i've been building ai phone agents for trades businesses in winnipeg — hvac, plumbing, electrical. some notes from the first dozen calls.
most trades miss 30 to 50 percent of their inbound.
nights, weekends, jobsites, bathroom breaks. the phone rings. nobody picks up. it goes to voicemail. the customer hangs up and calls the next name on the list. you don't know it happened. you just know the month is slower than it should be.
nobody wants to talk about this number because it makes them sound like they're doing a bad job. they aren't. they're doing the job. they can't also be the receptionist.
the agent doesn't have to be amazing. it has to pick up.
this is the thing i didn't expect. i thought the bar was a smooth, human-feeling conversation. it isn't. the bar is being awake at 9pm when a furnace goes out.
a customer with a flooded basement at 11pm doesn't care if the voice has a tiny ai-ness to it. they care that someone took the address, took the problem, and told them the truck arrives at 8am.
the bar isn't a smooth conversation. the bar is being awake at 9pm when a furnace goes out.
the stack i'm running.
- retell for the voice agent — handles the conversation, the interruptions, the pauses.
- twilio for the phone number — local winnipeg, looks like a normal business line.
- google sheets and a small flask service for the booking layer — drops jobs into whatever calendar the business already uses.
- about a day to set up per business. get in touch for current rates.
what doesn't work.
generic agents. you cannot drop in a chatgpt voice that says "how can i help you today" and expect it to book a service call. it has to know the trades, the problems, the questions you'd ask if you'd done this for fifteen years. that's the part you have to write per business.
also: don't try to handle complaints or pricing on the agent. take the job, take the address, get them on the calendar. let the human handle anything that requires a judgment call. that's not a limit of the technology, it's a customer-experience choice.
where this is going.
every trades business in winnipeg should have one of these inside two years. the ones that don't will quietly lose 30% of their growth to the ones that do. i'm trying to make sure the ones that do are mine.
if you run a trades business and want to talk: here.