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HVAC and plumbing companies miss the calls that matter most — emergencies, after-hours, and the morning rush. Here's how an AI answering service captures every call 24/7, triages true emergencies to your on-call tech, books jobs into ServiceTitan or Housecall Pro, and what it costs.
Last updated: June 2026. If your phone only gets answered during business hours, you're missing the calls that pay the bills. A widely-cited 2024 study by 411 Locals found small businesses answer just 37.8% of inbound calls with a live person — roughly 62% never reach anyone. For HVAC and plumbing companies, those aren't browsers. They're no-heat emergencies, burst pipes, and ready-to-book jobs that dial the next contractor the second they hit voicemail. Here's what those calls cost, why callers won't wait, and how an AI answering service captures every one — 24/7.
Key takeaways
- About 62% of small-business calls don't reach a live person (411 Locals, 2024) — and HVAC calls spike exactly when crews are on a roof, under a house, or off the clock.
- A single won HVAC customer is worth roughly $15,340 over their lifetime (Mediagistic) — so even a few missed jobs a month is serious money.
- Speed decides it: you're 21× more likely to qualify a lead within 5 minutes than at 30 (Lead Response Management Study, MIT / Prof. James Oldroyd).
- An AI receptionist answers 100% of calls in under 3 seconds, 24/7, triages true emergencies to your on-call tech, and books the rest — versus roughly 60% handled manually.
More than half, most weeks. The 2024 411 Locals study found only 37.8% of inbound calls reach a live person; another 37.8% land in voicemail and 24.3% get no response at all. For a trade business, that gap isn't random — it lines up with exactly when you're busiest.
Think about a normal day in the field. The phone rings while your tech is on a ladder, in a crawlspace, or driving between jobs. It rings after 5 p.m., on weekends, and on the first freezing night of the year when three furnaces quit at once. Those are your highest-intent callers, and they're the hardest ones for a busy crew or a 9-to-5 front desk to catch.
Voicemail rarely saves the call. A homeowner with no heat or water on the floor doesn't leave a message and wait — they hang up and call the next name on the list. When most of your calls never reach a person, the competitor who picks up wins the job by default.
Far more than one service ticket — because you're not losing a call, you're losing the customer. Industry estimates put the lifetime value of a single residential HVAC customer around $15,340 (Mediagistic) once you count the repair, the system replacement down the road, annual maintenance, and referrals. Against a number like that, a missed call is an expensive mistake.
Here's the math we walk HVAC owners through — deliberately conservative, illustrative numbers you can swap for your own:
That's 10 × $450 = $4,500 a month, or about $54,000 a year — and that ignores the lifetime value above. Push the missed-call rate toward the real-world number and the loss roughly doubles. For the full breakdown across trades, see our guide to what missed calls really cost your business.
Because they're in a hurry, and they hire whoever answers first. The Harvard Business Review study "The Short Life of Online Sales Leads" (Oldroyd, McElheran & Elkington) found firms that wait 24 hours to respond are up to 60× less likely to qualify a lead than those who answer fast.
"Our research shows that most companies are not responding nearly fast enough." — Oldroyd, McElheran & Elkington, Harvard Business Review
At the scale of minutes — which is the scale of an emergency call — the Lead Response Management Study (MIT / Prof. James Oldroyd) found you're 21× more likely to qualify a lead when you respond within 5 minutes instead of 30. A callback the next morning is competing against a contractor who already had the truck rolling. For HVAC and plumbing, "answer fast" isn't a nicety — it's the whole game.
The only option that wins is the one that answers every call instantly, triages the emergencies, and books the rest. Voicemail recovers almost nothing. A traditional call-center answering service helps after hours but bills per call or minute, puts people on hold, and usually just takes a message for you to chase later. An AI receptionist answers in under 3 seconds, around the clock, and acts on the call.
| Option | Answers 24/7 | Triages emergencies | Books the job | Typical cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voicemail | Records only | No | No | "Free" — costs you the lead |
| Call-center answering service | Sometimes | Takes a message | Limited | Per-call / per-minute |
| Human front desk | No — office hours | Yes, when present | Yes, when present | $35K–$70K/yr salary |
| AI receptionist (AIEmply) | Yes, 24/7/365 | Yes — routes to on-call tech | Yes, automatically | From $149/mo, flat |
For a deeper side-by-side, read AI receptionist vs virtual receptionist or compare your options in the best AI receptionist for small business.
It triages every call the way a great dispatcher would, then acts. When someone calls with a true emergency — no heat in a cold snap, a gas smell, an active leak — the AI recognizes the urgency and performs an instant warm handoff to your on-call tech or dispatcher, with the details already collected. Routine calls for quotes, scheduling, and follow-ups are handled autonomously, start to finish.
That means real 24/7/365 emergency coverage without paying someone to sit by a phone overnight. It answers in under 3 seconds, never puts a panicked homeowner on hold, and handles unlimited calls at once — which matters on the first hot or freezing day, when every line lights up at the same time. It speaks 50+ languages, and it's more than a phone bot: it's a trained virtual employee customized to your business, your service area, and your pricing rules.
It does — a booked call shows up in the software you already run, in real time. When the AI schedules a job it writes straight to your calendar; when it qualifies a lead it updates your CRM or field-service platform, with no message pad and no double entry.
AIEmply connects with the tools service businesses depend on — Jobber, Housecall Pro, and ServiceTitan (via booking portals), plus GoHighLevel, Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk, Pipedrive, Follow Up Boss, Google Calendar, and Outlook — and many more, with custom API integrations for proprietary systems. See the full picture on the features page or how it works.
Most will for routine calls — if you're upfront about it and a human is always one step away. Acceptance is still building: only 33% of consumers say they're comfortable interacting with AI on voice calls (Vonage, 2024). The answer isn't to hide the AI — it's transparency. Consumers overwhelmingly want to know when they're speaking with AI and to reach a person easily (COPC, 2025).
In practice, that means the AI says what it is, answers the routine questions cleanly, and warm-transfers anything sensitive or complex to your team. A homeowner with a flooded basement at 11 p.m. cares far more that someone answered, took the details, and got a tech moving than whether the first voice was human. Handled honestly, AI covers the volume so your people handle the calls that truly need them.
If recovering even a couple of missed jobs a month covers the cost, the math is easy — and for most trade businesses it does. With a residential HVAC customer worth roughly $15,340 over time (Mediagistic), one saved emergency call can pay for a year of coverage.
The barrier to entry is low. AIEmply is ready to test in 1–2 weeks, plans start at $149/mo with flat-rate pricing, billing starts only after your AI Employee is live, and if the first month delivers no measurable result, the next month is free.
100% Answer Rate • Ready in 1–2 Weeks • Performance Guarantee. See how it works for your trade on the HVAC & plumbing AI receptionist page, check exact plans on the pricing page, watch it answer a call on the live demo, or book a 15-minute consultation.
It depends on the job, but it's rarely small — you're losing the customer, not just one call. With a residential HVAC customer worth roughly $15,340 in lifetime value (Mediagistic) and only about 38% of calls answered live (411 Locals, 2024), even 10 missed jobs a month can run into tens of thousands of dollars a year.
It can — an AI receptionist is configured to identify true emergencies — no heat, a gas smell, an active leak — and instantly warm-transfer the caller to your on-call tech or dispatcher with the details already gathered. Routine calls for quotes and scheduling are handled automatically, giving you real 24/7 emergency coverage without an overnight dispatcher.
Yes — that's the point. AIEmply answers 100% of calls in under 3 seconds, 24/7/365, including nights, weekends, and holidays, when many of your highest-intent emergency calls actually come in. It handles unlimited calls at once, so no one gets a busy signal during a first-cold-day rush.
It does. AIEmply books jobs and updates leads in the tools HVAC and plumbing companies already use — Jobber, Housecall Pro, and ServiceTitan (via booking portals), plus GoHighLevel, Salesforce, HubSpot, Google Calendar, Outlook, and many more, with custom API integrations for proprietary systems.
AIEmply plans start at $149/mo with flat-rate pricing — no per-call or per-minute surprises. Most businesses are ready to test in 1–2 weeks, billing starts only after your AI Employee is live, and if the first month delivers no measurable result, the next month is free.
For most HVAC and plumbing companies, yes. A traditional answering service usually just takes a message and bills per call or minute, while an AI receptionist answers instantly 24/7, triages emergencies to your on-call tech, and books jobs directly into your software — at a flat monthly rate.
For HVAC and plumbing, the phone is the business — and the calls you miss are the ones worth the most. When most calls never reach a person and customers hire whoever answers first, the contractor who's always available wins. An AI receptionist closes that gap: every call answered in seconds, emergencies routed to your tech, routine jobs booked, around the clock.
Want to see it handle a call like one of yours? Explore the HVAC & plumbing solution, try the live demo, or book a 15-minute consultation.