AI phone receptionist for renovation crews
Quick summary
- You are in a lived-in kitchen with the old units out. Dust is in the next room. That is when the published number rings.
- Photos of a bathroom are not an offer. The assistant books a visit. The figure is yours after you have walked the flat.
- Kitchen gut, bathroom gut, whole flat, occupied or vacant — those are different visits, not one free morning.
- Someone who wants a kitchen this season will not wait on voicemail. They ring the next crew.
- It checks the book you already use before it offers a morning, writes the visit in, and texts the window.
- A start date is not 'when the tiles arrive'. It does not invent one from a photo of a box.
TL;DR
You are in a lived-in kitchen in a Greek block. The old units are out. Dust sheets hang in the doorway to the bedroom where someone still sleeps. The phone in your pocket rings. Someone has sent photos of a bathroom and wants an offer today. They will not leave a message. They will ring the next crew on the listing. An assistant answers in the caller's language, asks whether this is a kitchen, a bathroom, a whole flat, occupied or vacant, takes the address, and books a visit only if that morning is free. It does not invent an offer from photos. It does not name a start date because a box of tiles is in the corridor. The offer is yours, after you have walked the rooms. Dust in a lived-in flat is a constraint, not a detail.
Key takeaways
- Put the assistant on the number on the van and the card, with a forward-on-no-answer rule, so a free pair of hands still takes the call.
- Teach it the first split: kitchen, bathroom, whole flat, occupied or vacant, or a move of a visit already in the book.
- Give it the sentence verbatim: it cannot give an offer from photos. The figure comes after the visit.
- Let it book site visits. Keep the offer, the start date, and the permit question as a callback or a second booking after you have walked the flat.
- When a crew is in a lived-in kitchen, shorten the ring-time so the third caller is not listening to a busy tone.
- Mark two kinds of visit: a look that needs you in the rooms, and a start week that needs the flat empty of furniture, or hours the family can live with the dust.
What an AI phone receptionist does for a renovation crew
You are in a lived-in kitchen in a Greek apartment block. The old units are out. Dust sheets hang in the doorway. Someone is still asleep in the next room. The phone in your pocket rings. Across town the other person is stripping tiles in a bathroom. There is no third pair of hands at the phone on the van dash.
You put the assistant on the number already on the van and on the card you leave with the owner. It answers when you cannot. Then it does one of two things. It books a visit that is actually free. Or it takes a request you will price after you have walked the rooms.
The first question is not “what morning would you like?”. The first question is what kind of visit this is. Photos of a bathroom are not an offer. A kitchen gut in a lived-in flat is not a vacant walk. “When the tiles arrive” is not a start date. A permit question is not a booking. An assistant that opens with a free hour will put a photo-price into a demolition morning and leave the person who needed a look without a note.
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.
In a lived-in kitchen, and the phone still ringing
One of you is in dust, with a family still in the flat. The other is two streets over with the tiles coming off. The published number still rings.
It is a burst. March, when people want a kitchen before Easter. The week a building manager sends three bathrooms out with your card. The afternoon a vacant flat hits the market and three owners ring the same number. A second line with the same two hands still leaves the third caller on a busy tone.
The person who sent bathroom photos this afternoon will not wait on voicemail. They have your number and two other crews in the same search. They hang up and dial the next one. The person whose kitchen has to be done while they still live there will not leave a message either — they need to know if you even take occupied work.
People whose rooms you already started will often wait. A person who cannot get a site visit, and a person who cannot start a kitchen, will not. If those two wait behind the demolition you are already in, the new kitchen is gone, and the bathroom arrives as an angry call at five — or the next crew has already walked that flat.
Whoever takes the visit often takes the job. That is why a missed photo-call is not only a missed note.
Kitchen, bathroom, whole flat — then occupied or vacant
Kitchen. Units out, electrics, plumbing, a temporary board for the kettle. In a lived-in flat the dust is in the next room. The assistant asks which rooms, which floor, and whether they still live there. It books a visit only if that morning is free. It does not invent an offer from photos. It does not name a start week because a box of units is in the corridor.
Bathroom. Tiles, wet room fall, stack, whether the only bathroom in the flat has to stay usable. A bathroom gut is not a kitchen morning. The assistant takes the address and whether they have another bathroom. It does not say the fall is wrong from a photo of the floor.
Whole flat. Occupied or vacant changes the hours, the dust, the start. A vacant walk is not the same visit as a family still sleeping in the back room. The assistant asks that split before it looks at the book.
Permit. A wall they want down, a wet room, a change of use. The assistant does not say they need a permit, and it does not say they do not. It takes what they want done and flags you. A permit sentence on this line is a sentence the crew now owns.
People remember the kitchen. They do not remember whether the bathroom is in the same job, or whether the tenants are still in. Ask which rooms first. Then occupied or vacant. Then the address. One set of rooms is enough to put the visit on the right floor. None is still a request, not a guess from three photos of a bathtub.
A sentence the assistant is not allowed to say
“How much if I send photos?” is the question on this phone. It comes in March when people start looking at kitchens. It comes in August from a holiday flat. It comes on a Tuesday from an owner who photographed the bathroom from the doorway.
The assistant does not answer it. Not with a range. Not with “a bathroom is usually this”. Not with “kitchen plus tiles is around…”. A number said before you have walked the stack, the electrics, and how they live around the dust is a number the crew then has to take back when the floor has no fall, the wall they want down is load bearing, or they still work from the next room.
The line you give it is short: the offer comes after the visit. Photos do not show the rooms.
“Can you start Monday, the tiles are here?”, “do we need a permit?”, and “the dust will be fine, we work from home” are still start, permit, and occupation questions. The assistant names the topic so the callback is useful, and refuses the date, the permit, and the dust sentence.
Do not put a price list in the notes. It will read the list out. Do not put last year’s kitchen figure in the notes either. It will read it as this flat.
Dust in a lived-in flat
Some of these callers still sleep in the next room. They want the kitchen done around the school run. They want to know if they can work from the sofa. They want the only bathroom usable by six.
The assistant is not in the flat. It cannot see how they live. It cannot decide the hours.
What it can take: occupied or vacant, which rooms, whether there is another bathroom, and the address. What it can repeat, if you typed the line in: someone will walk the rooms and talk about the dust then. It does not promise they can live through a gut as if it were a coat of paint.
A vacant flat is a different visit. Keys, the manager, empty rooms. Do not book a vacant walk into a morning you have already given to a lived-in kitchen. The hours are not the same. The dust is not the same. The start is not the same.
If they say the tenants are still in and they want a start next week, that is a flagged note. You decide whether you take occupied work this month. The assistant does not invent a demolition day around people you have not met.
Start date, tiles, and a wall they want down
Start Monday. They have a box of tiles in the corridor, or they think they have. The assistant does not put a start week in the book because a box has arrived. If a signed offer exists and you have marked the materials as in, that is a different type, from a list you control. If it does not, this is still a site visit.
When the tiles arrive. That is not a date. The assistant takes that they are waiting on materials and flags you. It does not name next Monday.
Permit. A wall between kitchen and living room, a wet room, a change of the stack. The assistant does not say yes or no. It writes what they want done. You look at the rooms.
Building manager. Three bathrooms in the same block, a vacant flat the agency wants walked, hours the residents will accept. The assistant takes the building and who holds the key. It does not invent a communal price from a landing photo. It does not book a shaft the manager opens on Tuesdays as if it were a private kitchen.
August needs its own dates. Some of you stop for two weeks. The published number still rings. Do not let the assistant book a start into a week when the crew is dark.
How CITT handles it
- Your number stays on the van and on the card. A forwarding rule sends what you do not answer. Calls the crew picks up never leave, and are never charged.
- Every line is answered at once. A March morning of kitchen calls is several conversations, not a stack of busy tones.
- It knows the crew you described. Kitchens only or bathrooms as well, whether you take occupied flats, whether you take whole-flat work, who is out on Monday.
- It asks kitchen, bathroom or whole flat first, then occupied or vacant, then the address, and only then looks at the book.
- It takes a photo-offer as a visit request, never as a figure said out loud, and never as a start date from a box of tiles.
- It checks the real book before it offers a morning, and writes the visit into the same calendar the crew already uses.
- It confirms by SMS, in the language of the call — 70+ languages — and can remind them to be there, or to leave a key.
- It escalates a permit question, a start-before-the-visit, and dust in a lived-in flat as a tagged note or a transfer.
- You get the transcript, the summary, the address, and the rooms the caller named.
What it will not do
It will not invent an offer from photos, a description, or last year’s kitchen. It will not name a start date because the tiles have arrived. It will not say they need a permit, or that they do not. It will not say the dust will be fine in a lived-in flat. It will not treat a site visit, a demolition day and a snagging hour as the same morning. It will not book a communal block as if it were a private kitchen.
What these calls sound like
The order is the split, then occupied or vacant, then the address, then a morning the book can honour, then the refusal said out loud. There is no round figure over a bathroom nobody has walked. There is no “we can start Monday” to a person who sent three photos from the doorway. There is no “the dust is fine” to a family still sleeping in the next room.
If the assistant is friendly and still answers the offer question, you own that number. Put the person who rang about the kitchen at 11:10 on a site visit, not on the next crew’s pad.
What you set up first
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. Then the kitchen-bathroom-flat split, occupied or vacant, and the sentence that forbids an offer from photos and a start from a box of tiles.
Write down what you actually take and whether you do occupied flats this month. Give it the fields you want on every note: address, floor, which rooms, occupied or vacant, whether they sent photos, whether they think they need a permit, whether materials have arrived. Mark two kinds of visit: a look that needs you in the rooms, and a start week that needs the flat ready, or hours the family can live with.
Give it the same-day phone list: a family still in a demolition, a manager waiting with keys, a start they want next Monday. Do not give it a kitchen tariff it would read out. Write one line that forbids photo-offers, start dates before the visit, permit answers, and dust promises. Add opening hours, who is out on Monday, August dates.
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 the kitchen is in pieces | Always | Only if they can leave the dust | Yes |
| Several callers in a spring start-week | Every line at once | One, then a busy tone | Depends who was rostered |
| Asks kitchen, bathroom or whole flat first | Yes — before it looks at the book | Yes, if they heard the start | Often jumps to what morning |
| Invents an offer from bathroom photos | Never — books the visit | Can refuse until they have walked the rooms | Often reads a range |
| Names a start date from a box of tiles | Never — start is after the visit and the materials | After the offer is signed and the tiles are in | Tempted, if the script wants a week |
| Speaks the caller's language | 70+ languages | One or two | Whoever is on that shift |
| What it will not do | Price unseen rooms, or start a gut over an open visit | Can look at the flat | Reads whatever is on the sheet |
What one unanswered weekday morning costs a two-person renovation crew
Worked from these assumptions — change any of them and the answer changes:
- Two people, a normal Tuesday in March. One of you is in a lived-in kitchen. The other is stripping a bathroom two streets over.
- About 10 inbound calls that morning. Four arrive while both pairs of hands are in dust.
- Of those four, 2 are new kitchens that want a visit. 1 is a bathroom. 1 is a whole-flat look from a vacant listing.
- A kitchen gut that becomes work is worth about €8,500 here — put your own average ticket in first. This is the number to change.
- This example assumes both kitchen callers do not leave a message and ring the next crew on the listing.
- 2 new kitchen requests reach nobody on a normal Tuesday morning.
- Both of them do not call back.
- 2 × €8,500 = €17,000 of work that morning that never reached the book.
- A morning like that once a month, 11 working months — 11 × €17,000.
About €187,000 a year on those assumptions. Change the ticket, the conversion, 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.
Can it give an offer if they send photos of the bathroom?
It must not. Photos do not show the fall of the floor, the stack, whether the family still lives there, or what comes out when the tiles come off. It takes the address and the rooms they named, and books a visit if that morning is free. You price what you have walked. If a starting figure must not be said until you have seen the flat, do not give the assistant that figure.
What is a site visit, and what is a start week?
A site visit is you, a tape, and the rooms. A start week is a crew, dust, and a family that either moves out or lives around the work. The assistant books the first. It does not put next Monday's gut in the book because a box of tiles is in the corridor. After the offer is signed and the materials are actually in, you — or the assistant, from a list you gave it — book the start.
We only do kitchens. What happens to a bathroom call?
Say so in the notes. A caller who wants a wet room gets a clear no, and, if you want, a name you actually recommend. Do not let it book a bathroom onto a crew that only guts kitchens. The same if you do not take occupied flats, or you do not take whole-building work.
They still live in the flat. Can it tell them the dust will be fine?
It must not. Dust in a lived-in flat is a constraint you decide after you have seen how they live. The assistant takes that they still sleep there, books the visit, and leaves the hours, the sheets, and the temporary kitchen to you. It does not promise they can work from the sofa while the tiles come off.
What do we actually see afterwards?
A transcript, a short summary, whether this was a kitchen, a bathroom, a whole flat, occupied or vacant, the address and the rooms they named, and whatever was booked or left for you. Confirmations go out by SMS in the language of the call.
