The patch call goes to whoever picks up.
A hole in the hallway or a brown ring on the ceiling gets three calls made in ten minutes, and you are taping a seam with both hands full. Your AI receptionist answers, works out whether it is a patch or a whole hang, gets the texture and the ceiling height on record, and books the estimate before the caller tries the next number.
An AI receptionist for drywall and plaster contractors answers around the clock in English and Spanish, sorts a patch from a room hang, captures wall or ceiling, size, existing texture, and whether water was involved, texts a secure link for photos (Basic and up), and books the estimate to your calendar.
What a missed call costs you.
- 01Repair work is small, frequent, and impatient. The homeowner with one hole calls until somebody answers, and that call is worth a full trip charge.
- 02You are hanging board, running mud, or up on stilts when the phone rings, and a voicemail from a job site is a lead you get to a day late.
- 03The details that set the price, ceiling or wall, the texture on it, and whether anything is still wet, are exactly what a voicemail leaves out.
What a missed call could be worth
Run your own numbers. Drag the sliders to match your shop, and the figure at the bottom updates as you go.
This is an estimate built from your own inputs, not a quote. Nobody can say a given missed call was a real customer, so read the result as a possibility, not a bill.
Many calls to small businesses go unanswered, and most callers never leave a message.
Not every missed call is a sale: some are spam, wrong numbers, or people you already serve. Your honest guess.
Phone callers are high-intent and convert better than a web form. The starting number is an illustrative default, not a benchmark. Your own close rate on the leads you actually reach.
For most service businesses, a single job runs a few hundred dollars. Count repeat work and referrals and a customer's lifetime value reaches several thousand. Use the number that fits you.
You can't know any single missed call was a real customer; some are wrong numbers or sales calls. But across a month, if even 30% of the would-be customers who reached your voicemail would have booked, that works out to about $2,700.
And the fix scales with the math: even Standard, our $399-a-month plan, runs about 15% of that estimate, roughly $27,612 a year below it.
First AI Employee's Essential plan is $99 a month. The question isn't whether every missed call is a lost job; it's whether catching them clears $99.
Start a 7-day free trial →An estimate from your own inputs, not a quote. The default customer value above is just a starting estimate; set it to your own.
Sources: Invoca's home-services call benchmarks on how often calls go unanswered (a home-services benchmark; the defaults here are illustrative and fully adjustable); CRM Magazine on voicemail behavior; Invoca's call-conversion benchmarks on how well phone leads convert.
On the call, it handles all of it.
Patch or hang intake
Sorts a repair from new work, then captures the part that decides the quote: wall or ceiling, how many spots and how big, rooms and ceiling height on a hang, the existing texture (orange peel, knockdown, skip trowel, popcorn, smooth), plaster or drywall, and the year of the house.
Water and leak questions, asked up front
On a stained or sagging ceiling it asks where the water came from and whether the source is fixed, so you are not sent out to a wet cavity that no compound will dry in.
Photos by secure link
Texts a secure upload link (Basic and up) to callers who have opted in to texts, for a wide shot and a close-up, so you can see the texture and the damage before you price anything.
Answers day and night, in English or Spanish
Picks up evenings and weekends, books estimates on your real availability, pages you on anything urgent, and can transfer a live caller straight to you. Every call is recorded and transcribed, with a notice to the caller up front.
In your callers' own words.
- “
My kid put a doorknob through the guest room wall. What do you charge for something that small?
- “
There’s a brown stain on my living room ceiling and the paint is starting to bubble.
- “
We’re finishing the basement, about 900 square feet. Can somebody come price the hang and finish?
Job Briefs & Client Intake: built in for drywall & plaster.
A photo of the job site turns a vague “what’ll it run me” into a real estimate before you ever leave the shop.
How Job Briefs & Client Intake works →Add-ons, rated for drywall & plaster.
We rate every add-on for how much it actually earns its keep in your trade: the must-haves and the ones you can skip. Honest stars, not a sales pitch.
Stop sending drywall & plaster callers to voicemail.
Your AI receptionist answers 24/7, qualifies the caller, and books the work, so more of your calls turn into customers instead of a competitor's.
Not for: healthcare or anyone handling protected health information. We are not HIPAA-compliant and don't sign BAAs.