Telling a burst pipe from a dripping tap
Two-van plumbing firm
Emergencies separated from quote requests without a person on the phone.
The business
Two engineers, two vans, and an owner who is on the tools four days a week. Work comes in almost entirely by phone, and the first firm to answer usually gets the job.
The challenge
- You cannot answer a phone with your arm inside a boiler cupboard.
- A no-heating call from an elderly customer and a request for a bathroom quote arrive on the same line and sound identical until you answer them.
- Missed calls were being returned in the evening, after the caller had already found somebody else.
What was set up
Urgency is established in the first question
The agent establishes what has happened and how bad it is before anything else — no water, no heat, a leak in progress — and flags the call accordingly rather than treating every enquiry the same.
Genuine emergencies get transferred
A live emergency is warm-transferred to whichever engineer is reachable. Everything else is captured with the address, the job and a preferred time, and lands on the list.
Out-of-hours is explicit, not silent
After hours the caller is told plainly what happens next and when, instead of hearing a machine — and the emergency ones still reach a phone.
What changed
- The van does not stop for a call about a quote.
- The address and the fault are already written down before anyone rings back.
- Overnight calls arrive as a prioritised list rather than seven voicemails to work through at 7am.
This story describes a real operating situation and the setup that handles it. The business is described by trade and size rather than named, and nothing here is presented as a measured result. Named stories with figures are published once the customer has signed them off.