The 10pm burst main gets answered. You get the job.
Water through the ceiling doesn't wait for office hours, and neither does the caller: they ring the next plumber on Google. H3llo's AI receptionist answers your number in your business's name, asks whether it's urgent, reads out your after-hours call-out rate, logs the job in Fergus and puts the caller through to whoever's on call.
- Keep your number
- Your rates, not ours
- Answers 24/7
A ringing phone and a wet floor can't happen at once.
Plumbing is a phone-first trade, and the calls come at the worst times. People find the leaking cylinder, the blocked drain and the split pipe under the house in the evening or at the weekend, which is exactly when you're off the tools. In the day it's no better: you're in a ceiling space in Raumati or elbow-deep in a gully trap in Waikanae, and the phone in your pocket is buzzing for a job you can't take.
A plumber answering service used to mean a call centre reading a script, and a message you had to ring back to make sense of. H3llo's AI receptionist for plumbers works the way your office would. It asks the questions you'd ask, in the order you'd ask them. It finds the customer and the site in Fergus, writes a real job, and gets the urgent ones to a person. Everything else is waiting for you in the morning.
Nobody gets woken for a dripping tap. A burst main, flooding, no water or a gas smell doesn't sit in a voicemail box until Monday. You set the rules once, and your after-hours calls are handled by them, every night.
Every plumbing call, sorted the way you'd sort it.
Your rules decide what happens to each call before it interrupts the job you're on.
| The call you get | What H3llo does |
|---|---|
| Emergency“There's water pouring out from under the house.” | Flagged urgent. It logs the job first, then puts the caller through to your on-call plumber. No on-call line? It tells them the on-call plumber will ring back, and you get a text with the name, number, address and what's happened. |
| Quote request“We're redoing the bathroom and need a price.” | No price on the phone: the agent can't see the job. In Fergus it creates a quote job with the address and the scope in the caller's words, ready to price at the desk. In Tradify it lands as an enquiry. |
| Existing customer“You did our hot water cylinder last winter.” | Recognised from their number and greeted by name. It checks for an open job before starting a new one, so a follow-up becomes a note on the right job, not a duplicate. |
| Tenant or property manager“I'm renting. The landlord said to ring you.” | It asks who's paying, logs the job under the landlord or property manager, and writes the tenant's name and number in as the site contact. |
| Merchant rep or sales call“Just following up on our new range of fittings.” | A name, a number and a message. No job in Fergus, nobody put through. It's in the summary for whenever you feel like reading it. |
| Wants you, by name“Can I talk to Dave?” | It says what you've told it to say when someone asks for you. If they insist on a person and it's urgent, it puts them through to your on-call. |
The 10pm burst main, answered.
An example, set up the way a plumber with an on-call phone and Fergus would set it up.
Split pipe under a rental, 10:14pm, Paekākāriki
- 22:14
First ring. The agent answers in your business's name and tells the caller the call is recorded.
- 22:14
“A pipe's split under the house and there's water everywhere.” Is this urgent, or can it wait until business hours? Urgent.
- 22:15
It asks whether they know your after-hours call-out rate. They don't, so it reads it out with your travel fee, excl. GST, exactly as you gave it to us.
- 22:15
The caller is renting. It finds the property manager in Fergus and logs the job under them, with the tenant as the site contact.
- 22:16
It looks the site up by street number and street name, confirms the address with the caller and creates the job.
- 22:16
It tells the caller it's putting them through to the on-call plumber, and does. The summary lands by text and email.
What it doesn't do: tell anyone where the toby is or how to turn the water off. Isolation advice comes from a plumber, and once the job's logged your on-call is the next voice they hear.
No hot water on a Monday
School run in an hour and the cylinder's cold. It isn't flooding, so the caller says it can wait for business hours. The agent logs the job in Fergus with the caller's description and tells them the office will be in touch. It doesn't promise a time; that's the office's call.
A southerly and a full phone
Spouting off, a downpipe through a window, water in two garages. The agent answers as many calls at once as your plan allows. The two genuine emergencies reach your on-call; the quote requests are logged for Monday.
The questions a plumbing office asks, in that order.
These come from the plumbing template the agent runs, built on a working plumber's Fergus account. One question at a time, and it waits for the answer.
- 01
“Is this urgent, or can it wait until business hours?”
The first thing it settles after hours. Leaks, flooding, no water and a gas smell count as urgent; you can tighten or widen that.
- 02
“Are you aware of our after-hours call-out rates, or would you like to hear them?”
Urgent calls only. If they've already agreed to your rates on an earlier call, it doesn't read them out again.
- 03
“What's the problem?”
One short description is enough. It doesn't diagnose, and it doesn't guess at how long the job will take.
- 04
“Can I get your first and last name?”
Only if it didn't already know them from their number. It searches Fergus, asks them to spell it if there's no match, and reads a new name back before saving it.
- 05
“Is this being billed to you, or to a landlord or property manager?”
Tenanted jobs go under whoever pays, with the tenant noted as the person on site.
- 06
“What's the street number, and could you spell the street name?”
It checks the customer's existing sites first, then searches by street number and name. The suburb is only asked for when it's a new address.
It never asks for a job number (it'll use one if the caller offers), never asks for an email address, and doesn't collect anyone's details unless it's logging a job. If you want something asked every time, like whether there's access under the house, tell us when we set you up.
Your call-out fee, quoted the way you'd quote it.
You choose how the agent handles money. It never makes up a number, and it never prices a job.
Standard and after-hours
Your business-hours rate, your after-hours first hour and each hour after, plus your travel fee. All read out excl. GST.
After-hours only
It quotes the after-hours call-out and leaves business-hours pricing to the office on the call-back.
Rates on request
For plumbers who price every job. The agent says the rate depends on the job and the office will talk it through.
- Rates can be read out up front on every urgent call, or only when the caller asks.
- A caller who'd rather not pay the after-hours rate is offered the next best thing: it logs the job for business hours.
- No estimates of how long a job will take, and no price for the work itself. That's for you to decide once you've seen it.
Fergus job creation, without the notepad.
Most plumbing calls end up as a job that's already logged, addressed and ready to schedule.
Fergus
Job management for tradesThe one the plumbing flow was built on. It finds the customer and the site, checks for open jobs, then writes the job, or a quote job when the caller wants a price.
How it works with FergusSimpro
Field service for electrical, HVAC, fire, security and multi-tradeJobs, quotes and notes, and the one system where it can read your schedule and book an appointment against a plumber.
How it works with SimproTradify
Job management for tradesNew work lands as an enquiry for someone in the office to turn into a job.
How it works with TradifyiTrade
Job management for tradesRecognises the caller from your customer list, reads their jobs and creates new ones.
How it works with iTrade
Run your books in Xero? The agent can look the caller up there too, alongside your job software. Not on any of these? You still get the full summary by email and text after every call.
AI receptionist plans from $75/month + GST.
Monthly, excl. GST. The entry plan answers and emails you a message. For the urgent text and the job written into Fergus, it's the plan with job-software writes.
H3llo AI 60
$75/monthFor a sole trader who mostly needs messages taken.
- 60 AI minutes a month
- Conversational AI agent
- 1 regional phone number
- 2 concurrent calls
- Message taking
- Email notifications
- $1 per additional minute
H3llo AI 200
$300/monthThe full agent, for a crew.
- 200 AI minutes a month
- Multilingual conversational AI agent
- 2 regional phone numbers
- 5 concurrent calls
- All agent actions incl. SMS & email
- API / CRM integration
- $1 per additional minute
What are your missed plumbing calls costing?
Your calls, your conversion rate, your average job. Think about the last burst pipe you missed and who fixed it.
Calls nobody answered
Out of 100
NZD, excl. GST
The working: calls a week × 52 weeks ÷ 12 months × % × $ job value
- H3llo AI 60 $75/monthYour result goes here, set against this plan's monthly cost.
- H3llo AI 200 $300/monthYour result goes here, set against this plan's monthly cost.
Prices are monthly, excl. GST, from our price list. The sum assumes every missed call would have been answered; you know your trade better than a calculator does.
Plumbers' FAQs
Common questions from NZ plumbing businesses.
- Can the AI handle emergency plumbing calls?
- Yes. It asks whether the call is urgent, logs the job, then puts the caller through to your on-call plumber, or tells them the on-call will ring back if you'd rather not take transfers. You get a text for the urgent ones. It won't talk anyone through turning the water off; that's a plumber's job. It isn't a 111 service.
- Does it tell callers my call-out rates?
- If you want it to. It can read your standard and after-hours rates and travel fee, only the after-hours call-out, or none at all. It reads them exactly as you gave them to us, excl. GST, and doesn't repeat them to a caller who's already agreed.
- Will it book jobs into Fergus or Simpro?
- Yes. It writes real jobs into Fergus, Simpro and iTrade, and quote jobs when the caller wants a price. In Tradify, new work lands as an enquiry. In Fergus it doesn't commit to a time; in Simpro it can book against your schedule.
- Can I keep my existing plumbing business number?
- Yes. We port it across, so the number on your van, your invoices and your Google listing stays the same. A port needs two business days' notice.
- What does it cost?
- H3llo AI 60 is $75/month, excl. GST. It answers, takes messages and emails them to you. To have it text you the urgent ones and write jobs into Fergus, Simpro, Tradify or iTrade, it's H3llo AI 200 at $300/month, with 5 concurrent calls. Over your minutes, it's $1 per additional minute. No lock-in contract, no termination fee.
- What happens if the caller insists on talking to me?
- It says whatever you've told it to say when someone asks for you by name. For urgent jobs it puts the caller through to your on-call once the job is logged. Set it up so your phone rings first during the day, and most of those callers get you anyway.
Plumbing is one trade of several
The same agent answers for electricians, and the after-hours page covers nights, weekends and holidays in detail.
Tell it the cylinder's leaking. See what it does.
Talk to the agent in your browser. Ask about call-out rates, say it's urgent, say it isn't.