AI answering service for electricians

A call that begins with the word “burning”

When somebody says they can smell burning or see sparks, the order of the conversation changes. handlo tells them to stop using that circuit and, if there is smoke or flame, to leave the building and call the emergency services — before it asks for anything else at all. Only then does it collect the address and the detail.

That sequence is written into the instructions you give it rather than improvised on the call. What reaches your phone is a job marked as a safety call, carrying the address, exactly what the caller saw, and whether power is still live to that part of the property.

The pushback, and the honest answer

• “Safety calls are the ones software should not take.” Something that answers at 11pm and tells the caller to kill the circuit beats a voicemail box that tells them nothing. It escalates; it does not handle.
• “Most of my work is commercial, not homeowners.” Then most of your calls are site managers and other trades chasing a slot. Those arrive as messages with the site name and the trade attached.
• “I need to know the panel before I quote.” So it asks — panel age, main breaker rating where the caller can read it, whether the property was ever rewired. Anything the caller cannot answer is recorded as unknown, not guessed.
• “I already miss calls and still have plenty of work.” Then use it as a filter. The inquiries you never wanted arrive as written notes you can ignore, and the panel upgrades stop slipping past.

What it will not attempt

• It will not walk anyone through isolating, resetting or working on a circuit beyond telling them to stop using it.
• It will not confirm that anything is safe. There is no version of this where an assistant clears a property over the phone.
• It will not price a rewire or an upgrade. It captures scope, property age and timeline and leaves the number to you.

Connecting it to how you actually run

A one-van electrician and a six-van shop want different things from the same call, so the routing is yours to set.

• Forward everything, or only what rings out unanswered — the number on your vehicles stays the number callers dial.
• Safety-flagged calls hit your phone in seconds by WhatsApp or SMS; quotes and routine work land in a written queue.
• Connect a calendar for scheduled work, or leave it off and place every job by hand.