AI phone receptionist for air-conditioning technicians
Quick summary
- You are on a balcony with a split unit when the published number rings. Both hands are in the work.
- The first question is breakdown or booked service — those are two different jobs.
- On a breakdown it takes the address and what they can see. It never says add gas, and it never talks them through a repair.
- A caller in a hot flat in August will not wait on voicemail. They ring the next van.
- It checks the book before it offers a visit, writes the time in, and texts the confirmation.
- After a heatwave, several people ring at once. It answers every line at once.
TL;DR
You are on a Greek balcony with a split unit open. The phone rings. The flat downstairs is blowing warm air. Someone else wants a service visit before August. The first is not a lecture and not a gas top-up on the phone. An assistant answers in the caller's language, asks whether this is a breakdown or a booked service, takes the address, books a visit only if that hour is free, and never tells them to add gas or how to open the unit. It does not invent when you will arrive. It does not invent a price. It is not an electrician. It does not touch a dead board.
Key takeaways
- Put the assistant on the number on the van with a forward-on-no-answer rule, so a free pair of hands still takes the call.
- Teach it the first question: breakdown or booked service — and do not let it jump to a time before that split.
- On a breakdown it takes the address and what they can see. Give it the sentence: no gas advice, no repair steps.
- Let it book service visits and new-install looks against the book you actually use. Keep arrival times and quotes as a callback.
- After a heatwave, shorten the ring-time before forwarding so overflow is caught before the third ring-out.
- Give it the line verbatim: the technician will look at the unit. It does not tell them to clean a filter or add gas.
What an AI phone receptionist does on a cooling number
You are on a balcony in a Greek apartment block. The outdoor unit is open. Both gloves are on the copper. The phone is on the rail, or in the van two floors down. It rings.
The caller has a bedroom split blowing warm in a heatwave, or they want three wall units serviced before August, or they want a new indoor unit in the living room. The first is a visit you may need to take today. The others can wait for an hour the book actually shows as free.
You put the assistant on the number already on the van and the Google listing. It answers when you cannot. It asks breakdown or booked service. It takes the address. It books a visit only if that hour is free, or it rings you. It never tells them to add gas. It never talks them through a filter, a restart, or how to open the unit.
This is not an electrician. A dark flat, a dead board, a smell of burning — those are not your jobs. The assistant has to know that, or Thursday will have a fuse booked onto a refrigeration van.
A caller who rang in English gets the confirmation in English. A caller who rang in Greek gets it in Greek. The assistant works in 70+ languages. The SMS follows the language of the call.
On a roof or a balcony in August
You are on a short ladder at an outdoor unit. The sun is on the wall. Condensate is dripping on the tile. Both hands are in the work. There is no desk. There is no second person waiting to take the number. The person who would have answered is the person whose hands are in the split.
These calls do not arrive in a neat line. People ring when they get home and the bedroom is a furnace, or in the first heatwave in June, or on a Sunday when the hotel plant dies before check-in. A second pair of hands you take on for Wednesday mornings is not standing next to you on Sunday. A second number that rings the same hot pocket does not help the third caller.
The caller in a hot flat will not wait on voicemail. Neither will the hotel that needs three units looked at before the weekend. Both dial the next number they found.
This is not a winter boiler. It is not a leak under a sink. It is not a fuse board. It is warm air from a wall unit, water on the floor under the indoor head, ice on the pipes, a balcony unit that will not start. If the assistant sounds like an electrician, the caller with a dead board stays on the line and the hot flat hangs up.
Breakdown or booked service — then the address
Breakdown. The unit is not doing what it did yesterday. Warm air. Water from the indoor unit. Ice on the pipes. No cold in a heatwave. The assistant takes the address, the floor, indoor or outdoor, what they can see, and a number. It does not tell them to clean the filter. It does not tell them to add gas. It does not walk them through a restart. If you have marked heatwave jobs as a ring to the van, it rings you. Otherwise it books the next window the book can honour.
Booked service. Three wall units before August. A hotel corridor. An annual clean. A new indoor unit in the living room. These can wait for an hour that is actually free. The assistant takes the address and what they want done, checks the book, offers only a window you actually run, writes the visit in, and texts.
New install. A look, not a price. How many rooms, indoor or cassette, which wall. It does not quote a split from a description of a flat. It books a visit so you can see the pipe run.
A caller who says “can you come now?” is not always a breakdown. They want the annual service this afternoon because they are home. The assistant still asks what they can see. If the unit is cooling, this is a booked look, not a now.
People remember the street. They do not remember the model. Ask for the address and the room. Indoor or outdoor. One identifier is enough to put the note on the right building. None is still a note, not a guess at a gas fill.
A sentence the assistant is not allowed to say
“How do I add gas?” is the question on this phone. It comes from a neighbour, from a YouTube tab still open, and from a tenant who does not want a visit.
The assistant does not answer it. Not with a pressure. Not with “it is usually the gas”. Not with “clean the filter first and call us back”. A sentence that sounds like a repair, said on the recorded line, is a sentence you now own, and the assistant cannot see the unit, the charge, or whether the circuit is even yours.
The line you give it is short: the technician will look at the unit. This call takes the address. No gas advice. No repair steps.
“Which button do I press?”, “can I restart it from the fuse?”, “the neighbour said it is only the capacitor”, “is the gas dangerous if I open it?” are still instructions. The assistant names the topic so the visit is useful, and refuses the steps.
Do not put a pressure table in the notes. It will read the table out.
Do not invent when you will arrive
You are on a balcony in one building. The part may not be in the van. The street may be pedestrian. The outdoor unit may be on a roof the building manager opens on Tuesday. “Twenty minutes” said from a script is a number the caller will hold you to.
The assistant never names an arrival. On a heatwave breakdown it says someone who can see where the van is will call, if you marked that as a ring. On booked work it offers a window you actually use — a morning, an afternoon — only after the book says that window is free.
If you run a “between four and seven” window in August, write that window down. The assistant repeats it. It does not tighten it to 16:20 to sound helpful.
Not an electrician
Some of you will look at a supply to the outdoor unit. Most of you will not open a board. A dark flat is not a split. A smell of burning is not a drain. A tripped switch on the landing is not refrigerant.
Write the list the way you would tell a neighbour who keeps giving out your number. Cooling, service, install. Not boards, not sockets, not leaks under a sink. If the list is empty, it will take work you then have to refuse from the landing.
A building manager who wants “the stairwell and the air-con” is two trades. Take the cooling. Send the rest on, if you have a name you actually recommend.
Hotels, blocks, and where to leave the van
Greek apartment blocks. A street-door code. An outdoor unit on a balcony over a pedestrian street. A roof plant the manager opens on Tuesday mornings. A hotel that wants three corridor units looked at before Saturday check-in.
The assistant should take the address, the floor, the code if there is one, indoor or outdoor, and who will be in. It should not promise that you can get onto the roof, or a parking space. Those are two more reasons it must not invent “twenty minutes”.
A tenant who is not Greek will often ring in English, Albanian, or Russian. The building manager may ring in Greek about the same plant. The assistant answers in the language of the call. The note still has to name the building and the floor, not a summary that lost the code.
How CITT handles it
- Your number stays on the van. A forwarding rule sends what you do not answer. Calls you pick up never leave, and are never charged.
- Every line is answered at once. A heatwave morning is several conversations, not a stack of busy tones.
- It knows the trade you described. Cooling, not electrical. Whether you take hotels. Whether you run evenings. The breakdown list. The hours.
- It asks breakdown or booked service first. Warm air, water, ice — those get an address and a visit or a ring. The rest wait for a free hour.
- It checks the real book before it offers a time, and writes the visit into the same diary you already use.
- It confirms by SMS, in the language of the call — 70+ languages — and can remind before a booked service.
- It escalates what cannot be finished on the call — a heatwave breakdown, a hotel plant, a complaint about last week’s work — as a tagged note to the phone you named.
- You get the transcript, the summary, and the job the caller named.
What it will not do
It will not tell them to add gas. It will not talk them through a filter, a restart, or how to open the unit. It will not invent an arrival time. It will not invent a quote for a new split or a fill. It will not book a dead board onto a refrigeration van. It will not diagnose a capacitor, a leak, or the neighbour’s unit. It will not decide that you will leave the balcony you are on. It rings you.
It will not give a safety lecture it invented. If you want a line that says do not open the outdoor unit, you write that line. The assistant repeats it.
What these calls sound like
The order is the split, then the address, then what they can see, then — only if this is booked work — a window the book can honour, then the confirmation. No gas. No buttons. No “we can be there in twenty minutes”. If it lectures a hot flat through a filter, you own that sentence, and the next van already has the job.
What you set up first
Put the assistant on the number on the van with a forward-on-no-answer rule. Then the split, the address fields, and the two sentences that forbid gas advice and repair steps.
Write what you actually take: service, breakdown, install. Not electrical. Mark the hours, including August evenings if you run them. Give it a published call-out only if you want that number said. Add how you write the book, who is the second pair of hands if there is one, and the phone that should ring when a heatwave breakdown comes in.
Rates live on the pricing section of the home page. They are not repeated here.
AI receptionist, in-house staff, or a call centre
| CITT | In-house | Call centre | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Answers while you are on a balcony | Always | Only if they can let go | Yes |
| Several callers in a heatwave | Every line at once | One | Depends on the plan |
| Asks breakdown or service first | Yes — before it looks at the book | Yes | Often jumps to what time |
| Tells them to add gas | Never | Not on the first call either | Must not; sometimes does |
| Talks them through a repair | Never — takes the address | Looks at the unit | Risk, if the script wants to help |
| Speaks the caller's language | 70+ languages | One or two | Whoever is on that shift |
| What it will not do | Gas advice, repair steps, or a dead board | Opens the unit, still does not lecture | Reads a script |
What one unanswered August morning costs a one-van cooling trade
Worked from these assumptions — change any of them and the answer changes:
- One van, a normal August weekday. You are on a balcony or a roof for a long stretch of the morning.
- About 14 inbound calls that day. Four arrive while both hands are in a split unit: two breakdowns, one service, one new indoor unit.
- A booked half-day that becomes work is worth about €180 of labour here — put your own average ticket in first.
- A heatwave call-out, before parts, is about €70 here. Replace that with what you actually charge to walk in the door.
- This example assumes the first breakdown caller and one of the service callers do not call back.
- Four calls reach nobody in one morning.
- The breakdown caller dials the next van. One service caller does the same.
- €70 + €180 = €250 of work that morning that never reached you.
- A morning like that once a week in a 12-week summer — 12 × €250.
About €3,000 a summer on those assumptions. Change the ticket, the call-out, and how often a morning like that happens.
What it costs
CITT is pay as you go: no packages, no minimum, no contract. The current rates — the monthly fee per number and the per-minute rate — are on the pricing section of the home page, which is the only place they are published.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to change the number on the van?
No. The number on the van, the cards, and the Google listing stays yours. You add one forwarding rule — every call, or only the ones still ringing after the seconds you choose. If you pick up, the call never leaves and is never charged.
Will it tell someone to add gas or clean the filter?
No. It takes the address and what they can see — warm air, ice on the pipes, water from the indoor unit. It does not talk them through a filter, a restart, or a gas top-up. Those are your job on the balcony, not a sentence on the recorded line.
Can it give a price for a new split or a gas fill?
It can repeat a published call-out you told it to say, if you actually publish one. It must not invent a split price, a refrigerant fill, or “gas is usually this”. A 1990s wall unit and a new inverter are not the same morning. It takes the address and what they want done. You price what you have seen.
What if they have no power to the unit? Is that me?
You write the list. A dark flat, a dead board, a smell of burning — those are not cooling jobs. The assistant says you do not take electrical work, and, if you want, a name you actually recommend. It does not book a fuse onto a refrigeration van.
What counts as a breakdown, and who decides?
You write the list. Blowing warm, water from the indoor unit, ice on the pipes, no cold in a heatwave — those are the usual four. The assistant does not decide that a noisy outdoor unit is “just a fan”. It takes the address and what they can see, and either books a visit or rings you.
What do we see after a call?
A transcript, a short summary, and the facts it collected — breakdown or service, address, floor, indoor or outdoor, whether a time was written in. Confirmations go out by SMS in the language of the call. A heatwave breakdown is flagged to the phone you named.
