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How Aria answers a call

No jargon, no flowchart. Here is what actually happens between your phone ringing and the job being in your diary.

1. She picks up

On the first ring, 24 hours a day, on every plan — including nights, weekends and bank holidays. There is no queue and no hold music, because she takes calls in parallel rather than one after another. Ten people ringing at once all get answered at once.

2. She says who she is

She tells the caller she is an AI assistant answering for your business. We made that call deliberately and we are not going to change it. A customer who finds out halfway through that they have been talking to a machine feels tricked, and that lands on your name, not ours.

3. She finds out what the job is

In the caller's own words, not through a phone menu. She asks what is wrong, where it is, how urgent it is and who she is speaking to, and she follows the conversation where it goes — if someone says "it's not an emergency but the ceiling's wet", she picks up on both halves of that sentence.

What she asks is tuned to the trade. A roofer's caller gets asked about water coming in and scaffold access; a builder's caller gets asked whether planning has gone through. The detail is on the trade pages below.

4. She reads it back

Name, number, address. On the call, out loud. It takes fifteen seconds and it is the difference between a callback number you can ring and one digit of guesswork.

5. It gets to you

This is the one real difference between the plans.

• Starter, £59 a month. She texts you the lot — name, number, postcode, what the job is, how urgent it sounded. You decide what goes in the diary. Most sole traders prefer this, because the diary is the thing they do not want touched.
• Pro, £250 a month. She books it straight into your calendar, in the slots you have actually left free, and confirms it with the customer by text.
• Multi-Site, £449 a month. The same, across more than one location or team.

Full detail on the pricing page.

6. The customer gets a text

So they have your name in their phone and something in writing. That is most of what stops them carrying on down their list of three other firms.

What she will not do

Worth being just as clear about this:

• She will not quote. Not a price, not a day rate, not a ballpark. She gathers what you need to price it.
• She will not commit you to a time you have not agreed. On Pro she books only into free slots in your own calendar.
• She will not pretend to be a person. See step 2.
• She will not handle a gas escape herself. If a caller reports a smell of gas she tells them to leave it and ring the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999 immediately, and flags it to you.

Getting started

Ring the demo number below first — it is the live system and it costs you nothing to judge her on. Then it is 14 days free, and from £59 a month after that, with no contract, no setup fee and nobody coming out to see you.

If you are not yet convinced you miss enough calls to be worth it, start with the free missed-call check instead. We ring your mobile and text you back exactly what happened. No card, no sales call.

What she asks depends on your trade

The six steps above are the same for everyone. The questions inside step three are not, because the detail that makes a job pricable is different in every trade, and a generic script is how you end up with "boiler problem, please call back" and no postcode.

A plumber's caller gets asked whether the water is still running and whether they have found the stopcock. A roofer's caller gets asked whether water is coming in and whether there is scaffold access. A gas engineer's caller gets asked about the make of the appliance and whether there is any smell of gas. A builder's caller gets asked whether planning has gone through and roughly what the budget looks like. A plasterer's caller gets asked the room count and whether it is a skim over existing or a fresh board-out.

The trade pages set out exactly what she asks and what you get back: plumbers, electricians, gas engineers, builders, roofers and plasterers and dryliners.

What she is not trying to be

Aria is not a chatbot bolted onto a phone line and she is not trying to pass as your receptionist. She is trying to do the narrow thing that costs you most money when it does not happen: pick up, find out what the job is, get it to you accurately, and leave the customer feeling dealt with rather than parked.

That is a deliberately small job description. She will not negotiate, she will not price, and she will not promise a time your calendar has not got. Everything she does is the part you would do in the first ninety seconds of a call anyway — the part you cannot do when both hands are full.

How she compares with the alternatives you are weighing up

Most people looking at this are choosing between four things, and it is worth being straight about where she wins and where she does not.

Against voicemail. No contest, and not because she is clever. Voicemail asks a customer with a wet ceiling to perform a monologue to a machine and then wait. Most of them hang up and ring the next firm instead.

Against a human answering service. She answers every call at once instead of queueing them, she works nights and bank holidays without a rota, and she does not have a per-call charge that punishes you in a busy week. A good human service will handle a genuinely strange call better than she will. That comparison is set out properly here.

Against your partner or your mum answering it. This is the real competition in the trades and it mostly works, right up to the week it does not — a holiday, a bad day, two calls at once, or a job description written down slightly wrong.

Against answering it yourself. You will always be better on the phone than she is. You will also always be up a ladder, under a floor or driving. She is for those hours, not instead of you.

What it costs, briefly

14 days free, then £59 a month on Starter, £250 on Pro and £449 on Multi-Site. No setup fee and no minimum term. Texts are 10p each, or from 7.3p in bundles and Starter includes 500 call minutes a month, then 10p a minute. The pricing page has the full breakdown, including what is charged on usage rather than bundled in.

Questions we get asked about how she works

Does Aria tell callers she is an AI?

Yes — in the greeting, on every call and on every plan. We decided that deliberately and we are not going to change it. A customer who works it out halfway through a call feels tricked, and that lands on your name rather than ours.

Does Aria answer 24/7 on every plan?

Yes. 24 hours a day including nights, weekends and bank holidays, on all three plans. What changes between the plans is what happens after the call, not whether the call gets answered.

Will Aria quote a price?

No. Not a price, not a day rate, not a ballpark. She captures what you need in order to price the job — the fault, the address, how urgent it sounds — and leaves the money to you. Pricing a boiler swap off a phone description is how you end up doing it for free.

How does the job reach me?

On the £59 Starter plan Aria texts you the name, number, postcode, job details and how urgent it sounded. On Pro and Multi-Site she books it into free slots in your Google Calendar and confirms it with the customer by text.

What happens if several people ring at once?

They all get answered at once. Aria takes calls in parallel rather than one after another, so there is no queue and no hold music. This is the part one human on a phone cannot do for you: on the morning everything goes wrong at the same time, the fifth caller gets the same answer as the first.

Does she read the phone number back?

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

Does the customer get anything in writing?

Yes. The caller gets a text after the call, and on Pro that text includes a booking link so they can pick a time themselves. Your name ends up in their phone and the job is written down somewhere, which is most of what stops them carrying on down their list of three other firms.

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

She does not try to handle it. She tells the caller to leave it and ring the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999 immediately, and she flags the call to you. Some things do not belong in a job queue.

Do I get a new number, or does she answer my existing line?

You get a real UK phone number of your own and Aria answers that, set up for you after checkout. If you want to talk about how that sits alongside the number already on your van, email hello@tradeboostuk.co.uk — we would rather answer that properly than give you a one-line version here.

What does it cost to try?

Ringing the demo line costs you nothing and it is the live system, not a recording. After that it is 14 days free, then from £59 a month with no setup fee and no minimum term. Full detail is on the pricing page.