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AI Receptionist for Gas Engineers

Gas work has a season, and the season is exactly when you have the least capacity to answer a phone.

The winter problem

From the first proper cold week in October to the back end of February, the phone does not stop. Boilers that limped through the summer give up all at once. Everyone wants you today. And you are already in somebody's airing cupboard with the front off a combi, so the calls go to voicemail — the ones that would have been your best-paying jobs of the year alongside the ones that were never going to be worth the drive.

Then in April it goes quiet, and the annual services you should be re-booking slide because nobody chased them.

What Aria does in the rush

She answers every call, 24 hours a day, on every plan. No queue, no hold music, no "we are currently experiencing high call volumes". Then she sorts it:

• Breakdown, service or certificate? A dead boiler in December, an annual service, or a landlord gas safety record are three different slots in your week.
• Is there heat and hot water, or neither? No heating at all with a young child or an elderly resident in the house is the call you want to see first, and she flags what she was told.
• Any smell of gas — and if there is, she tells them to leave it alone and ring the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999 straight away, rather than waiting on you.
• Boiler make and model if the caller can read it off the front, plus any fault code on the display. That is the difference between carrying the right part and a second visit.
• Landlord or homeowner, property postcode, access arrangements, and whether a tenant needs to be there.
• Name and callback number, read back on the call.

Nine people ring before eight on the first cold morning

The calls in a cold snap do not arrive in an orderly queue. The temperature drops, every boiler that was marginal in October fails in the same forty-eight hours, and the phone starts before you have got the van unlocked. One person with one handset takes those calls one at a time. Everybody else gets ringing, then voicemail, then the next engineer on their list.

Aria takes calls in parallel rather than one after another. There is no queue and no hold music, and no "we are currently experiencing high call volumes" — ten people ringing at the same moment all get answered at the same moment. You come out of the first airing cupboard of the day to nine jobs written down with postcodes, instead of nine missed calls and a guess about which one was the landlord with four properties.

The one call she must not book

A reported smell of gas is not a job, and the worst thing any receptionist — human or otherwise — can do with it is take a name and promise a visit on Thursday.

If a caller reports a smell of gas, Aria tells them to leave it alone and ring the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999 immediately, and she flags the call to you. She does not attempt to triage it, she does not try to keep the caller on the line, and she does not put it in a diary slot. That behaviour is deliberate and it is the same on every plan.

What she will not do

The limits matter as much as the capability, because a receptionist who oversteps costs you more than one who does too little.

• She will not quote. Not a price, not a day rate, not a ballpark. She gathers what you need to price it yourself.
• She will not commit you to a time you have not agreed. On Pro she books only into slots you have actually left free in your own calendar. On Starter she does not touch the diary at all.
• She will not pretend to be a person. She says she is an AI in the greeting, on every plan.
• She will not handle a gas escape. It goes to 0800 111 999 and gets flagged to you.

What the three plans actually change

The answering is not the part held back. All three plans answer every call 24/7 and all three tell the caller she is an AI. What changes as you go up is what happens in the minute after the call ends.

Full detail is on the Aria pricing page. No setup fee and no minimum term on any of them, and every plan starts with 14 days free before the first payment.

Two halves of the same year

Gas work has a shape: a winter where you cannot answer the phone, and a spring where the annual services you should be re-booking quietly slide because nobody chased them. Those are two different problems and we sell two different things for them, which is worth saying plainly rather than implying one product fixes both.

Aria handles the inbound half — she answers the breakdown call at seven in the morning in December. TradeBoost Gas, automatic boiler service reminders, at £19 a month, handles the outbound half: it texts your customers automatically when their annual service is due, so they re-book without you chasing a single one, and you add customers by text with no app and no login. They work on their own or together.

Get your own number before you spend anything

We would rather you did not take our word for whether this is worth £59 a month. Two things cost nothing and both give you evidence instead of a sales pitch.

The demo line at the bottom of this page is the live system, so you can hand her a dead boiler and judge the triage yourself. And the free missed-call check rings your mobile and texts you back exactly what happened to the call — no card, no sales call. Put your own missed-call figure against the margin on one boiler swap and the arithmetic answers itself; it is set out properly in what a missed call actually costs.

Questions gas engineers actually ask us

What does Aria do if a caller reports a smell of gas?

She does not try to deal with it and she does not put it in your diary. She tells the caller to leave it alone and ring the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999 immediately, and she flags the call to you. A gas escape is an emergency for the emergency service, not a booking.

Does Aria answer out of hours and at weekends?

Yes, 24 hours a day on every plan, including nights, weekends and bank holidays. That is not a paid upgrade on the higher plans — all three answer round the clock, because the no-heating call on a Sunday in January is the one you least want to lose.

What happens when nine people ring at once in a cold snap?

All nine get answered. She takes calls in parallel rather than one after another, so there is no queue and no hold music — ten people ringing at the same moment are all answered at the same moment. On the first properly cold morning of the year that is the difference between nine jobs written down and one answered call.

Does Aria tell the caller she is an AI?

Yes, in the greeting, on every plan. She says she is an AI assistant answering for your business. We are not going to change that: a customer who realises halfway through that they have been talking to a machine feels tricked, and it is your name on the van.

Will Aria quote for a boiler or a service?

No. Not a price, not a day rate, not a ballpark. She gathers what you need in order to price it yourself. Pricing a heating job off a phone description is how a job gets done at a loss.

Can she book into my diary?

On Pro and Multi-Site she books straight into your calendar, and only into slots you have actually left free. On the Starter plan she does not touch the diary at all — she texts you the details and you decide what goes in the book, which in the middle of a breakdown week is usually what you want.

What exactly gets texted to me after a call?

The caller's name, their number, the postcode, what the job is and how urgent it sounded. You read it between jobs instead of listening back to three voicemails at nine at night.

Does she read the callback number back to the caller?

Yes — name, number and address, out loud, on the call. It takes about fifteen seconds and it is the difference between a number you can ring back and a transposed digit you discover tomorrow.

Does the customer get anything in writing?

Yes, the customer gets a text after the call. Your name is in their phone and the job is written down, which is most of what stops them carrying on down the list of other engineers while they wait to hear from you.

Does Aria handle the annual service re-booking as well?

No — that is a different product. Aria answers the calls coming in. The re-booking problem is handled by TradeBoost Gas at £19 a month, which texts your customers automatically when their annual service is due so they re-book without you chasing. You add customers by text, with no app and no login. Plenty of engineers run the two together.

Is there a setup fee, a contract or a minimum term?

None of the three. No setup fee, no minimum term and no contract — it is monthly and you cancel when you like. There is also no installation, no engineer visit and nobody coming out to see you.

What does Aria cost?

Starter is £59 a month, Pro is £250 a month and Multi-Site is £449 a month, as listed on the Aria pricing page. All three answer 24/7 and all three start with 14 days free before the first payment.

Can I hear her before I pay anything?

Yes, and we would rather you did. Ring the demo line on this page and give her a dead boiler the way a customer would — it is the live system, not a recording. After that it is 14 days free.

I am not sure I miss enough calls to justify it. How do I find out?

Run the free missed-call check first. It rings your mobile and texts you back exactly what happened to the call. No card and no sales call, and it gives you your own figure to put against the monthly cost instead of ours.