A plumber's phone rings at the worst times: under a sink with both hands full, in a crawlspace with no signal, at 6 AM the morning after a hard freeze. Callers with water on the floor don't leave voicemails. They call the next plumber on Google until somebody answers.
An AI receptionist is software that picks up those calls in a natural voice, in your company's name. It talks the caller through the first minute, collects the job details, books the visit or flags it as urgent, and sends you a summary. This guide is written for one- to five-truck plumbing shops. We make one of these, Connie, and say so where it comes up.
What an AI receptionist does on a plumbing call
- Answers right away, in your company's name, including nights and weekends.
- Handles the emergency first. On a leak or burst pipe it should ask whether water is running and help the caller find the main shutoff before anything else.
- Collects what you need: name, callback number read back, address or town, what's wrong, where the leak is, and whether the water is off.
- Answers your basics: hours, service area, whether you do water heaters or drains, any trip fee you want stated.
- Books the visit into open time on your calendar, or promises a callback when you'd rather schedule it yourself.
- Sends you the job as a written summary, so you can call back with the details in front of you.
Overflow only vs answering every call
This one setting changes your bill and your customer relationships more than any feature list.
| Overflow only (your phone rings first) | Full answering (AI answers every call) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who answers first | You, as today. The AI gets only calls you don't pick up. | The AI, on every call. |
| What you pay for | Just the missed calls. | Every call, including regulars who wanted you. |
| Customer feel | Repeat customers still reach you when you're free. | Everyone meets the AI first. |
| How it's set up | Conditional call forwarding on your existing number ("forward when busy or no answer"). | Forward all calls, or port your number. |
| Best for | Owner-operators and small crews who answer most calls themselves but miss the ones on jobs. | Shops that want every call screened and logged, and have no one at a desk. |
Conditional forwarding is a carrier feature on nearly every cell and business line. You dial a short code once, and unanswered calls go to the receptionist's number after a few rings. Turning it off is another short code. Your number stays the one on your truck.
Connie only works the overflow way: your phone rings first, and it answers what you miss. Many other AI receptionists can be set up as overflow too, so ask whichever you look at.
Emergency calls: what good handling sounds like
Plumbing is one of the few trades where the first minute on the phone can save someone thousands of dollars in water damage. A receptionist, human or AI, should run emergencies in this order:
- Stop the water. "Is water running right now? Let's shut it off first. Your main shutoff is usually where the water line comes into the house, often near the meter." Then it waits while the caller looks.
- Your safety steps. Whatever you'd tell them yourself: stay away from water near outlets or the electrical panel, open a cold faucet to drain the line, don't use a torch on a frozen pipe.
- Details and callback. Address, where the pipe is, whether the water is off, and the callback number read back digit by digit.
- Your rule. An urgent alert to you or a hand-off to your on-call tech for a true emergency; the first open slot for one that can wait until morning.
Connie walks callers to the water shutoff and gives the safety steps you set, then follows your rule for who gets woken up. For a full winter script and triage rules, see our frozen and burst pipe playbook. To hear it yourself, call the demo line at (574) 235-1616 and say your basement is flooding.
Booking the job
Taking a message is not the same as booking. Ask every vendor what actually lands on your schedule:
- Calendar booking. The receptionist checks open time and puts the visit on your calendar, with the caller's details in the event.
- Booking link. The caller gets a link to pick a time later. Cheaper, but some callers never click.
- Field service software. Creating a request or job directly in Jobber, Housecall Pro or ServiceTitan. Check exactly which tools a vendor connects to today, not on its roadmap. If you run Jobber, read answering service for Jobber users; for Housecall Pro, after-hours answering for Housecall Pro users.
Connie books into Google Calendar using the hours, service area and job types you set. A Jobber integration is coming on Pro and Scale (not built yet). There is no Housecall Pro or ServiceTitan integration.
What it costs (checked November 10, 2026)
Published entry prices, from each vendor's own page. Prices change; check before you buy.
| Option | Who answers | Entry price |
|---|---|---|
| Ruby1 | Live people | $250/mo for 50 minutes |
| Smith.ai receptionists2 | Live people | $300/mo for 30 calls |
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist3 | AI | Free for 25 calls; Pro from $150/mo for 75 calls |
| Rosie4 | AI | $49/mo for 250 minutes; calendar booking from $149/mo |
| Connie | AI, overflow only | Founding $49/mo or $490/yr, every missed call answered (fair use 300 min). After founding: $79/mo for 150 minutes |
The fair test isn't AI against AI. It's the monthly price against what one lost job is worth. If a single burst-pipe call is worth several hundred dollars to you, any of these pays for itself the first month it catches one call that would have gone to voicemail.
Example only. A two-truck shop misses about 40 calls a month on jobs. At roughly 1.2 minutes a call that's about 50 minutes. On overflow, only those 50 minutes are billed; answering every call would mean paying for the 150 or 200 calls the owner already takes. Run your own numbers in the missed call calculator.
For a deeper price breakdown see plumbing answering service cost and what an AI receptionist costs.
Setting one up
- Write down your rules: hours, towns you serve, jobs you don't take, your emergency rule, and the exact shutoff and safety wording you want callers to hear.
- Load your business info. Most AI receptionists build a first draft from your website and Google listing; you correct it.
- Connect your calendar and block the times you don't want booked.
- Turn on conditional forwarding with your carrier's code.
- Test from a phone that isn't yours: a burst pipe at night, a clogged drain, a water heater quote, and a caller who asks for a person. Read each summary.
- Re-read summaries for two weeks and fix anything she got wrong.
Connie's setup is self-serve online in a few minutes, with no calls or meetings. You get your forwarding code at the end.
How fast it answers
Speed matters on emergency calls, and it's easy to measure. At the founder's computer repair shop in South Bend, Connie's median time to answer was 0.86 seconds across 150 real calls over 90 days. That's a repair shop, not a plumbing company, and we don't have plumbing customers yet; the case study has the full numbers, including what went wrong.
Where Connie fits
Connie is an overflow-only AI receptionist built in South Bend, Indiana for plumbers and other home service trades. Your phone rings first. When you miss a call, she answers in your company's name, walks the caller to the water shutoff and gives your safety steps, books into Google Calendar, and emails you a summary within a minute. Text summaries are Coming at launch. Founding members (20 spots) pay $49/mo or $490/yr, locked for life, with no setup fee and no contract. Every missed call is answered: fair use is 300 minutes a month, then 35¢ a minute, and we alert you before that happens. After founding fills, plans are Starter $79/mo (150 minutes), Pro $149/mo (400) and Scale $249/mo (1,000). No setup fee on any plan; yearly is 2 months free. First-job guarantee: if Connie doesn't book you a job from a call it answered in your first 30 days, your first month is refunded. See it on the plumbing page, or compare us with Rosie for plumbers.