Multilingual receptionist for electricians and plumbers

They started in English

You are on your back under a kitchen sink. The trap is off. Both gloves are wet. The phone rings. The caller starts in English, or Albanian, or Russian — the language they speak in that flat. You do not have that language while the cover is off the board.

They will not leave a long Greek message. They hang up and dial the next van on the list. If a fluent voice then invents twenty minutes, or a bathroom price, they will keep that sentence.

This is a normal week in a Greek apartment block. A tenant who found you on Google starts in English. A family who shares the landing starts in Albanian. Russian, in the same building, about the same riser. The building manager starts in Greek and wants the stairwell and the tank. You may have enough English to finish a call in the van. You do not have enough of everything, and you do not have it with wet gloves.

The number they rang is the one on the van and the Google listing. They did not look for a bilingual receptionist. They looked for someone who can stop the water, or add two sockets. Three names came back on the same screen. They will tap the next one if this goes to a Greek greeting and a beep.

Two ways this call goes wrong

They hang up. That is the first way. They heard Greek, or four rings and a tone, and they went back to the list. You listen later and nobody left a message, and you conclude that foreign tenants write. Some of them do. The ones who rang wanted a yes about the water, or a morning for the sockets, and they already had another van in the same glance.

They get an answer that is too helpful. That is the second way, and it costs the morning rather than a lead. An assistant that speaks English well will want to close the loop: yes, we can come in twenty minutes, yes, a socket is usually this, yes, we will look at the board from here. Said clearly, it sounds like a van that is ready. It is still an invented arrival, an invented figure, and an invented diagnosis. The caller will keep the sentence. The person whose ceiling is wet will not care that the voice was not you.

A third thing sits next to those. People who are not sure of the trade ask whether you do gas, whether you do communal work, whether you only do electrical. The assistant repeats what you typed in. It does not guess the list because it can say the English sentence.

Still running, still out, or booked — still two jobs

The language changes. The jobs do not.

In the English you half have, “come now” and “the heater is dead” and “can you quote the bathroom” get written down as one request. That is how a leak becomes Thursday at eleven, and how a dark flat becomes a fuse you never saw.

The assistant has to ask the first question in their language, then keep the two jobs apart.

An emergency still needs whether the water is running, whether the power is out, whether they smell burning, then the address, then you. A booked visit still needs what they want done, the address, and an hour the book can honour. None of those become a yes because the English was clear.

A single call can hold both, and it often does when they are not in Greek. “The heater is dead — can you also add two sockets while you are here?” is a look and a quote. “Water through the ceiling — can you come now?” is a human, not a morning in the book. The assistant notes both, in their language, and confirms neither as an arrival until you have seen the van.

Keep the first question in every language you actually hear. One sentence is enough. Skip it because they already sounded sure, and the wrong morning goes in the book.

A sentence they will keep

If the assistant says you will be there in twenty minutes because it could say so in English, they will wait on the landing. You will still be under a sink in another building. The street may be pedestrian. The shaft key may be with the manager.

It never names an arrival. On a leak it says someone who can see where the van is will call. On booked work it offers a window you already use, only after the book says that window is free. Speaking Albanian well does not show where the van is.

Do not put a hopeful sentence in the notes. “We can usually come the same day” will be read out in English as if you had just left the yard.

The same test covers the price. A number quoted in English before anyone has opened the wall — a 1970s block, a new build, a heater on a balcony versus one in a shaft — is a number you then have to take back, often on the landing, in a language you do not speak well. It can repeat a published call-out you typed in. If you have no published figure, it takes the request. Do not put a “from” price in the notes. It will read the number out.

A complaint about last week’s work is the same kind of call in any language: take the name, take what they said, put it in front of you. Do not offer a free revisit from the phone because the English was angry. You look at the job. You decide.

The text they can read at the door

The confirmation is not a courtesy. On a one-van trade it is how they know the window, how they send the door code, and how they tell you the tiles are not in.

If they booked in English and the text arrives in Greek, they will stand at the street door with a code they cannot use, or they will miss the window and you will ring a bell nobody understands. If they described the leak in Albanian and the note to you lost the floor, you will walk the wrong landing.

The SMS follows the language of the call. The book can stay in the language you already use. The message to the person at the door cannot. Test this once with a number you hold. It is the thing trades forget, because the Greek text looks finished on your own phone.

Put the sentences they will need into what you type in: the window you actually run, that you will not name a minute, that you do not quote unseen work, how to send a door code, who to ring if water starts running after the call. The assistant may repeat those. It may not invent a twenty-minute arrival, a parking space on a pedestrian street, or a key to a shaft you have not been promised.

A call about a smell of burning, a dark flat, or water on a ceiling is still a human, in any language. It is not a Thursday hour said clearly in English.

After hours, in a language you do not have

A tenant rings at eleven because the pipe went during dinner. They ask it in English or Albanian because that is the language of the flat. You are in another building, or in bed. The person who could explain the next hour you run, in their language, is you.

The answers have to be short in their language: this is an emergency, someone who can see the van will call; or no, we do not run nights, here is the next hour we do run, and the leak is on the phone you named so you see it at seven.

An assistant that answers with “we can be there in twenty minutes” because it can form the English sentence, when you are asleep, has not heard the question. Write the after-hours line once, the way you would text it to a tenant at ten. Nights or no nights. Who, if anyone, still answers. If the line is empty, it will invent an arrival you cannot keep, and it will invent it in the language they will still have at the door.

A Saturday booked look is still not an emergency just because the English was urgent. Water running or board dead: you. A bathroom quote: the next free window.

When they switch, and when the manager rings

Couples ring together. One starts in English. The husband takes the phone in Greek. The assistant follows the language of the sentence it just heard. Address already taken stays taken. Whether the water is still running stays taken. It does not restart the first question as if a new person had rung. If the switch is messy, it reads the facts back once, in the language that is winning, and confirms. A lost floor at the handover is how you walk the wrong landing.

If a third person comes on — a building manager, a landlord who “handles the money”, a neighbour who translates — take their name and whether the confirmation should go to them. Do not lose the kind of call you already have.

The manager who rings in Greek about the roof tank, and the tenant who rang an hour ago in English about no hot water, can be the same riser. The ordinary week, not a special case. If the two notes do not name the same building and the same floor, you treat one pipe as two jobs, or you miss that the shaft key is already promised for Tuesday. Ask for the address and the floor in both languages. The book can stay in Greek. The facts cannot drift.

A tenant who rings from the landing in English and a manager who already has you for the tank on Tuesday are not the same person. The first needs a free hour, or a human. The second needs the visit that is already there. Ask which they are, in their language, before anyone talks about writing a new morning.

The rule the assistant must obey

Same facts, any language.

It may repeat a published call-out you typed in. It may offer a window if the book you connected shows one at that moment. It may tell the after-hours line you wrote. It may put a leak on the phone you named. It may do those things in 70+ languages.

It may not invent an arrival because the English was clear. It may not invent a quote, convert a euro call-out into pounds, or read out “a socket is usually this”. It may not decide that a dark flat is a fuse. It may not send a Greek text after an English call. It may not book a leak as a Thursday hour. It may not take gas, communal work, or the other trade if you said you do not.

When the book is silent, the English sentence is the same as the Greek one: I cannot confirm a time from here; I have your address and what you want done; someone will call you. That sentence, in their language, is what keeps them off the next van without giving away a morning you do not have.

What you configure first

1. The tenant’s language as a working language on the number on the van. Not a second line. Not a note that says if they sound foreign, transfer.
2. The same first question in every language you expect to hear — water still running, power still out, smell of burning — written so it cannot be skipped.
3. The book you already use. If the book does not show a free hour, the assistant takes a request. It does not invent one.
4. Only the published call-out it may repeat. Do not give it a bathroom figure you would take back on the landing.
5. The after-hours line, written the way you would text a tenant at ten: nights or no nights, who if anyone still answers. It will be read out in their language.
6. The sentences they need at the door — window, door code, how to say the tiles are late — and a line that forbids an invented arrival or an invented quote.
7. The confirmation text follows the language of the call. Test this with a number you hold. Include who the text should go to when a manager booked for a tenant.

Then listen to the first twenty calls that did not start in Greek. You are not grading the accent. You are checking that the first question happened, that a leak was not booked as a Thursday, that no arrival or price appeared that you cannot keep, and that the text went out in the language of the call. If a call fails those, it failed, however smooth it sounded.

Make one test call in English and one in Albanian before you leave it on the number on the van.

Several calls, one pair of hands

The morning you are already in a job is when the languages arrive together. A trap in your hands. The phone in English. A second ring in Greek from the manager before the first has finished. The same two hands cannot take the third call. That caller hears a busy tone.

The assistant answers several of these at once. You still take the ones a free pair of hands can take. A forwarding rule sends what you do not answer. Calls you pick up never leave.

Sunday lunch is no quieter if you take Sunday. A pipe goes. They ring in the language of the flat. Evening is later still: you have packed the van, and the tenant is still looking at your listing.

These are not odd calls you staff with “the English you have, when you are in the van”. They are the ordinary week. English, Albanian, Russian, Greek about the same building. You do not set a language per job. You put someone on the number who can continue the first sentence, and who will not invent twenty minutes because they can say it clearly.

What these calls sound like

The order is the language they started in, then whether anything is still running or still dead, then the address, then — only if this can wait — a window the book can honour. There is no invented arrival and no invented price. There is no “we can be there in twenty minutes” in any language. There is no Greek text after an English call.

If the assistant is friendly and still gives away a morning the book does not show, two landings wait. Put the person who rang about the dead heater on a request you can finish, or on an hour the book actually shows — in the language they used, with a text they can read at the door.

How CITT handles it

1. Your number stays on the van. A forwarding rule sends what you do not answer. Calls you pick up never leave.
2. Several calls are answered at once. A morning burst in two languages is a set of conversations, not a stack of busy tones.
3. It picks up the language from the first sentence and stays in it, including when they switch. 70+ languages. You do not configure a language per job.
4. It asks emergency or booked first, in that language, then takes the facts that belong to that request.
5. It checks the real book before it offers a time, and writes only what you allow into the same book you already use.
6. It confirms by SMS in the language of the call — window, door code, address.
7. It escalates what cannot be finished on the call — a leak, a dead board, an unpublished price, a communal quote — as a tagged note to the phone you named.
8. You get the transcript, the summary, and whether it was emergency or booked, as fields you can use without speaking that language.

What it will not do

It will not invent an arrival. Someone who can see the van says when they can come, in any language.

It will not invent a quote. A published call-out is the only figure it may repeat, and only if you gave it that figure to say.

It will not diagnose. It does not say the fuse, the riser, or the neighbour above, however clearly it can say it in English.

It will not send the confirmation in a language they did not use. It will not book a leak as a free hour on Thursday. It will not take gas, communal work, or the other trade if you said you do not.

Rates for the service live on the pricing section of the home page. They are not repeated here.