Field-service receptionist · Okanagan built

You're under a furnace.
The phone rings anyway.
Pam books the job.

A 24/7 receptionist built for the trades. It answers every call, books the job with a real arrival window and the service address, texts an estimate the customer accepts with one tap, and takes the deposit on the call. A genuine emergency? It escalates to you and 911 on the spot — it never tries to handle it.

14-day free trial · no credit card · no contracts · no overage bills, ever

Your CRM Dashboard TUESDAY · LIVE
CALLS ANSWERED
31 /31
JOBS BOOKED
18
AFTER-HOURS $
$2,180
8–10 Furnace tune-up — R. Alvarez, Vernon CONFIRMED
11–1 Panel upgrade estimate — K. Sandhu ACCEPTED
⚡ now "Water heater replacement" — hot lead, owner texted
Incoming call…
🕐 Answers 24/7 — nights, weekends, cold snaps 🗓 Books with real arrival windows and travel buffers 🚨 Escalates real emergencies to you and 911 📍 Set up in person, Armstrong to Kelowna — live in a day
Where the jobs go

You can't answer from a crawlspace

On a ladder, under a sink, elbow-deep in a panel — the phone rings and you can't get to it. In the trades a missed call isn't a missed chat. It's a $350–950 service call, or a $9,000 install, that just went to the next name on Google. Industry estimates suggest most of those callers never leave a voicemail and never call you back. The one number everyone agrees on: 78% hire the first contractor who calls them back.

Unanswered-call and after-hours figures are industry estimates; the 78% first-responder figure is from the widely cited lead-response study. Your own numbers appear in your dashboard from day one.

Home-service calls that go unanswered (est.)~27%
Plumbing emergencies landing 6pm–8am (est.)~48%
Callers who hire the first responder78%
Calls answered with PamVA100%
The loop

Call, triage, book the window, see it in the dashboard

STEP 1 · ANSWER & TRIAGE

It picks up and sizes the job

One ring, any hour. It asks the question a dispatcher would — "is the water actively flooding right now, or is it a puddle you can put a towel under?" — so a real emergency gets escalated and a next-morning job gets booked as one. It never guesses.

STEP 2 · BOOK THE WINDOW

Real arrival windows, address, deposit

It books an honest arrival window — "between 8 and 10" — not a fake exact time, leaves travel buffers between jobs, captures the service address, and can take a deposit by texted Stripe link so the slot is real before you roll a truck.

STEP 3 · SEE THE MONEY

Every call, and what it caught

The call lands in your dashboard transcribed, the job's on the calendar, and the money tiles tally the after-hours jobs and missed-call recoveries it caught. Say "furnace replacement" and your phone buzzes before the caller's done talking.

The question every trade asks

"What happens on a real emergency?"

It escalates — it doesn't try to be a hero. You set the rules for what counts, and every path is visible in your dashboard afterward.

🚨

Gas smell or CO alarm

It doesn't book and doesn't coach a DIY fix. It tells the caller to leave and call 911 or FortisBC at 1-800-663-9911, then alerts you instantly — quiet hours or not.

🔀

Live transfer when you're reachable

A caller who needs a person, or an emergency during hours, is put straight through to you. A fast answer at 2am beats no answer — and you get the transcript either way.

💧

Flooding, sparking, no heat in a cold snap

The same posture: it triages, escalates the genuine ones to you, and books the rest as first-priority jobs with the address already captured.

👁

Nothing hidden

Every call — booked, transferred, or escalated — is in your dashboard with a full transcript. You can read exactly what it said, any time.

Built for the trades

A dispatcher, a booking system, and a front office

Missed-call text-back tools just text. Answering services take a message. This books the job with the trade-specific tools you actually need — and shows you the money underneath.

🗓Arrival windows & travel buffers

  • Honest arrival windows ("between 8 and 10"), never fake exact times
  • Travel buffers between jobs so you're not booked across town back-to-back
  • Service-address capture on every booking
  • "On my way" texts to the customer
  • Multiple techs, services, and job durations

🧾Estimates & deposits

  • Estimates texted with one-tap customer accept
  • Prices framed as pending inspection — never a firm quote sight-unseen
  • Deposits taken mid-call by Stripe pay-link
  • Card data stays with Stripe — never touches our servers
  • Invoices with tax and part-payments after the job

🚨Emergency escalation

  • Keyword detection: gas, burning smell, flooding, CO alarm
  • Directs the caller to 911 / FortisBC 1-800-663-9911 immediately
  • Never books, never coaches DIY on a life-safety call
  • Owner alert fires instantly, bypassing quiet hours
  • Live-call transfer to you when it's reachable

Hot-lead alerts

  • Your keywords — "replacement," "install," "no heat," "panel"
  • Instant SMS to your phone as the words are said
  • Callers tagged: customer, new lead, or spam
  • The big-ticket calls surface before they cool off

📈The money dashboard

  • Every call transcribed and recorded, kept forever
  • Money tiles: after-hours jobs caught, missed-call recoveries, revenue booked
  • Calendar with no double-books, enforced at the database
  • Waitlist auto-fills your cancellations and dead slots
  • QuickBooks / Xero / CSV accounting sync

📱Missed-call text-back & more

  • Hang-ups instantly get a "sorry we missed you" text with your booking link
  • Hosted booking website for customers who'd rather tap than call
  • SMS confirmations and reminders
  • Review requests after the job's done
  • Coach it in plain English — one sentence fixes future calls
The payback math

What do missed calls cost your shop?

Rough math, on purpose — drag the sliders to your reality. HVAC calls run $450–950, plumbing $350–750, electrical $300–650. We count reminders and deposits cutting no-shows by a third, and the waitlist refilling half your cancelled slots. A part-time receptionist in the Okanagan runs $1,300+/month; a 24/7 human answering service is $450–650 on top and can't book a thing. This starts at $99.

ESTIMATED REVENUE LEFT ON THE TABLE

PamVA flat plan: $99/mo

On Jobber? On paper? Under contract?

It fits whatever you run now

PamVA runs its own booking engine and syncs two-way with Google, Apple and Outlook calendars from day one, so it never double-books you. If your other software has an open API, we can usually wire Pam into it as part of setup — tell us what you run. Start with the calls you're already missing, and let your dashboard make the call.

ON JOBBER

Keep it — we do the parts it doesn't

Jobber Plus now bundles a receptionist, so we won't sell you phone answering twice. What it doesn't do: take a deposit so the slot's real, back-fill your cancellations off a waitlist, text estimates the customer accepts with one tap, and show you a dashboard of the actual dollars the phone caught. That's the layer we add.

ON PAPER

We're your whole front office

Still running the book on paper or a whiteboard? Pam is the whole thing — answering, booking, arrival windows, deposits, reminders, and a customer list that builds itself. No app to learn; you set it up with a person, not a help desk.

UNDER CONTRACT

The ~$49 after-hours bridge

Locked into an answering service? A small bridge plan takes only the after-hours calls they miss — you stop losing those today. When renewal comes up, you'll already know exactly what the full switch looks like.

Okanagan built

Set up by a person, at your shop

Every other receptionist is sold from a website in another province. I'm in Coldstream. I'll come to your shop — Armstrong to Kelowna — load your services, prices, and hours, wire up the estimate accept-links and hot-lead alerts, and you can watch it answer your own line before you pay a cent.

FOUNDING TRADES — 10 SPOTS

50% off your first year, setup on me

The first ten Okanagan trades get 50% off their entire first year, free in-person setup, Front Office features at the Reception price, and a rate locked for life — in exchange for honest feedback and, if it earns one, a review. Field-service mode lives on the Pro plan; the founding deal brings it within reach.

Claim a founding spot
The real questions

Objections, answered straight

My customers want a real person in an emergency.

They do — and so does Pam. On a genuine emergency it doesn't book anything; it puts the caller through to you, or straight to 911 and FortisBC (1-800-663-9911) on a gas smell or CO alarm, and it never coaches a DIY fix. What it fixes is the 2am no-heat call you'd have missed entirely. A fast answer at 2am beats no answer, and you get a text the second it comes in — so you're more reachable in an emergency, not less.

I'm on Jobber — doesn't it already answer my phone?

If you're on Jobber Plus, yes, and we won't sell you that twice. We add the parts it doesn't do: deposits taken on the call, waitlist back-fill of your cancellations, estimates the customer accepts with one tap, and a dashboard that shows the actual revenue the phone caught. It syncs your calendar from day one, and Jobber has an open API — ask us about wiring Pam straight into it at setup. And if you're not on Jobber, or you're on paper, Pam is your whole front office.

Won't it sound like a robot and embarrass my shop?

Call it and judge for yourself: (672) 296-5229. Interrupt it mid-sentence — it stops, listens, and picks back up like a person. It never pretends to be human; it says who it is and gets to the point. Most callers just care that someone answered and their job is booked.

What does it actually book — and can it get the schedule wrong?

It books real arrival windows with travel buffers between jobs and the service address captured, straight into one calendar with no double-books (enforced at the database, not by hope). If it ever answers something the way you wouldn't, you fix it in one sentence in the dashboard and it applies to every future call.

Is there a contract? What does it cost?

No contracts, 14-day free trial, no card up front. One flat price — $99/mo on Reception, no per-minute meter and no surprise overage bill, ever. Field-service mode (arrival windows, estimates, travel buffers) is on the Pro plan at $249; founding trades get it far cheaper. See full pricing.

What if I'm under contract with an answering service already?

You don't have to wait. A small bridge plan (~$49) takes only the after-hours calls your current service misses, so you stop losing those now. When your contract's up, your dashboard already shows you exactly what the full switch is worth.

The next call you miss from a job site
is a customer for years

See it book a job before you spend a dollar — call the live line, or book a demo set up for your trade.

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