Originally published on Medium. Cross-posting here for the dev community.
Your phone is your storefront. For most home-service businesses, the first real conversation with a customer happens on a call — and whether that call turns into a booked job depends almost entirely on the first 90 seconds.
The problem isn't that owners are bad on the phone. It's that the phone gets answered differently every time — by you mid-job, by a spouse at dinner, by a new hire who's never been trained, or by voicemail at 9pm. Inconsistent answering quietly loses jobs you already paid (in marketing) to get.
The fix is boring and effective: a written script. Here's the 7-part structure that works across the trades. Steal it.
1. The greeting
Lead with your business name and a human tone: "Thanks for calling Anderson Plumbing — this is Mike, how can I help?" Two seconds, and the caller knows they reached a real business that wants their call.
2. Capture the basics first
Before you dig into the problem, get the name and the best callback number — in case the call drops. Dropped calls are silent lead-killers; a number means you can call back and still win the job.
3. Qualify for your trade
This is where generic scripts fail. A plumber asks which fixture is affected and whether there's active water; an HVAC tech asks heating vs. cooling and the unit's age; an electrician asks whether anything's sparking or the power's out. The right two or three questions make you sound like the expert and tell you how urgent the job is.
4. Triage for urgency
Explicitly sort emergency from schedulable: "Just so I route this correctly — is this an emergency, or is it okay to schedule a visit?" Emergencies get fast-tracked; everything else goes on the calendar without panic.
5. Book it (or capture the lead)
If you book on the call, offer two specific time windows: "I've got Thursday morning or Friday afternoon — which is better?" Two choices convert far better than an open-ended "when works for you?" If you can't book live, capture name, number, address, and the issue, and commit to a callback window.
6. Confirm out loud
Read it back: "So that's Mike, 123 Oak Street, for a water heater repair, Thursday at 9 — correct?" This catches errors before they become missed appointments.
7. Close and set the text confirmation
End warm, and tell them a confirmation text is coming. A simple "you'll get a text shortly to confirm" reduces no-shows and gives the customer something to reply to.
Rolling it out
Print the script and tape it by the phone. Walk new hires through it on day one. And for the calls that come in when nobody can pick up — after hours, weekends, mid-job — that's exactly where an AI receptionist earns its keep: it can run this same 7-part flow on every call, 24/7, and book the job onto your calendar.
Free template
We built a free generator that produces this whole script — plus a matching voicemail greeting and a missed-call text-back — tailored to your trade in a few seconds. No signup: https://getcallbook.com/tools/call-script-generator
Write the script once. Win the calls you're already paying for.
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