AI phone receptionist for locksmiths
Quick summary
- It is 02:00. You are already at a door. The published number rings. Someone else is on the landing with the keys inside.
- Lockout with someone inside, lockout of an empty flat, and a cylinder change are three jobs. The first question is who is behind the door.
- The assistant never describes how to open a lock. Not a hint, not a 'try the window'. That call stays a note or a transfer.
- A lockout will not leave a voicemail. They open Google and ring the next locksmith.
- It checks your book before it offers a cylinder change or extra keys, writes the hour in, and texts that ID is required at the door.
- On a Saturday night several landings ring at once. It answers every line at once.
TL;DR
It is 02:00. You are already at a door in a Greek block. The keys are inside. The published number rings. Someone else is on another landing — with a child or a dog in the house, or not. Those are different jobs from a cylinder they want changed on Thursday. An assistant answers when you cannot put the work down. It asks who is behind the door. It never describes how to open a lock. It does not invent when you will arrive. It books a cylinder only if that hour is free, and it puts a night lockout on your phone.
Key takeaways
- Put the assistant on the number on the van and the Google listing, with a forward-on-no-answer rule, so free hands still take the call.
- Teach it the first split: someone inside, empty flat, or a booked cylinder — and who is behind the door before anything else.
- Give it the sentence: it never describes how to open a lock, not even a hint, not even 'try another door'.
- Let it book cylinder changes and extra keys. A night lockout rings a phone you actually hold. ID is required at the door.
- On Saturday night shorten the ring-time before forwarding so the third landing is not listening to a busy tone.
- Forbid invented arrivals. How long is a question you answer when you know which street and whether anyone is inside.
What an AI phone receptionist does for a locksmith
It is 02:00. You are already at a door in a Greek block. The landing light is on. The keys are inside. Your published number rings. Someone else is on another landing. You cannot leave this door half done. There is no second pair of hands in the van.
You put the assistant on the number already on the van and on the Google listing that ranks at two in the morning. It answers when you cannot. Then it does one of two things. It puts a lockout on your phone — with a flag if a child or a dog is inside. Or it books a visit that is actually free: a cylinder, extra keys, a shutter lock, a common door with the manager.
The first question is who is behind the door. A child inside is not an empty flat. An empty flat is not a Thursday cylinder. An assistant that opens with “what time would you like?” will put a night lockout into a key-cutting hour and leave opening advice on the recording.
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, and it always carries the ID line.
02:00, keys inside
You are already at this door. That is the room this phone lives in.
The published number still rings. Saturday night. A holiday weekend. Three tourists in the same block who left keys in Airbnbs. A second SIM in the same jacket still leaves the third landing on a busy tone.
The person on the landing will not wait on voicemail. They have two other locksmiths on the same Google screen. They hang up and dial the next name. The person who said a child is inside will not leave a message either. They want someone who will come, not a beep.
Clients who already have a cylinder in the book will often wait. A lockout will not. If that call waits behind the door you are already at, the next van on the list is already on their landing.
Whoever takes the night lockout often takes the cylinder on Thursday. That is why a missed 02:00 call is not only a missed hour.
Someone inside, empty flat, or a cylinder — then ID
Someone inside. A child, a dog, another person they can hear. The assistant flags it and puts the call on a phone you hold. It takes the address and the floor. It does not describe how to open the door. It does not invent twenty minutes. It says ID will be checked at the door.
Empty flat. Keys inside, nobody behind the door. Still a lockout, still a ring to you at night, still ID at the door. The flag is different. The assistant does not treat it as a booked cylinder because they sound calm.
Cylinder, extra keys, shutter, common door. These are the visits the book can hold. The assistant checks the hour, writes it in, and texts that they must bring photo ID and, for a common door, that the manager should be named. It does not quote from a photo of a door. It does not describe how a cylinder comes out.
People remember the street and the floor. They do not remember a job number they have never had. Ask for the address first. Ask who is inside. Ask for a number.
A sentence the assistant is not allowed to say
“Can’t you just tell me how to get it open?” is the question on this phone. It comes at 02:00, at noon from a tourist, from a neighbour who “always does it this way”.
The assistant does not answer it. Not with a method. Not with a tool. Not with “try the balcony”. Not with “there is a way if it is only the latch”. A sentence that sounds like opening advice, said on the recorded line, is a sentence the van now owns, and the assistant cannot see the door, the caller, or who else is listening.
The line you give it is short: it cannot describe how to open the door. The locksmith will come. This call takes the address. ID at the door.
“Can I use a card?”, “what if I push from the balcony?”, “the neighbour said try this”, and “just talk me through it” are still opening questions. The assistant names the topic so the callback is useful, and refuses the instruction.
Do not put a method in the notes “for the obvious cases”. It will be read out.
Saturday night, and everyone at once
By midnight the landings have started ringing. You are already at the first door. The pad is already a list of streets.
A holiday weekend is a larger version of the same hour. Tourist flats. A wedding. Three common doors after a power cut on the intercom.
The assistant has to treat that burst as several conversations, not as a queue behind the door you are already at. A lockout in that hour is a note and a ring to you. A cylinder in the same hour is a booked visit or a callback. If the assistant parks the person who wants extra keys behind the tenth night lockout, that person rings the next shop in the morning — and that is fine. If it parks a child-inside call behind a key-cutting enquiry, that is not fine.
Shorten the ring-time before forwarding on Saturday night. The third landing should not hear a busy tone. A Tuesday in August is people asking for extra keys, and one person left in the van.
A price nobody can give from a photo of a door
When someone sends a photo of a cylinder and asks what a change costs, the tempting answer is a number. The assistant does not give one.
The door leaf, the frame, whether the cylinder is the one they think, whether the common door needs the manager, all change the work. A number quoted before anyone has stood at that door is a number you then spend the visit taking back.
It can repeat a published night call-out figure you typed in and marked as speakable. Unseen common-door work, a shutter, a garage — those do not get a number on this call. The assistant takes the request and books the look.
If they press — “just a round figure, I am on the landing” — the assistant still refuses. Flag the lockout. Do not buy the call with a price.
ID at the door
Every lockout, every cylinder, every extra key for a door they say is theirs: photo ID at the door. The assistant says this on the first call. The SMS says it again.
The assistant does not decide that the ID is enough. You do, when you are there. It does not tell them which document counts. It does not tell them to send a photo of the ID over the phone. A picture of an ID on a chat is not a check at the door.
If they refuse ID, the assistant does not argue method. It says the locksmith will not start without it, takes a number, and flags you.
A building manager on a common door is a named role, not a shortcut around ID. The assistant takes the name they give and the building address. You still check.
Common doors, shutters, garages
Common door. The manager, or a resident who cannot get into the block. The assistant takes who is calling. A resident lockout of the street door is still a lockout. A manager who wants the cylinder changed is a booked visit with the manager named. It does not describe how the common lock is built.
Shutter lock. Extra keys or a change. Daytime visit. ID still. No method on the phone.
Garage. Remote dead, or a lock they cannot turn. Book a look. Do not diagnose a motor from a description of a beep.
August needs its own dates. Do not let the assistant book a cylinder into a week when the van is on the island.
How CITT handles it
- Your number stays on the van and on Google. A forwarding rule sends what you do not answer. Calls you pick up never leave the van.
- Every line is answered at once. A Saturday night is several conversations, not a stack of busy tones.
- It knows the van you described. What you take, whether you take night work, how ID is announced, who is on Monday.
- It asks who is behind the door first, then lockout or booked visit, then the address.
- It takes a lockout as a note and a ring to you, never as opening advice.
- It checks the real book before it offers a cylinder, and writes the hour into the same calendar the van already uses.
- It confirms by SMS, in the language of the call — 70+ languages — always with the ID line.
- It escalates child inside, dog inside, and “how long” as a tagged note or a transfer.
- You get the transcript, the summary, the address, and what the caller asked for.
What it will not do
It will not describe how to open a lock. It will not suggest another opening. It will not invent when you will arrive. It will not invent a cylinder price from a photo. It will not skip ID. It will not treat a night lockout, an empty-flat lockout and a Thursday cylinder as the same visit. It will not tell them to reset an electrical board, and it will not send them to a gas valve.
What these calls sound like
The order is who is behind the door, then the address, then the note or the visit, then the refusal said out loud. There is no method. There is no round figure over a door nobody has stood at. There is no “twenty minutes” from a van that is still at another landing.
If the assistant is friendly and still answers the opening question, you own that sentence. Put the person who rang at 02:14 on your phone, not on the next van’s pad.
What you set up first
Put the assistant on the number on the van with a forward-on-no-answer rule. Then the inside-or-empty split, the address, the ID sentence, and the sentence that forbids any opening advice.
Write down whether you take night work. Give it the fields you want on every lockout note: address, floor, someone inside or empty, child or dog if they said so, a number, ID announced. Mark two kinds of visit: a cylinder or keys that need a booked hour, and a night lockout that rings you.
Give it the same-day phone list: child inside, dog inside, night lockout. Do not give it a method. Do not give it a cylinder tariff it would read out. Add the hours you actually run, who is on Monday, August dates, and how a building manager should identify themselves.
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 at 02:00 while you are already at a door | Always | Only if they can step away | Yes |
| Several lockouts on a Saturday night | Every line at once | One, then a busy tone | Depends on the roster |
| Asks who is behind the door first | Yes — before it looks at the book | Yes, if they heard the start | Often jumps to what time |
| Describes how to open a lock | Never — takes the address and ID rule | Not on a recorded line | Must not; a script sometimes drifts |
| Invents when you will arrive | Never | Sometimes, to get off the call | Risk, if the sheet wants a time |
| Quotes a cylinder from a photo of a door | Never — books a look | Prices after they have seen the door | May read a list figure |
| Speaks the caller's language | 70+ languages | One or two | Whoever is on that shift |
| What it will not do | Opening advice, arrival, or a price it cannot see | Can look at the door | Reads whatever is on the sheet |
What one unanswered Saturday night costs a one-van locksmith
Worked from these assumptions — change any of them and the answer changes:
- One van, a Saturday night in a Greek city, roughly 22 inbound calls between 22:00 and 04:00.
- About a third arrive while you are already at a door.
- Of the calls nobody reaches, 6 are lockouts.
- A night lockout that stays is worth about €160 to the van. Put your own figure in.
- This example assumes 4 of the 6 never leave a message and ring the next name on Google.
- 6 lockouts reach nobody on a normal Saturday night.
- 4 of them do not call back.
- 4 × €160 = €640 of first work, that night.
- Saturday nights, over a 46-week year — this example counts 40 such nights if you take them.
About €25,600 a year, from the same unanswered night repeating. Put your own nights in.
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 give up the van number?
No. You keep the number on the van, the card under the intercom and the Google listing. You set one forwarding rule — every call, or only the ones still ringing after the seconds you choose. If you pick up with a free hand, the call never leaves the van and is never charged.
Can it tell them how to get the door open while they wait?
No. It does not describe any method, tool, or trick. It does not suggest another opening. It takes the address, whether anyone is inside, and a number, and it puts a night lockout on your phone. A sentence that sounds like opening advice, said on the recorded line, is a sentence the van now owns.
Can it quote a cylinder from a photo of the door?
No. A photo does not show the door leaf, the frame, or whether the cylinder is the one they think it is. A number said before anyone has stood at that door is a number you then spend the visit taking back. It books a look. If a starting figure must not be said until you have seen the door, do not give the assistant that figure.
What if I am already at a door at 02:00?
That is the usual night. The assistant answers the overflow. A lockout becomes a note with the address, who is inside, and that ID will be checked at the door, and it rings you. A cylinder becomes a visit on a time that is actually free, or a callback. On Saturday night, shorten the ring-time so the third landing is not listening to a busy tone.
Someone says a child is inside. What then?
That is a transfer. The assistant does not give opening advice. It takes the address, the floor, whether the child or a dog is confirmed inside, and a number, and it puts the call on a phone you hold. An empty flat is still a lockout, but it is not the same flag. ID is still required at the door.
What do we actually see afterwards?
A transcript, a short summary, whether this was a lockout with someone inside, an empty lockout, or a cylinder, the address if they gave it, and whatever was booked or left for you. Confirmations go out by SMS in the language of the call, with the ID line.
