AI Front Desk Employee for Plumbing & HVAC

The owner of a mid-sized Plumbing & HVAC company in the US was overwhelmed by incoming leads and calls.

Their front desk staff struggled to keep up with high volumes of phone inquiries, emails, and website chats, often missing potential customers who would then move on to competitors.

Qualified leads weren’t being captured or followed up quickly, and the owner felt chained to the office trying to cover gaps instead of focusing on growing the business.

Hiring and training more admin staff wasn’t sustainable due to cost and turnover issues.

They needed a solution that could:

✅ Capture all incoming leads across channels.

✅ Qualify them automatically and route them to the right workflows.

✅ Operate 24/7 without needing a full-time human team.

I designed and deployed a self-hosted AI Front Desk Employee that seamlessly handled all inbound communication—calls, emails, and web inquiries—qualifying leads and booking appointments without human intervention.

This gave the owner peace of mind knowing every opportunity was captured, while freeing them to focus on expanding operations and hiring technicians instead of answering phones.

Connected Retell.ai with their VoIP system to deploy an AI receptionist capable of answering calls, asking qualifying questions (service type, urgency, location), and booking appointments directly into Google Calendar.

Built n8n workflows to unify website form submissions, Facebook messages, and SMS inquiries into one Supabase backend, ensuring no lead slipped through the cracks.

Configured AI prompts to:

Identify emergency service calls vs. routine requests.

Ask context-specific questions for plumbing vs. HVAC issues.

Route urgent jobs to the on-call technician instantly.

Set up Slack and SMS notifications to alert the owner for high-value leads needing personal follow-up.

Designed a lightweight dashboard for tracking all lead activity and conversions in real time.