How a plumber finds customers: what about the ones who call while you’re working?

Where new customers usually come from

• —Word of mouth. A happy customer, a colleague, a building manager who knows you.
• —Your Google listing. Someone searching for a plumber in their town sees the nearby listings: opening hours, phone number and reviews make the difference.
• —A simple website, with the area you cover, your services and your number clearly visible.
• —Quote portals. They bring requests; when the same request goes to several professionals, whoever answers first usually wins.

Whatever the channel, it ends with a phone call

Word of mouth, Google listing or website: the customer has a leaking pipe and a number to call. If you don’t answer, not everyone leaves a message: some call back, others call the number below yours. A missed call makes no noise. A job that goes to someone else does.

What to ask the caller

Whether a person or an assistant answers, the details to take are always the same:

1. 1.A name.
2. 2.Where the job is: the town and, if they want to say it, the street.
3. 3.A number to call back, read back digit by digit if it’s different from the one they’re calling from.
4. 4.What happened, in a sentence or two, and how urgent it is.
5. 5.When they’d like to be called back.

Before saying goodbye, read it all back. And if there’s a smell of gas, water that won’t stop or sparks, safety comes first, then the message.

Three ways to cover the phone

• —Answer anyway, with your hands full. It works, as long as the job allows it.
• —Voicemail. It records a message, but then you have to call back. And not everyone leaves one.
• —A virtual assistant that answers for you, asks the questions on the list and passes you the request. That’s what VoceFacile does.

How it works with VoceFacile

• —Your number stays yours. From a mobile, call forwarding sends the assistant only the calls you don’t answer. From a landline it sends them all: turn it on when work starts and off when it ends. Or we give you a new, dedicated number.
• —It says who it is right away. It introduces itself as a virtual assistant and says the call is transcribed.
• —It asks the questions on the list and reads everything back before saying goodbye.
• —In emergencies, safety first. With gas, water that won’t stop or sparks, it says right away what to do (shut off the water, call 112) and marks the request as urgent.
• —It lets you know as soon as the call ends, by email or on Telegram, with the caller’s number and their request. In the dashboard you’ll find every call, summarized.

What it doesn’t do

It doesn’t give quotes, prices or timings, doesn’t promise site visits and doesn’t book appointments: it takes the message and passes it to you. It gives no technical advice beyond the safety instructions, and it doesn’t say where you are or what you’re doing.