Plumber & trades, after-hours cover
Never miss a callout when you're on the tools
Independent plumbers and trades miss most of their bookings because the phone rings while they're under a sink. The after-hours assistant triages urgency (burst pipe, gas leak, no heating in winter all flagged as emergencies, with the right escalation to Cadent or 999), captures customer details and access notes, and books a callback window. Routine quotes get a structured intake so you can call back with a real number rather than ringing back blind. Works on WhatsApp because that's where customers actually message tradespeople.
How it works
Here's what a real conversation with your Trades after-hours assistant looks like.
Trades after-hours
AI assistant
What you get
Emergency triage with explicit 999 / Cadent escalation language
Booking capture: address, access notes, pets, preferred time
Quote intake for non-urgent jobs, symptoms, photos welcome
WhatsApp + web channels (most callers are on their phone)
Hands off to the engineer's mobile with the full transcript
The outcome
Stop losing jobs that came in at 9pm. Customers feel held even before a human calls back, and the engineer arrives knowing exactly what they're walking into.
Set it up in 5 steps
Use the Plumber & Trades turnkey template
Fill in your business name, callback number, emergency line
Upload your service area + standard pricing as a knowledge source
Connect WhatsApp via Twilio (sandbox is fine to start)
Forward inbox handoffs to the engineer on duty
How each feature helps
These are the platform features that make this use case work. Each one plays a specific role in delivering results.
Knowledge sources
You give your assistant information to learn from. Upload documents, paste URLs or connect cloud folders. The assistant reads everything, breaks it into chunks and uses the relevant bits when answering questions.
Actions
Actions let your assistant do things in the real world. Send an email, create a support ticket, update a CRM record or call any webhook. You decide which actions need human approval before they run.
Forms
Sometimes a structured form works better than a free-text conversation. You build the form once with the fields you need and it works everywhere: in the chat widget, on a standalone page and in email follow-ups. Submissions feed into your inbox and can trigger actions.
Outcome analytics
Don't just count messages. Track what actually matters: leads captured, meetings booked, issues resolved, handoffs avoided and cost per outcome. You'll see which assistants drive results and which need attention.