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Small jobs, every one of them answered.
One person, one phone, and a punch list that never gets shorter. Heyline answers the calls you can't, says what your notes say about small jobs and minimums, and books the ones that are yours.
No card · No setup · Keep your number · No website? Start here
Can an AI receptionist answer a handyman's calls?
Yes. Heyline picks up every ring on your line, at 7 AM or 10 PM, and tells callers which repairs you take on, what your minimum is when you've written one down, and whether the job is yours at all. She books it into your Google Calendar. When it isn't yours, she takes a message.
A handyman business is usually one person, one phone, and a truck full of other people's Saturdays. The call that fills your week lands halfway through a drywall patch, taping knife in one hand and nothing clean to answer with.
According to ServiceTitan's 2022 platform data across 3,000+ US and Canadian trade businesses, the typical shop turns 42% of inbound calls into booked jobs; where the shop runs fewer than five technicians, it's 24%. A one-truck operation is the smallest version of that number, and no voicemail greeting has ever moved it.
Which five questions start most handyman calls?
These are the openers. None is answered by Heyline — each comes out of your own notes.
| What they ask | Where her answer comes from | Where the call lands |
|---|---|---|
| "Do you only do small jobs?" | Your service list — each repair on its own card, sixteen at most | Booked when it's on the list; a message when it isn't |
| "What's your minimum?" | The minimum or trip charge you typed in — never one she worked out | Said back as written, or a free estimate instead |
| "Do you take commercial work?" | Whatever your site says about who you work for | Answered in your words, or handed over as a message |
| "Which towns do you get out to?" | The towns your site names as yours | A slot on your calendar, or a to-do with their address |
| "Can you look at a few things in one visit?" | Your visit length — 60 minutes to start, yours to change | One appointment, with every item written down |
Nothing is improvised. Where your notes stop, message taking starts.
Decide with your ears — not a sales deck.
Paste your website and talk to your own receptionist, free, in your browser.
What does a Saturday punch-list call sound like?
Sat · 8:40 AM — your day off · forwarded from your cell
I've got three little things — a ceiling fan that wobbles, a bedroom door that won't latch, and a shelf that needs anchoring. Is that too small to bother with?
That's a normal list for Trey. He works to a two-hour minimum — I'll write all three down so he can tell you how it fits. Is there a fan up there now, or is a new one going in?
There's an old one up there, over the bed. Lena Okafor, by the way.
Thanks, Lena. Is 919-555-0146 the best number for Trey to reach you on? He has Monday at 10 AM or Wednesday at 8 AM.
That's the number, and Monday at 10 works.
Monday at 10 AM for Lena Okafor, callback 919-555-0146, with the fan, the door and the shelf on his list.
8:42 AM — on Trey's Google Calendar · every item written down in her words · recap emailed
Conversation is illustrative.
How do you teach her the jobs you won't take?
Handyman calls arrive as a list, and part of the list is somebody else's. Four edits teach her to say so.
Name what you do the way callers name it
Each repair gets its own card, sixteen at most. She matches what the caller says against those names, so "the door won't latch" must find something you listed.
Write down what you don't do
Gas lines, roofs, live panels, anything you'd rather send down the road. Her never-say list holds twenty lines, and she stays off all of them.
Let her take the message anyway
Out of scope is not a dead end. She says plainly that it isn't work you take on, asks for a name and number first, then saves the message. A call-back to-do appears the moment she does.
Test her with a job you'd refuse
Testing is free, before you go live and after. Ask her for something off the list, listen to how she turns it down, and rewrite any word you don't like.
What she never does on a handyman call
She never talks herself into a job. If the work isn't on your list she doesn't pretend it is. She won't stretch "general repairs" to cover a gas line, and she won't promise that you'll swing by and look.
She never claims a license or a policy you haven't written down. A question about insurance gets your own sentence or nothing at all. An empty field is not a quiet yes.
She never invents a figure. With no minimum and no price sheet to read from, she offers a free estimate and writes down the details you would have asked for yourself. She stops a caller who starts to read out card details.
She never texts, never rings anybody back, and never hands a caller off to your cell. The call-back is a to-do with your name on it — caller, number and the whole message in one row, dialed from your own phone when the drywall is patched.
What do you have to write down yourself?
Building her from your website takes about sixty seconds — 25 on average when 26 real business websites went through it in our July 2026 test. This short list is the part only you can supply.
- The repairs you take, in the words callers use. "Sticky door", not "hardware adjustment".
- The ones you don't take, on the never-say list, so she turns them down the same way every time.
- Your minimum and your trip charge, if you have them. Left blank, she offers a free estimate instead.
- The towns you actually drive to. She won't draw a radius you never gave her.
- How long a visit runs and how much room to leave after it — 60 minutes and 15 to begin with, both yours to change.
- The two things you always end up asking before you load the van. Those become her questions, put one at a time.
Frequently asked questions
Can she tell callers what my minimum is?
Yes, if you've written it down. Put your minimum and any trip charge in her notes and she says it the way you wrote it — a two-hour minimum, a flat call-out charge, whatever is true for you. Leave it blank and she won't improvise one: she offers a free estimate, then writes down the name, the number and what needs doing.
Can she turn down a job I don't do?
She can decline it without pretending. Anything on her never-say list — gas lines, roofs, live panels — she keeps off, and says so. Work that sits on neither list she treats as an unknown: she says she'd rather not guess, asks for a name and number, and saves the message, so the lead still reaches you.
Can she get a description of the job before she books?
That is what intake questions are for. Write up to five per service — what's broken, how old it is, whether a fan is already up there — and she asks them one at a time, in conversation, never read out as a list. The answers reach your recap email and sit beside the appointment.
Can she answer "is it you who shows up?"
If your about page says so, she'll say it too. Where it doesn't, add the sentence yourself — she keeps up to six answers in your own words for the questions your site never got around to. What she won't do is decide for herself who turns up at the door. Unwritten, it becomes a message.
Hand her a punch list and listen.
Paste your website, ask for a job you'd turn down, and hear how she says no. No card, nothing to install.
No card · No setup · Keep your number · No website? Start here
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