What's urgent, and what isn't
For a tradesperson, an emergency is a situation that gets worse if nobody steps in quickly, or that puts someone in difficulty. Four criteria are enough to recognise it:
- A danger to people: a smell of gas, exposed electrical wires, a child or elderly person locked in.
- Damage that's spreading: water that won't stop running, water coming in through the roof.
- A home that can't be used or isn't secure: a door that no longer shuts after a break-in, no heating in winter with a vulnerable person in the household.
- A commitment you have made: a customer with a maintenance contract that includes a response time.
Everything else can be scheduled: quotes, annual servicing, a dripping tap, a question about an invoice. Writing this boundary down once means you don't have to redefine it on every call, tired, at 10 pm.
| Situation | Urgent? | What the call triggers |
|---|---|---|
| Leak that won't stop | Yes | Instruction to turn off the water supply, then immediate transfer |
| Blocked toilet, dripping tap | No | Appointment in the calendar |
| Locked out, in the evening | Yes | Transfer to whoever is on call |
| Vulnerable person locked in, smoke | Danger | Emergency services first, then transfer |
| Smell of gas | Danger | Safety instructions, emergency services, never an appointment |
| No heating in winter, baby in the household | Yes | Transfer or priority visit, depending on your time slots |
| Boiler service, quote | No | Appointment or callback from you |
Adapt this table to your trade: our plumbers, locksmiths and heating engineers pages give the emergency rules specific to each one.
The questions that reveal urgency
Never ask “is it urgent?”: everyone says yes. Ask factual questions, in this order.
- “What's happening right now?” Let the caller describe it, without interrupting.
- “Is it getting worse?” Is the water still running, is the smell strong, is the door open onto the street?
- “Is anyone in danger or in difficulty?” A child, an elderly, ill or disabled person.
- “Have you been able to turn it off?” The water supply, the circuit breaker, the gas. If not, the instructions for doing so.
- “Where are you?” The full address, the floor, the door code, and whether someone will be there.
- “Are you already a customer?” A customer under contract is dealt with according to your commitments.
The answers are enough to classify the call. Our guide to qualifying incoming calls details the method for other requests.
Immediate danger: emergency services first
When people are in danger, the first call isn't to you. Your reception, human or AI, must say so plainly: the emergency services for rescue, the medical emergency number for a health problem. For a smell of gas, the instructions are well known: don't touch any switches, don't light anything, open the windows, get out, then call the gas emergency number or the emergency services from outside. No one should delay that call with questions about the address or the quote. The call is logged, and you are informed afterwards.
Transferring the call: to whom, when, how
Every urgent situation leads to one of these three outcomes:
- immediate transfer, to your mobile or the on-call person's;
- a priority message, with a callback from you within a timeframe you know you can keep;
- the first available slot, booked in the calendar, when the emergency can wait a few hours.
Write the rule for each situation and each time of day. On a job, you may prefer a message for a lockout and a transfer for a leak; in the evening, the reverse if your locksmith partner is on call. Also say what the caller is promised: “the technician will call you back”, never an arrival time that nobody can guarantee.
Finally, prepare the holding instructions that reception will give: turn off the water supply, switch off the circuit breaker, put down a towel, stay outside. They reassure the caller and limit the damage before you arrive.
On call: evenings and weekends
In the evenings and at weekends, the challenge changes: it's no longer about answering quickly, but about only waking whoever is on call for real emergencies.
- A written on-call rota: who can be reached, which evenings, which weekends, on which number.
- Strict triage: an active leak gets through; the bathroom quote waits until Monday, with an appointment already booked.
- The pricing rule, if you charge a night call-out fee, stated exactly as you have written it.
- The next-morning report: every call from the night, urgent or not, must be readable when you wake up.
Our guide to answering calls in the evening and at weekends covers other trades, and the comparison between an AI voice agent and a call answering service helps you choose who holds the line.
What Sayelo does
Sayelo answers at any hour, announces that it is an AI from the very first sentence, asks your qualifying questions, gives the safety instructions you have prepared and applies your list of emergencies. Then:
- transfer to a human, included on all plans, happens according to your rules; from the Pro plan upwards, multiple transfers send each reason for calling to the right number;
- each transfer number can be offered only during certain time slots, on given days and at given times: outside its slots, the agent never offers it. With several numbers, the one limited to a time slot takes priority, during that slot, over a number available at all times for the same reason: that's the typical set-up for evening or weekend on-call cover;
- instructions by contact, such as “always transfer Dupont, the managing agent”, for your priority customers;
- non-urgent requests become an appointment in your calendar, confirmed by SMS, with a reminder the day before;
- the summary of every call arrives by email, with the transcript, and you can receive a call notification by SMS.
On a stormy evening, several customers call at the same time: depending on the plan, the agent takes 1, 2, 5 or 10 simultaneous calls. Our method for no longer missing calls puts all this in the context of running a trade business, and the pricing page details each plan.
Testing before the first night
Before handing over your on-call cover, call your own number five times: a leak that won't stop, a smell of gas, a lockout at 11 pm, a bathroom quote on a Sunday, a customer under contract whose boiler has stopped. Read the summaries, correct the rules, start again. It's this test that will let you sleep soundly.
