Our standard is: during the day, live answer or a callback inside 15 minutes, and the tech on the truck is never the one expected to pick up. That alone fixed half of it, because a guy under a sink answering with wet hands is worse than a fast callback.
What made the biggest difference for us:
- One shared number that rings the office first, then rolls to a backup, instead of everyone's cell.
- - Every missed call gets an instant text back ("Saw your call, what's going on and what's the address?"). A lot of people answer the text before you can even call.
- - Missed calls go into a list someone owns, not a voicemail box nobody checks till 7pm.
- - After hours we separate true emergencies (no heat, active leak) from 'quote whenever' so the on-call person isn't woken up for a fence estimate.
The nights and weekends were our leak. We ended up putting an AI receptionist on overflow and after hours so callers get answered, the job details get captured, and we review in the morning. Here's the one we use if anyone's comparing: https://firstdeploy.ai
