Solutions
Under a sink. On a roof. Still answering.
Your hands are in a job and the phone's in your pocket. Heyline answers what you can't get to, books it into your Google Calendar, and writes the whole thing up for later.
No card · No setup · Keep your number · No website? Start here
Who answers the phone when both your hands are busy?
Heyline answers it. Forward the rings your phone can't get to and she picks them up while you keep working: she answers what your website taught her, books the job into your Google Calendar, or takes a name and a number. You read what happened when your hands are free.
That's the one-truck problem. The phone rings while you're wrist-deep in something, and the person on the other end dials the next name on their list rather than wait. In shops with under five technicians, only 24% of inbound calls end up booked (ServiceTitan platform data, 3,000+ US/CA trade shops, 2022); the typical shop manages 42%.
Voicemail is the usual stand-in, and it's where the job quietly ends. Somebody who wants a plumber this afternoon doesn't want to talk to a recording. What she takes instead is a name, a number and what the caller actually wanted.
What happens on the ring you never heard?
Mon · 1:20 PM — forwarded call · you're up a ladder, both hands full
My back gate is dragging on the concrete and won't latch. Is that something you'd do?
It is — gates and fence repairs are on Corbin's list. He has Wednesday at 9 or Thursday at 2. Which suits you better?
Wednesday morning. Dara Whitfield, 44 Selkirk Row.
Is the number you're calling from the best one for him? I have 587-555-0132.
That's it. Tell him the hinge screws are stripped, so he'll want longer ones.
Booked — Wednesday at 9 for Dara Whitfield, callback 587-555-0132, gate repair with stripped hinges. He'll see the note.
1:22 PM — on Corbin's Google Calendar · recap emailed · ladder never left
Conversation is illustrative.
Decide with your ears — not a sales deck.
Paste your website and talk to your own receptionist, free, in your browser.
What does she do while you're working?
Nothing you have to watch. This is the shape of a call you never heard ring.
Your line hands the call over
Your own phone rings first. If it's busy, or nobody answers, the carrier passes the call along instead of your voicemail. She answers within two rings.
She answers as your shop
She uses your business name, says she's an AI and that the call may be recorded, then answers from what your website taught her. No guessing, and no price that isn't on your price sheet.
She books it, or she writes it down
For an appointment she checks your calendar and offers two or three real openings — nothing sooner than an hour out, nothing beyond 14 days — then reads back day, time, name and number. Otherwise she takes a message.
You hear about it afterwards
The recap email arrives while you're still on the job. She never calls you, never texts anybody, and never puts a caller through, so nothing pulls you off the tools.
What do you set once, from the phone in your pocket?
Her starting point comes off your website, and every line of it is yours to change in a browser — there's no app to install. Building her and testing her costs nothing; you go live with a plan, a card and a single carrier code.
- Which rings reach her: forward the busy and no-answer ones, or publish your Heyline number for all of them
- The hours she's allowed to book inside, so nothing gets offered for a time you're driving home
- How long a job runs and how much room to leave between two — 60 and 15 minutes to begin with
- What you charge for what, so a pricing question gets an answer instead of a callback
- The questions you always ask — gas or electric, upstairs or down — put to the caller one at a time
- Her voice and her name, from 15 voices in American and British accents
- Words she should never say, and how to pronounce the ones callers get wrong
What's waiting when you get back to the truck?
A written day. Each call she took carries an outcome — Booked, Answered, Message or Missed — a two-line summary and the transcript. All of it is written before you're back at the truck — once in the recap email, once in your call log.
The appointments are already sitting in your own Google Calendar, under the names and numbers she read back to people. Nothing to copy across, and no second calendar to check before you plan tomorrow.
Whatever she couldn't finish is a call-back to-do: the caller's name, their number, the whole message and their answers to your questions, on one row you tap to dial and tap again to clear. Your call log holds the rest for 30 days on Starter, and up to 365 on Growth and Scale.
What she never does while you're on a job
She never interrupts you. No ring on your cell, no beep in your ear, no way to put a caller through — Heyline has no transfer. If the answer needs you, she says so and takes a message.
She never contacts the caller afterwards: no texts, no reminders, no follow-up calls. You make the callback, and everything you need for it is already on your list.
She never invents an answer. A policy your notes don't cover — cancellation fees, warranty length, how far out of town you'll drive — comes back to you as a message rather than a guess.
She never offers a time outside the hours you set, less than an hour from now, or more than two weeks out.
Frequently asked questions
What if I want to take the call myself?
Then you take it. With forwarding on, your own phone rings first and the call stays yours unless you're busy or nobody picks up. Only then does it reach her. If you'd rather she took everything, publish your Heyline number and use that as your business line instead.
Will customers know it isn't me?
Yes, and that's on purpose. Her greeting names her as an AI and says the call may be recorded, and that line can't be edited out. She answers as your business, in a voice you pick, with a name you can change — but she never claims to be you or anyone on your crew.
Does she interrupt me?
No. She never rings your cell, and there's no way for her to hand a live caller over to you. What reaches you is an email after the call and, when somebody needs calling back, a to-do waiting on your list. You decide when to read either one.
Can I call the customer back from my phone?
Yes, and that call is always yours to make — she answers, she never dials out. Every message opens a call-back to-do carrying the name, the number and the whole message. Tap the number on the row and your phone dials it. It all runs in your phone's browser.
Hands back on the job.
Build her from your website, listen to her handle a call, then let her cover the ones you can't.
No card · No setup · Keep your number · No website? Start here
Keep reading
Last updated