Answering, every hour
Evenings, weekends and bank holidays included.
Missed WhatsApp messages
No enquiry sits unread until you get back to the van.
Days a year covered
Christmas Day included. It does not take holiday and it never calls in sick.
A Survey Booked In Nine Minutes, From A “We’re Not Sure It’s Needed Yet”
This is a genuine WhatsApp conversation handled start to finish by the agent, on a live heating business. Names, company and address redacted. Nothing else has been reworded, tidied up or cherry-picked.
The actual screenshots
Tap any one to read it full size.
And what was happening at each step
Hi [customer], it’s [name] from [company]. I’m just following up on the boiler enquiry.
We're not sure it's needed yet. Basically the boiler is fine, but it's bloody old. We're selling so trying to anticipate what the survey will flag and how much it would cost us to replace, and how quickly.
No problem at all, that makes sense if you're selling. The free home survey is mainly to check what's there now and what a buyer's survey might flag, such as the boiler's age and condition. After that we can give you an accurate fixed-price quote for replacement options and discuss how quickly the work could be done. Would you like us to arrange the free survey?
I guess it wouldn't hurt? Out of interest how quickly can you guys move if required? So, pending a survey, let's say we wanted to replace - what is your typical time before you can get a new one in and done?
Once we've completed the free home survey, we can usually move fairly quickly. The exact timescale depends on the boiler selected and parts availability, but we can discuss this properly once we've assessed the system. The survey takes around 15 to 20 minutes, is free and comes with no obligation. Would you like to arrange that?
Yes, let's do that. Then when it's flagged (it will be) we'll wait for buyer response and potentially move ahead with something.
It's 26 years old I believe but it works fine
Perfect, thanks [customer]. When would suit you for the free home survey, weekday or weekend, and is morning or afternoon usually best?
We're having it serviced tomorrow (required for selling), so pretty much any time weekday or weekend I can make work. I just want to get ahead of the curve.
I can currently do Thursday 13 August at 10am, Thursday 13 August at 1pm or Thursday 13 August at 3pm. Would any of those work for you?
10am Thursday works for me
Perfect, Thursday 13 August at 10am works. Could you please confirm the full installation address, including the house number and street?
[address]. Park in the car park next to the property and I'll give you a pass.
Perfect, you're booked in for Thursday 13 August at 10am at [address]. We'll send you a reminder before the appointment. Just message us here if anything changes.
Thanks!
The objection most engineers never get past.
"We’re not sure it’s needed yet." That is where the majority of follow-ups die. The agent does not push the sale, it reframes the survey around what this customer actually cares about: what a buyer’s survey is going to flag.
One message later, they are asking buying questions.
"How quickly can you guys move if required?" That is not a cold lead any more. The objection turned in a single exchange, at midday, with nobody at the business involved.
An honest answer, then the risk taken out.
It does not over-promise a timescale it cannot know. It gives the real answer, then de-risks the ask: 15 to 20 minutes, free, no obligation.
They say yes, and volunteer the detail that matters.
"It’s 26 years old I believe but it works fine." A 26-year-old boiler in a house that is being sold. The agent has qualified the job without anyone asking a scripted question.
Real slots, not "when are you free?"
Three actual openings from the diary, offered by name and time. That is the difference between a conversation that books and one that drifts into next week.
Address, access instructions, confirmation, reminder.
It takes the full address, captures the parking note about the pass, confirms the booking back and promises the reminder. Nothing left for anyone to type up later.
Read it back and ask yourself honestly: how long would that thread have sat on your phone before you replied, and would you have handled the “not sure it’s needed yet” as patiently at half twelve on a working Tuesday?
What The Agent Actually Does
It answers the moment the message lands.
Customers message on WhatsApp because it's easier than ringing. The problem is they message at 9pm, while you're eating your tea or halfway under a floor. The agent replies in seconds, every time, in your tone of voice.
Speed wins jobs. The engineer who replies first usually gets the survey, and everyone else gets "we've gone with someone else, thanks."
It books straight into the diary you already use.
The agent reads your real availability, offers the slots you genuinely have free, confirms the one the customer picks and writes the job in. Not into some new system you have to learn: into ServiceM8, Jobber, SimPRO, your Google or Outlook calendar, or whatever you are running now.
You find out about the job when it is already in the diary, not after four days of back and forth.
It answers the questions you get asked 40 times a week.
How much is a combi swap? Are you Gas Safe registered? Do you do finance? How long does a fit take? Do you cover my postcode? The agent knows your prices, your warranties, your areas and your services, and answers properly.
It doesn't guess. If something is outside what it knows, it takes the details and hands the conversation to you.
It qualifies the job before you spend a minute on it.
Boiler type, property size, fuel, location, timescale, budget. It asks the same questions a good surveyor would ask, so the enquiry that reaches you is already scoped, not a one-line "how much for a boiler".
Fewer wasted survey visits. Fewer tyre-kickers in the van diary.
It chases the ones who go quiet.
A customer asks a price and disappears? The agent follows up politely a couple of days later. Most of the time they just got busy, and a nudge brings them straight back.
That is the follow-up you always meant to do and never got round to, running on its own.
It hands over to you the second it should.
Complicated job, an unhappy customer, a warranty issue, or anyone who simply asks to speak to a human: the agent stops, flags it and pings you. You take over the same thread, and the customer never notices a handover.
You stay in control. It handles the boring 80%.
Why This Is The Job You Should Hand Over First
Most heating businesses do not lose jobs on price. They lose them on speed. A customer messages three engineers on a Sunday night. Two of them reply on Tuesday. One replies in twenty seconds.
You cannot be that fast on your own. Nobody can, not while you are on the tools all day. Hiring someone to sit on the phone costs more per month than most engineers make on two installs.
The agent is the cheapest member of staff you will ever take on, and it never misses a message, never forgets to follow up, and never books two jobs into the same morning.
You do the work. It handles the talking, the qualifying and the booking.
What You Actually Get Back
The bookings are the obvious bit. The part that changes how the job feels is what it does to your week.
Your evenings
No more sitting on the sofa half-watching telly with one eye on your phone, firing off replies between adverts. The agent has already answered them.
Your headspace
That low-level nag of "who haven't I got back to?" goes away. If it needed answering, it has been answered. If it needs you, you have been told.
Your mornings
Stop starting the day with 20 minutes of message triage in the van. Open Relode and the diary is already filled in.
Your Sundays
Boilers break at the weekend. Answering them shouldn't be your weekend. The agent works the hours you don't want to.
The jobs you were losing
Every enquiry that went cold because you replied on Wednesday is a job someone else fitted. Those are the ones this gets back.
Your actual trade
You trained as a heating engineer, not a receptionist. Spend the day on the tools and let the talking happen without you.
A Tuesday, Before And After
- 7:40 — Three messages overnight. You read them at a traffic light and mean to reply later.
- 11:15 — Customer messages again: “Did you get my message?” You are elbow deep in a cylinder.
- 14:30 — You reply with a rough price. They have already had a quote from someone else.
- 18:50 — You spend tea time going back and forth about a survey date.
- 21:30 — Two more enquiries land. You will get to them tomorrow. Probably.
- Result: one survey booked, two enquiries gone quiet, no evening.
- 7:40 — All three were answered overnight. Two are qualified, one is booked in for Thursday.
- 11:15 — Nobody is chasing you. They have had their questions answered properly.
- 14:30 — A new enquiry gets a price in 40 seconds and books itself into Friday morning.
- 18:50 — Your phone buzzes once: a customer asked something the agent handed to you.
- 21:30 — Two enquiries land and are dealt with. You do not even look at your phone.
- Result: three surveys booked, nothing gone cold, your evening back.
The Maths On It
Worked through on typical numbers for a small heating firm. Put your own figures in and the answer tends to come out the same way.
Ten to fifteen messages a day, two to three minutes each, plus the re-reading and the chasing. That is most of a working week over a year.
Win back one enquiry a month that would otherwise have gone cold and, on a typical £2,800 install at 50% margin, the agent has paid for itself many times over.
A part-time office assistant to cover the phones is hundreds a month plus NI, holiday and training. The agent is a line on your Relode bill.
Illustrative figures based on typical enquiry volumes and install margins, not a guarantee of results. Your own numbers will depend on your pricing, your area and how many enquiries you get.
Set Up In An Afternoon
No new app for your customers. No new number. Nothing for you to learn.
Connect your WhatsApp number
We hook the agent up to your business WhatsApp. Same number your customers already message, no new app for them to download.
Teach it your business
Your prices, boilers, warranties, service areas, working hours and the answers you give most often. It only ever says what you have told it to say.
Point it at your diary
Relode, ServiceM8, Jobber, SimPRO, Google or Outlook calendar, whatever you already run. The slots it offers are slots you can actually work, and the booking lands where you already look.
Watch the bookings land
Every conversation, lead and booking lands in your CRM pipeline alongside your website enquiries. One pipeline, not two inboxes.
The Bit You Are Probably Sceptical About
Fair enough. Nobody wants their customers talking to something that embarrasses them. Here is exactly how it behaves.
Will it sound like a robot?
No. It writes like a person, in the tone you set, and it uses your words for your prices and your services. Customers are talking to your business, not a chatbot menu with "press 1 for boilers".
What if it says the wrong price?
It only quotes from the pricing you have given it. Anything outside that, it says it will check and passes the conversation to you rather than guessing.
What if a customer wants to speak to me?
It hands over immediately, in the same thread, and flags it on your phone. Anyone who asks for a human gets one.
Do my customers need anything new?
No. Same WhatsApp, same number they already have. From their side it just looks like you finally started replying quickly.
Do I have to bin the software I already use?
No. If you run ServiceM8, Jobber, SimPRO or anything else for your diary and job management, the agent books into that. You carry on working exactly where you work now, the jobs just start appearing in it on their own.
Will it double-book me?
It books against your live availability in whichever diary it is connected to, so it can only offer slots that are genuinely free. Block a morning out and it stops offering it.
What about out of hours emergencies?
You decide what it does after hours: book the next available slot, take full details for the morning, or flag genuine emergencies to you straight away.
It books into the diary you already run.
You do not have to move your business onto anything new. The agent connects to the job management software you are already using, checks what you genuinely have free, and writes the booking straight in where you already look for it.
Not on the list? Tell us what you run. If it has a diary, we can almost certainly book into it.
Complete Your System
Stop Letting Messages Sit Until Tomorrow
Your customers are already on WhatsApp. Give them someone who answers straight away, knows your prices, and can book them in on the spot.
£10 a month, added to any Relode plan.
14 days free. Books into ServiceM8, Jobber, SimPRO or whatever diary you already run. Cancel any time during your trial and you will not be charged.