Your trade, not a template
The answering service for contractors that knows which call is the emergency.
A missed call in a high-ticket trade is not a missed message. It is a job that went to whoever picked up. Willison is a 24/7 contractor answering service that answers every one, tells the emergency from the estimate, and books it to your calendar.
The problem
Half of callers never reach a person.
52%
Speak with a person
Across home services, 52% of callers speak with a person. The rest hit a machine, a queue, or a ring that nobody picks up.
And voicemail is not the safety net anyone assumes it is. Fewer than 3% of callers sent to voicemail leave a message. The other 97% just call the next name on the list.
Source: Invoca Home Services Lead Conversion Benchmarks Report, 2026, and Invoca platform data on voicemail.
Who this is for
Every trade rings differently.
A receptionist that treats every call the same is just a nicer voicemail. Knowing which call is the emergency is the whole job, and the answer is different in every trade. Open yours. Every one of these routes is set with you before it goes live, so nothing reaches your phone that you did not ask for.
HVAC No heat in January, no cool on the first hot day, and the replacement hiding in a service call.
You set what an emergency does when it lands: your phone rings, or it books the job and texts you the details. The tiers themselves come from the trade, built from how these calls actually run, so the sorting is the same whether you are the biggest shop in town or the newest.
Book the call and we will walk your call types the same way.
Go deeperHVAC answering service and AI receptionistEvery call type, what it asks before it books, the seasonal pattern, and what it will not do.Read it →Plumbing Water running now, no hot water on a Sunday, and everything that can honestly wait.
You set what an emergency does when it lands: your phone rings, or it books the job and texts you the details. The tiers themselves come from the trade, built from how these calls actually run, so the sorting is the same whether you are the biggest shop in town or the newest.
Book the call and we will walk your call types the same way.
Go deeperPlumbing answering service and AI receptionistEvery call type, what it asks before it books, the seasonal pattern, and what it will not do.Read it →Roofing An active leak through the ceiling, storm week, and the replacement quote weeks from a signature.
You set what an emergency does when it lands: your phone rings, or it books the job and texts you the details. The tiers themselves come from the trade, built from how these calls actually run, so the sorting is the same whether you are the biggest shop in town or the newest.
Book the call and we will walk your call types the same way.
Go deeperRoofing answering service and AI receptionistEvery call type, what it asks before it books, the seasonal pattern, and what it will not do.Read it →Restoration A flooded basement at two in the morning, and the adjuster calling about it at nine.
You set what an emergency does when it lands: your phone rings, or it books the job and texts you the details. The tiers themselves come from the trade, built from how these calls actually run, so the sorting is the same whether you are the biggest shop in town or the newest.
Book the call and we will walk your call types the same way.
Electrical A panel sparking, half a house dark, and the service upgrade quoted next week.
You set what an emergency does when it lands: your phone rings, or it books the job and texts you the details. The tiers themselves come from the trade, built from how these calls actually run, so the sorting is the same whether you are the biggest shop in town or the newest.
Book the call and we will walk your call types the same way.
Garage Door A car stuck in the garage, a spring gone at six in the morning, and the opener that finally quit.
You set what an emergency does when it lands: your phone rings, or it books the job and texts you the details. The tiers themselves come from the trade, built from how these calls actually run, so the sorting is the same whether you are the biggest shop in town or the newest.
Book the call and we will walk your call types the same way.
Septic An alarm at midnight, a tank overdue, and the inspection a closing date depends on.
You set what an emergency does when it lands: your phone rings, or it books the job and texts you the details. The tiers themselves come from the trade, built from how these calls actually run, so the sorting is the same whether you are the biggest shop in town or the newest.
Book the call and we will walk your call types the same way.
Tree Service A tree on the house after dark, and the removal quote that waits for daylight.
You set what an emergency does when it lands: your phone rings, or it books the job and texts you the details. The tiers themselves come from the trade, built from how these calls actually run, so the sorting is the same whether you are the biggest shop in town or the newest.
Book the call and we will walk your call types the same way.
Don't see your trade? Every receptionist is built from the calls that trade actually gets, never one script stretched across all of them. Yours is no different.
If it genuinely does not fit your shop, we will say so on the call rather than sell you something that will not work.
The bar
What a contractor answering service has to get right.
Answering is the easy part. What matters is what happens in the ninety seconds after hello.
It has to know the difference between a burst line and a dripping trap, between a panel that is sparking and a panel swap quote, between a tree on the house and a tree that can wait for daylight. Handle all six the same way and the emergency waits behind the estimate. Willison is built on the call types your trade actually gets, and the sorting is written down before it takes a single call.
Then it has to finish the job. A name and a number is homework, not a booking. The thing worth paying for puts the routine work on your calendar while the caller is still on the line, and gets the emergency to a person who can move.
The choice
A home services answering service, or one built for your trade?
One script for every trade is cheaper to run. It is also how a plumbing call ends up getting a roofer's questions.
The tell is what happens on the hard call. Ask your answering service, or any you're comparing, what it does when a caller says they smell gas. If the answer is to take a message, that is the gap. A trade-built service already knows that is not a message, it is a script that has to be spoken before anything else happens, and that the owner gets paged whether or not the caller stays on the line.
That is the whole argument for a contractor virtual receptionist over a general one. Not the voice, not the price. Whether it knows which of your calls is the one you cannot afford to handle like the others.
The method
How yours gets built.
No off-the-shelf script. Before it takes a single call, the receptionist is built around how your shop actually runs: your services, your hours, your area, your pricing rules, and what an emergency does when it lands.
01
We learn your phone
What actually rings in your trade: the emergencies, the real jobs, and the noise that eats your day.
02
We write your intake
The questions your best office manager would ask before putting anything on the calendar. Built from your work, not a generic script.
03
You decide what reaches you
Most calls never reach you at all: answered, qualified and booked while the caller is still on the line. You set what an emergency does when it lands, a live handoff or a text, and the sorting that decides which is which comes from the trade.
Questions
Answering service questions contractors actually ask.
What is an answering service for contractors?
It is a service that picks up your phone when you cannot, which in the trades is most of the day. The version worth paying for does not stop at answering. It works out what the caller needs, puts the routine job on your calendar, and gets the emergency in front of a person who can act. Willison answers 24/7, sorts the call against the way your trade actually rings, and books it.
How is a contractor answering service different from a regular one?
A contractor answering service should be built on the call types of one specific trade, so it can tell a burst line from a dripping trap, or a sparking panel from a panel upgrade quote, and handle each one differently. A service running one script for every client has nothing to sort with. That difference shows up on the calls that pay.
Can it tell an emergency from a routine call?
That is the entire job. Each trade has its own sorting, written from how those calls really run: what is an emergency, what is the warning sign before one, what goes on the calendar, and what needs a question answered before a date exists. On a genuine safety call, a gas smell or a carbon monoxide alarm, it speaks a fixed safety script the caller cannot talk over, then pages your on-call phone without waiting.
Does it book jobs or just take messages?
It books. Routine work goes straight onto your calendar while the caller is still on the line, with the details written down. A message leaves the actual work to you at the end of the day, and by then the caller may have booked somebody else.
Does it work after hours and on weekends?
Yes, 24/7, 365, and that is where most of the value sits. The calls that come in at nine at night and on Sunday morning are disproportionately the urgent ones, and they are the ones a closed office loses outright. Voicemail does not save them either: fewer than 3% of callers sent to voicemail leave a message.
Which trades do you build for?
HVAC, plumbing, roofing, restoration, electrical, garage door, septic and tree service. That list is not a menu, though. Every receptionist gets built from the calls one shop actually gets rather than from a trade template, so if your trade lives on the phone and the jobs are high-ticket, it is worth a conversation whether or not you see it named.
How long until it is answering?
Live in 48 hours. Setting it up takes one call and the answers only you have: your services, your hours, your service area, and what you want an emergency to do when it lands. No setup fees, and it is month to month.
What does it cost?
It is a flat monthly price, never per minute. After hours and missed calls is $497 a month, flat, and full replacement starts at $497 and steps up by truck count. The full ladder is on our pricing page. If your shop grows, say you add trucks, we scope the price together, with 30 days' notice and the option to cancel first. What it will not do is quote a price for your customer's job: no honest number exists before somebody has seen the work, and the agent says so rather than guessing.
Next step
Fifteen minutes. Then you will know.
A short call about how your phone runs now, what you are missing, and whether this is worth doing for your shop. If it is not, we will say so.
If you would rather read before you book, most of it is already written down: what it costs, how the 48 hours to live are spent, and what happens on an after-hours emergency.
Month-to-month, cancel anytime, no long contract. Every account is reviewed by the founder before it goes live.