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Storm week. Every call still answered.
Hail comes through at 4 PM and the phone rings for the next week. Heyline answers what you can't get to, books the inspections, and writes down everything else.
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Can an AI receptionist handle a roofing company's calls?
Yes. She answers within two rings, and what she tells a caller comes off your own site — the work you list, the towns you cover, your hours. She books the inspection into your Google Calendar, and a claim question her notes don't cover becomes a written message rather than a guess.
Roofing demand doesn't arrive in a straight line. Hail crosses one side of a county at dinner time, and for days afterward callers have water on a ceiling and a neighbor's contractor already parked in the driveway. Whoever picks up first gets on the roof first.
Small crews feel it hardest. Shops with fewer than five technicians book 24% of their inbound calls, against 42% at the typical shop (ServiceTitan platform data, 3,000+ US/CA trade shops, 2022). A storm doesn't change that arithmetic. It pushes more calls through it.
What do roofing callers ask after a storm?
The questions that land in the first days after weather, and what she works from.
| What they ask | Where her answer comes from | Where the call lands |
|---|---|---|
| "A tree's on the back slope — can someone look?" | Your services and hours, and the openings your calendar has | An inspection booked, her notes attached |
| "Do you charge to come out?" | The pricing in her notes, never a figure of her own | Answered, or a free estimate and a message |
| "Will you deal with my insurer?" | Only what you've written down about claim work | A message with the details you asked for |
| "Are you licensed in this state?" | The licensing line in her notes, if you wrote one | Answered, or handed to you with a name and number |
| "Can you get a tarp on it tonight?" | Your site's emergency-work line, and your bookable hours | The soonest opening those hours allow, never under an hour out |
Where her notes say nothing, she'd rather not guess — she takes a name and number.
Decide with your ears — not a sales deck.
Paste your website and talk to your own receptionist, free, in your browser.
What does a hail-damage call sound like?
Thu · 8:04 AM — the morning after the storm · your crew is loading up
We had hail last night and there are shingles all over the yard. Can someone come out and look at it?
We can. How old is the roof, roughly?
Eleven years, give or take. And there's a damp patch on a bedroom ceiling now.
I've written both of those down. I can do this afternoon at 2 PM, or tomorrow at 7:30 AM — which is better for you?
This afternoon. Dale Whitmore, and this is my cell.
Booked, Dale — today at 2 PM, on the number you're calling from. I've noted the roof's age and the ceiling patch for whoever comes out.
8:06 AM — booked · in your Google Calendar as an inspection, with the roof age and the ceiling leak in the recap email
Conversation is illustrative.
What should you fill in before the next storm?
She only says what she's been told. The blanks are worth an hour while it's quiet.
- Every storm service you take on — tarping, repair, replacement, gutters. Name them the way callers name them; those words are what she listens for.
- Whether a look at the roof costs anything, and how long you're on site for one. The second sets the appointment length: 60 minutes with a 15-minute buffer to start.
- What you do and don't do with an insurance company. Left blank, every claim call becomes a message.
- The states and counties you're licensed in, in plain words, so "are you local?" has an answer that came from you.
- The two or three things you always end up asking — roof age, water inside, claim already filed. Those become her intake questions, up to five per service, asked one at a time.
- Anything she must never say. A never-say line holds on every call, so "don't promise a tarp tonight" still holds at 11 PM.
What she never does on a storm call
She never says whether insurance will cover it. Coverage, deductibles, what an adjuster will allow — none of that is in her notes, and she doesn't guess at it. She collects what you asked her to collect and puts it on your to-do list.
She never puts a number on a roof. No price you didn't give her, no square-foot ballpark, no "usually around". Where there's no figure to give, she offers a free estimate and writes the job down in the caller's own words.
She never sends a crew. She books a look at the roof inside the hours you allow. She can't dispatch anyone, give an arrival window, or reach you mid-tear-off — no transfer, no text, no callback made on your behalf.
She never hides what she is. Her opening line says she's an AI and that the call may be recorded, and a greeting that drops either half never gets saved.
Frequently asked questions
Can she handle insurance-claim calls?
She can take one properly; she can't advise on one. Whether a claim is covered, what an adjuster will allow, what a deductible means — none of that is hers to answer, and she won't guess. She asks the questions you set for claim calls, writes the answers down, and hands you the callback.
Can she book a roof inspection?
Yes, and it's the appointment she's best at. She checks when your Google Calendar is busy, offers two or three openings that really exist, takes the name and callback number, then repeats the day, the time, the name and the number before hanging up. The visit appears in the calendar already on your phone.
What about storm-season call volume?
She answers the thirtieth call of the morning the way she answered the first. What's metered is minutes, not calls: your plan carries 200, 500 or 1,500 a month, and an email lands at 80% of them. At 100% a $10 charge adds 20 minutes, unless you've capped that spending for the month.
Does she schedule the roof job itself?
No. What she books is the visit where you look at the roof and price the work. The tear-off, the crew, the dumpster and the material drop stay yours to schedule. Her window is narrow on purpose: nothing sooner than an hour away, nothing past 14 days.
Storm season is a phone problem.
Build her from your website, put a claim question to her yourself, and see where it lands.
No card · No setup · Keep your number · No website? Start here
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