Play 1
Answer the 2 a.m. call
After-hours and overflow calls get answered, sorted into emergency or next-day, and booked on your calendar. Real emergencies ring your phone.
One call to set your rules and rates.
Zygo Local · Home services
AI for contractors whose crews are on a job when the phone rings
The short answer
For HVAC, plumbing and electrical contractors, AI pays off around the phone and the quote: answering after-hours and overflow calls, getting written quotes out the same day, following up on estimates that went quiet, booking tune-ups, and asking every customer for a review. Real emergencies still ring your phone. Ben Johnson's founding 30-day sprint is $2,000.
01
Where the jobs go
Most of the work a contractor loses never shows up on a report. It's the call that went to voicemail while everyone was under a house, the quote that went out three days late, and the estimate nobody followed up on. Pest control, roofing, landscaping and pool companies lose jobs the same way.
Play 2
Quotes out the same day
Your tech snaps photos and a voice note. AI drafts a written quote from your price book for you to check and send.
Two minutes per quote to review.
Play 3
Follow up on every estimate
Open estimates get a check-in on day 2 and day 7 with a link to approve, so the quiet ones turn into a yes or a no.
Nothing after setup.
Play 4
Tune-ups that book themselves
Maintenance-plan customers get a reminder before each season with open slots to pick from. Renewals go out a month early.
Approve the wording once.
Play 5
A review ask after every job
When a job closes, every customer gets a thank-you text with a one-tap Google review link. Same message for everyone, as Google requires.
Nothing after setup.
02
AI receptionist and the alternatives
A packaged AI receptionist
An app that answers your calls for a monthly fee. Quick to start if phones are the only problem. You set it up and keep its answers current yourself.
An answering service
People answering in your name, usually billed by the call or the minute. Callers get a human, and the cost climbs with every busy month.
Missed-call text back
Any call nobody picks up gets a text within a minute with a way to book. The cheapest fix and often the first one I build.
A 30-day sprint
Phones plus what happens after the call: quotes, follow-ups, reminders and reviews, set up in your name and connected to how you already work.
03
Reviews, by the rules
More Google reviews help a contractor show up in the map results, and the easiest way to get them is to ask after every job. Google doesn't allow a business to ask only the customers it expects to be happy, or to discourage bad reviews.1 So every customer gets the same message and the same link, and you answer what comes back.
04
What it costs
The founding offer
$2,000 for the first 30 days
Five local businesses get it this fall. Two start in November and three in December. I start with a morning on a truck and an afternoon at the desk. About four hours of your time. I pay for the tools during the sprint, and everything is set up in your company's name.
Every sprint comes with a written guarantee, spelled out in the one-page plan before you say yes.
After day 30, keep me on for $1,500 a month at the founding rate (regular $2,500), or run it yourself. How the 30 days run.
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Who's doing the work
I'm Ben Johnson. My family and I live in Montgomery. Most of my career happened on a screen, and I want the next chapter to be with businesses I can drive past.
At Amazon I managed hundreds of millions of dollars a year in business. Then I built and ran a portfolio of consumer brands that grew to $80M+ a year. Today I lead growth and operations for a handful of consumer brands and media companies, mostly by fixing how leads, orders and money move through each business.
I do the work myself. The person who walks through your business in week one is the person who builds your system.
15 yrs in growth. 0 yrs in the trades. You'd teach me that part.
06
Questions contractors ask
Is there an AI answering service for plumbers, HVAC and electricians?
Yes. AI receptionists and answering services answer after-hours and overflow calls, collect the address and the problem, sort emergencies from next-day work, and book the job on your calendar. The setup that pays is one where real emergencies still ring your phone and every booked call shows up where your dispatcher already looks.
What are the alternatives to an AI receptionist for home services?
An answering service staffed by people, a missed-call text back that texts every caller you missed with a link to book, or a fuller setup that also handles quotes, estimate follow-up, tune-up reminders and review requests. If phones are the only problem, a packaged receptionist may be all you need.
Will it book real emergencies?
You set the rules. Calls that match what you call an emergency (no heat, a burst pipe, a burning smell) ring your phone or your on-call tech. Everything else gets booked for the next open slot.
Does it work with my field service software?
We start with the calendar and software you use now. In week one I check what connects to it. If something doesn't, I tell you then, before you have paid for anything that depends on it.
What does it cost?
The two published AI receptionist plans compared on this site start at $79 and $150 a month. My founding 30-day sprint is $2,000, and keeping me on after that is $1,500 a month at the founding rate (regular $2,500).
07
Sources
Next step
Stop losing jobs to whoever picks up first.
Pick a time on my calendar, or email me and ask for a one-page plan for your business. I'll write down what I'd fix first, what it costs, and the guarantee that comes with it.
Zygo Consulting, Ben Johnson, Montgomery, TX. AI implementation for local businesses in Montgomery, The Woodlands, Conroe, Spring, Magnolia and north Houston.