Out of hours is where the money is and where the sleep goes. Adminmate answers whenever the phone rings, gives a genuine emergency the safety words, reaches you at once in the hours you cover, and holds everything else for the morning.
Fifteen minutes on Teams, with a real person.
Every trade has an out of hours problem and a different one. For plumbers and heating engineers it's the burst pipe and the boiler that's gone off in January. For electricians it's the tripped board that won't reset. For roofers it's the storm. For builders and decorators it's quieter: the Sunday enquiry that goes to the next name because you were, reasonably, having a Sunday.
Adminmate answers in all of those hours, in your business's name. What it does next is your rule. Whether you cover emergencies out of hours is your setting: if you do, a genuine emergency reaches you by text at once, with the address and what's happening; if you don't, it's the first thing waiting for you in the morning. The caller is told what to do straight away either way, and a genuine emergency is never booked as an ordinary job and never waits for a tap from you.
Everything that isn't an emergency is taken properly and held. The Sunday bathroom enquiry gets a text confirming it arrived and is waiting in the app to ring on Monday, with what they said. You get your Sunday, and you get the job.
In your business's name, every time. The caller never hears a ring out or a voicemail, which is when they ring the next name.
Switch it on and a genuine emergency reaches you by text at once, at any hour. Switch it off and it's the first thing waiting for you in the morning, with the caller already told what to do.
The safety words come first: the stopcock, the fuse board, the gas smell. That never waits for your sign-off.
Enquiries that can wait get a text confirming they arrived, and they're waiting in the app with everything the caller said, ready to ring back with a coffee.
Enquiry to booked job in 90 seconds, while Dean was under a sink two streets away.
An example call, written out. Not a recording.
The cold snap is the fortnight when a heating engineer's phone becomes unanswerable. Forty jobs, a no-heat call-out between each one, and the phone ringing through all of it. Out of hours call answering earns its keep here twice: the calls you can't get to in the day are answered and booked into the hours you've opened, and the ones at night are sorted into the emergency that needs you now and the service that can wait till Monday.
The same is true of the storm for a roofer and the heatwave for anyone with a van full of fans. Adminmate doesn't get busier when you do; the hundredth call of the week is answered like the first.
Out of hours is where a service that overpromises does the most damage. These are the rules.
Switch off covering emergencies out of hours and the assistant still answers and takes the message; it just holds everything for the morning. Or stop diverting your phone at night and the calls don't reach it at all.
The safety advice first, before anything else. Then you're told at once in the hours you cover emergencies. It's never treated as a job to book.
The text confirming what they've just agreed goes as the call ends, so they have the time in writing. Your quiet hours apply to the chasing, not to confirming a booking the customer has just made.
Every call from the night and anything waiting on you: who rang, what they wanted, what was said, and the ones to ring back first. It's on your phone and in the app.
Two plans, printed in full. No tier you have to call to find out the price.
You, your van and your phone.
Up to ten of you, ten diaries.
Pay for the year at ten months' price. Cancel any time and the unused time is refunded.
Fifteen minutes on Teams with a real person. Bring the call you lost last week and we'll show you how it would have gone.
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