Phone answering service for trades
An answering service for a trades business takes calls while nobody on site can reach a phone. Classically you get a list of names and numbers in the evening. An AI answering service instead records the job enquiry in full, including trade, address, condition and how to reach the caller, and separates the emergency from the quote that can wait until Monday.
What is different about a trades phone
Three points that separate an answering service for a trades business from one for an office.
People call when you cannot answer
On the roof, under the sink, inside the consumer unit: that is exactly when it rings. A service that only answers during office hours does not cover half the problem.
An emergency and a quote are two things
A burst pipe at 10pm and an enquiry about a bathroom in spring do not belong on the same callback list. Treat them alike and you end up calling both back too late.
An incomplete enquiry costs a second call
Without the address, the trade and a description of the condition, nothing can be scheduled and nothing quoted. The callback then only serves to ask what was missing the first time.
Is it worth it for a business?
For trades the sum is usually the simplest of all: a single won job a month that would otherwise have gone elsewhere generally covers the service. Exactly how much depends on your typical job size, and only you know that.
Work with two numbers from your own business: how many calls a week go unanswered, and what an average job brings in. Everything else is advertising.
elunos.ai bills per conversation minute, with a free tier and no per-seat fee. Calls at the weekend and at night cost the same as on a weekday.
Common questions: answering services for trades and crafts
Common are a base fee with a call quota, a per-seat price, or billing per conversation minute. For a trades business the most important question is night and weekend surcharges, because a large share of calls arrives then. elunos.ai has none; conversation minutes are what is billed.
It can recognise the emergency and put it through or escalate by your rule, with a summary of what the caller described. What it does not do is judge urgency on its own. You define what counts as an emergency.
The elunos.ai agent asks for the trade, address, description and how to reach the caller, and follows up when something is missing. That is exactly what separates it from a note with a name and a number, which needs a second call.
Yes, when a calendar is connected. Appointments are written to the connected calendar; common calendar and telephony systems connect directly, anything else through n8n, Make or Zapier.
No. The service is published on your existing number by call forwarding and your phone provider stays the same. You can limit the forwarding to the hours when nobody would answer anyway.
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