Use cases
The furnace quit at 6 AM. She booked 8:00.
Cold snap, first call of the day, and you're not up yet. She answers your line, finds the first time your calendar can really take, and books it.
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Who answers when a furnace quits at 6 AM?
Heyline does. She picks up within two rings, checks your Google Calendar for the first opening that is genuinely free, offers it, asks the one question your technician needs answered, books the job, and emails you the recap — all before you have found your boots.
Six in the morning is when a no-heat call happens and when nobody picks up. The homeowner is cold, awake, and working down the list of heating companies on their phone. Whoever answers first usually gets the morning.
Your line is answered the same way at 6 AM as at 2 PM, because the phone has no hours even when your shop does. She says two things before anything else: she's an AI, and the call might be recorded. Both ride in every greeting, and no edit will strip them.
What does a 6 AM no-heat call sound like?
Sat · 6:04 AM — forwarded call · your phone was still charging
Our furnace died overnight — the house is down to 52. Can anyone get out this morning?
I'm sorry, that's a cold one. Gus has 8:00 this morning open, or 11:30 — which suits you?
Eight, please. Name's Lorraine.
Thanks, Lorraine. Should I keep you at this number? And before I book it — gas furnace or electric?
Yes, keep it. Gas — it clicks, then nothing.
Booked for this morning at 8:00, Lorraine, at 216-555-0173. Gus will read the gas note before he knocks.
6:06 AM — on Gus's Google Calendar: No heat — Lorraine (216-555-0173) · recap emailed
Conversation is illustrative.
Decide with your ears — not a sales deck.
Paste your website and talk to your own receptionist, free, in your browser.
Why did she offer 8:00 and not sooner?
Five things had to be true before she said a time out loud. She checks them in that order, on every call.
- Your bookable hours had started. 8:00 AM sat inside them. A 6:15 AM start didn't, so it was never on the table — she works your hours, in your own timezone, not the caller's.
- The slot was more than an hour out. She books nothing sooner than one hour from now, so a caller can't drop a job on you while you're still scraping the truck.
- Your calendar said it was open. She checks when you're already busy before she names anything, so a block you'd already committed is never offered twice.
- The buffer held. Fifteen minutes between jobs by default, yours to change, so the 8:00 AM job doesn't run straight into whatever follows it.
- She had a second time ready. Two or three real openings, never a list to wade through — the caller picks instead of negotiating.
Does she know a no-heat call is an emergency?
Not the way a dispatcher does. She has no urgency dial and no triage rules. What she has is her notes — the services, hours and service area she read off your website, plus whatever you've since added. If your site says you do emergency call-outs and states the call-out fee, she can say both. If it doesn't, she says she doesn't want to guess and takes a message.
In practice it lands in the same place. Every caller is offered the earliest time your calendar can honestly take, so the 6 AM no-heat call gets the 8:00 because it asked first, not because she ranked it above anyone.
The trade detail is yours to set. Intake questions are how "gas or electric" gets asked before she books — one question at a time, in the middle of the conversation, never read out as a form. You can add the ones your crew always wishes it had, and change what she knows about your shop whenever a service changes.
What's waiting for you when you wake up?
You wake up to an 8:00 AM job already sitting in your own Google Calendar — the service, the caller's name and her number right in the event title. You didn't type a word of it, and there is nowhere else you have to go looking for it.
The recap email carries the rest: the number that called, a two-line summary, a Booked badge, the full transcript, and the gas-or-electric answer. When a call ends in a message instead, it also opens a call-back to-do that stays open until you tick it off.
That's the whole of it. She never calls or texts you, and she never calls the customer back either — no reminders, no confirmations, on any plan. The smallest outfits book the least: under five technicians, the rate is 24% of calls booked (ServiceTitan platform data, 3,000+ US and Canadian trade shops, 2022). The ring that lands before opening time is part of that gap.
What she never does on an emergency call
She never dispatches. She books a time on your calendar. She can't tell a caller a truck is already rolling, or that someone will be there in twenty minutes, because she has no idea where you are.
She never transfers the call to you. There's no warm handoff and no ring-through to your cell. If the caller needs you personally, she takes their name and number and it becomes a to-do.
She never gives safety advice. Asked whether it's safe to stay in the house, or whether to run the oven for heat, she declines and offers to take a message — not even a hedged general remark.
She never puts a number on a job her notes don't price. No invented diagnostic fee, no guessed parts cost. She offers a free estimate instead, or writes the question down for you.
Frequently asked questions
Does she prioritize emergency calls?
She has no priority queue, and she never tells one caller they matter more than another. What happens instead is simpler. Every caller is offered the earliest time your calendar can actually take, so the 6 AM no-heat call usually walks off with the first slot of the day, because nobody else had asked for it yet.
Can she page me when a call is urgent?
No. She never calls, texts or pages you — Heyline makes no outbound contact of any kind. What arrives is the recap email once the call ends, with the summary, the transcript and the intake answers. If she took a message, a call-back to-do opens too. A booked job is already on your calendar.
What if the earliest opening is tomorrow?
Then she offers tomorrow, plainly, rather than inventing something sooner. She only names times your calendar shows as open, and nothing less than an hour away. If the caller needs someone today and you have nothing free, she takes a message with their number so you can decide whether to squeeze them in.
The next cold snap starts with a phone call.
Paste your website, talk to her in your browser, and ask her for the earliest slot yourself. No card, no account.
No card · No setup · Keep your number · No website? Start here
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