever happens to own the phone.
Most of my work is repeat customers and builders.
Then the ones you miss are worth more, not less. A builder who can’t get you on a Tuesday morning rings the next plumber on their list and you may not get the next three jobs either. The text keeps that relationship from being decided by whether you were up a ladder.
See what you’re missing before you pay anything.
The audit counts the calls to your business that went unanswered last month, from your own records. It costs nothing and nothing changes on your line.
05 Read next
Related
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- Explainer How missed-call text-back works The mechanism, plainly, including what it does not do.