Playbook · 6 min read
Deciding what your receptionist is allowed to promise
The instinct is to let it book everything. That is usually wrong, and the contractors who get the most out of it are the ones who drew the line early.
Separate the jobs you price from the jobs you quote
Anything with a fixed price can be booked outright — the caller gets a time, you get a job. Anything that needs eyes on it should become a visit, not a number. Letting the phone quote a roof it has not seen is how you end up honouring a price you would never have given.
Decide what an emergency actually means to you
For most trades it is water, gas, or no heat in winter. Write down your own list, because the default assumption will not match your business, and the difference decides whether your phone rings at 2am.
Give it a real answer for the thing you do not do
Every trade has a job it turns down. A flat "we do not do that" loses the caller and the referral; "we do not, but this is who does" costs nothing and comes back to you. Decide the referral before you need it.
Read the first twenty transcripts, then stop
The first twenty tell you what your customers actually ask, which is never quite what you expected. After that the returns drop sharply and you are just watching a machine work. Set a weekly skim instead.