Voicemail vs call answering: what is better for a plumbing business?
Voicemail costs nothing and works for some businesses. If you're keeping it, a few changes make it far more useful. Here's how to decide.
By JobsAnswered team · Published · 2 min read
The short answer
Voicemail is fine if most of your work is booked ahead, your customers already know you, and you reliably return calls the same day. Call answering is better if new customers find you on Google, you take urgent jobs, or you regularly can't return calls until the evening.
What voicemail does badly
- Many new callers won't use it. Especially for urgent jobs, they ring the next business instead.
- Messages are incomplete. Half a phone number, no postcode, "it's about the boiler".
- No urgency signal. A burst pipe and a quote request sound the same until you've listened to both.
- Phone tag. You call back, they don't answer, they call back while you're on a job.
What call answering does better
- Someone (or something) answers, so the caller doesn't hang up and try elsewhere.
- The right questions get asked: name, number, postcode, problem, urgency.
- Urgent jobs can reach you fast, by transfer or an immediate text.
- You call back knowing what the job is, and often with photos.
If you're keeping voicemail: make it work harder
A better greeting can noticeably improve the messages you get:
"You've reached [Business]. We're probably on a job. Please leave your name, your postcode, your number and a quick description of the problem, and we'll call you back today. If water is leaking and you can't stop it, please say so at the start of your message. If you can smell gas, hang up and call the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999."
Also:
- Check voicemail at set times, not only at the end of the day.
- Return urgent-sounding messages first.
- Text missed callers who didn't leave a message.
- Make sure your voicemail box isn't full.
When to switch
Consider call answering when you notice any of these: missed calls from numbers that never left a message and never called back, regular evening call-back sessions, or customers saying "I tried you but went with someone else".
To see what call answering gives you instead of a voicemail, look at the text summary you'd get or try the demo.