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TurfT's avatar
TurfT
Contributor 3
24 days ago

I built an AI assistant that runs my office

A few weeks ago I shared how I built a one-step enrollment system for my lawn care program — client enters their info, credit card goes on file, and they're enrolled. No quote approval, no back-and-forth. Automated sequences handle the welcome email, welcome text, and contact setup. One step, done.

Coming from a background as an electrician, I tend to look at everything as a circuit. If there’s a break in communication or a 'loose wire' in my lead flow, the whole system fails. I decided to stop fighting the mess and started 'wiring' my office the same way I would a complex panel.

I built an AI operations system that runs alongside Jobber.

Every text, phone call, email, voicemail, missed call, and website form submission automatically gets logged to a centralized database through a series of Zaps. Every client has one record, one timeline, and one clear next action at all times.

Every morning before I head out, I run a 5-minute briefing with an AI assistant. It reads the full client database through an MCP server — which basically means the AI has live access to every client interaction in real time. It tells me who contacted me overnight, who's waiting on a response, who's going cold, and what I should do next for each person. It drafts the messages. I review, edit if needed, and send.

I also set up an AI receptionist on my business phone line. It answers calls, can answer common questions about services and pricing, takes client information, and transfers calls when needed. It can also send texts to the caller during or after the call — like a direct link to the enrollment page or the resources section on my website. It handles multiple calls at the same time. No more missed calls going to voicemail.

The tools: Jobber for jobs, scheduling, and service history. An MCP-connected database for the client timeline. Zapier to connect everything. An AI assistant for daily briefings and client communication. An AI receptionist for inbound calls.

Jobber stays at the center — it's my source of truth for every job, every visit, every quote. The AI layer sits on top and makes sure nothing falls through the cracks between Jobber and everything else.

I'm planning my first hire this season. Not because I'm behind — because the systems are handling the admin load well enough that I can focus on growing. The AI doesn't replace a person. It replaced the office work I used to do at 10 PM after a full day in the field.

If anyone's curious about how any of this works, happy to answer questions. I'm not selling anything — just sharing what I've built because this community helped me think through a lot of it.

 

6 Replies

  • TurfT's avatar
    TurfT
    Contributor 3

    Thanks for the interest — happy to break it down.

    The foundation is a client database I built in Airtable. Every client has one record with their full communication timeline — every text, call, email, voicemail, and form submission gets automatically logged there through Zapier. So when a new lead comes in, I'm not piecing together a conversation from three different apps. It's all in one place, in order.

    On top of that database, I connected an AI assistant (I use Claude) through something called an MCP server. That's just a technical way of saying the AI has live, direct access to my Airtable data — it can read every client record and interaction in real time. So when I run my morning briefing, I'm not copying and pasting anything. I just ask it what needs attention and it reads the database, tells me who contacted me overnight, who's going cold, and what to do next. It drafts replies in my tone. I review and send.

    Jobber stays at the center of everything — jobs, scheduling, quotes, invoicing, visit history. I don't try to replace that. What I built is the layer between Jobber and everything that happens before and after a job. Lead comes in, gets qualified, gets booked — that whole process now runs through the AI system. Once they're booked, Jobber takes over.

    The tools are: Jobber (core), Airtable (client timeline), Zapier (connects everything), Claude AI (briefings and drafting), and an AI receptionist on my phone line.

    It wasn't easy to build — I pieced it together bit by bit, figured out what broke, fixed it, and kept going. If you're willing to put in the time to understand how your own business flows, you can build something like this too. Happy to answer any specific questions.

  • Jnkemi23's avatar
    Jnkemi23
    Contributor 2

    I would be really interested in how you set this up and what AI platform you are using. 

     

  • Hi there, I’m new to the community and what you built sounds very interesting. I would like to know a little bit more. Thank you.

  • Hello and thanks for sharing! I find I get stuck "in the office" and my outside job tasks suffer. I would love to get going in the automated direction you have gone, but I am afraid at this stage, my business just isn't brining in the funds necessary to add access to the software necessary to pull this off. I feel like I am doing good to keep up with the necessary business insurance and equipment payments at the moment. I would love to have all my billing, bids, scheduling, and the like be an automated process. As I just started up my business in September of last year, I don't like turning potential clients away, so I find myself provide free quotes or doing free research on water and sewer line connections, driveway construction, and other initial site prep work, but never ending up with the job. I guess all this is a long way if saying an AI assistant like this could save me lots of time. Thanks again for sharing! 

  • The automation side is fascinating. Seems like the real value is making sure leads and customers don’t fall through the cracks

  • This is really interesting. The biggest takeaway for me is that the value is not just “using AI,” but making sure leads, customer notes, follow-ups, and bookings do not fall through the cracks.

    I’m working on building better systems for my own home-service business too, and I like the idea of keeping the core job system separate while using automation around it for follow-up and organization.

    For someone still early and trying to keep things simple, what part gave you the biggest benefit first: the AI receptionist, the client timeline, or the daily briefing?