Assisted estimates
Would have opened an estimate file after the visit, with photos and a checklist of missing documents.
A trades call, start to finish
What gets said, what gets recorded, and what reaches your phone — for a plumbing emergency on a Tuesday afternoon.
7 days, 20 answered calls, no card
The trade, the situation, the configuration
A three-person plumbing business in the suburbs. The owner is under a sink at a customer's place; his assistant works two days a week and this Tuesday is not one of them. The business line is forwarded to Zenvox as soon as it rings unanswered.
The configuration is the Trades and maintenance base, on its own: answer, qualify, pass along. No add-on is switched on in this scene, so you can see what the base does unassisted.
The call comes in at 2:40 p.m. It is active water damage — the case the owner's emergency rule names outright.
What you are looking at
A written exchange, built from the qualification questions and the guardrails of the plumbing preset. It is not the transcript of a call that happened, and no recording is attached to this page. When a real call can be published, with the recording disclosure and the caller's agreement, it will replace this scene and the page will say so.
Tuesday, 2:40 p.m. Line forwarded after four rings with no answer.
ReceptionistPlomberie Rivard, good afternoon. Let me take your name and a callback number first, in case we get cut off.
CallerJulie Bergeron, 450 555-0188. There is water all over my basement.
ReceptionistIs water running right now? Do you know where it is coming from — a drain, a pipe, the water heater?
CallerIt is backing up through the floor drain. It will not stop. How much to come out?
ReceptionistI cannot quote you before someone has seen the problem on site — it depends on what is blocked and on the access. What I can do right now is alert Sebastien: your situation is a priority. Your address, with the postal code?
Caller77 rue Saint-Denis, Boucherville, J4B 2R1. Single-family house.
ReceptionistNoted. Do you know where the main water shut-off is? Sebastien will call you back within minutes; he will confirm a window for the visit.
An alert lands on Sebastien's phone with the name, number, address, a drain backup with active water, and the time. He calls Julie before finishing his current job, because he now knows it is worth the interruption.
What is collected, and what happens to it
Every field in this scene maps to a question in the plumbing preset, not to a writing idea.
- Name and callback number, taken before anything else
- Nature of the problem — leak, drain, water heater, project
- Address with postal code, and type of building
- Whether water is running at the time of the call
- A real emergency or someone shopping for an estimate
- Existing customer or new one
The caller is told about the recording at the start of the call. The recording, the transcript and the request stay attached to the business file, which can export them or have them erased.
What is switched on in this scene
The base alone. The three add-ons below would have changed what followed — they are not active here, so the scene shows nothing they would do.
What the scene does not show
Three limits, stated here rather than discovered later.
- No price is quoted, not even a rough one: the preset rules it out and the receptionist says so to the caller
- No exact arrival time is promised — a window, and the owner is the one who confirms it
- The cause of the backup is not diagnosed over the phone: that is the plumber's work on site
A trades call, start to finish