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 signs from their phone, 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
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. Most of those callers won't leave a voicemail. The one number everyone agrees on: 78% hire the first contractor who calls them back.
The 78% first-responder figure is from the widely cited lead-response study. Your own numbers appear in your dashboard from day one.
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.
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 secure link so the slot is real before you roll a truck.
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.
Booking the call is half of it. The other half happens on site, one hand on a phone and one on a wrench — this is what that looks like now.
Each tech opens their phone to just their jobs — today's, tomorrow's, the address, the time, what the customer said when they booked. "On my way" texts the customer an arrival window with one tap; "start job" stamps the clock and opens that job's report right then, so the write-up happens on site, not from memory at 9pm. Even the title's done for you — it writes itself from what got done, so that box stays empty till they're finished.
No typing on a phone keyboard in a crawlspace. A tech taps record, says what they did — "replaced the inducer, quoted a follow-up" — taps stop, and about a minute later a written, searchable transcript is sitting in that job's notes, audio attached for anyone who wants to hear it back.
Your installer builds the options right there on a phone, off your own price book — quantity, a price they can override on the spot, a note the customer reads, a note only the shop sees, and any line you'd rather not show a price for. Materials taxed, labour not, worked out line by line to the cent. It goes out by text or email with your licence number and your terms on the offer itself. The customer lines the options up, types their name to sign, and gets back a PDF of exactly what they signed. Approve it and it becomes that job's invoice, with what they picked already on it.
Job report, estimate notes, appointment notes, customer notes — each one has its own mic beside it now. Tap it, talk, tap stop, and clean typed text lands in the box a couple seconds later, ready to read before you save. It won't invent a word you didn't say, and it never touches a part number, model, or measurement — say "R-410A" or "30 amp" and that's exactly what comes back. Nothing's recorded or kept; the clip's gone the second the text lands.
Mark a job waiting on parts with an expected date, and the next "is my part in?" call gets a real answer without anyone in the office picking up. When it lands, marking it arrived texts the customer a booking link for the return visit automatically.
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.
It doesn't book and doesn't coach a DIY fix. Before anything else — hard-wired, not left to the AI's judgment — it tells the caller to get everyone out and call 911 or FortisBC at 1-800-663-9911, then pages whoever's on call that instant, quiet hours or not.
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.
It triages by real severity, and asks the one question that matters: is anyone in the home elderly, an infant, or medically fragile? Those households go to the front of the line. Stable-but-urgent calls get locked into tomorrow's first slot — not "we'll call you back."
Every call — booked, transferred, or escalated — is in your dashboard with a full transcript. You can read exactly what it said, any time.
Generic answering tools treat "my AC is dead" like a haircut booking. Pam asks the questions a good dispatcher asks — and remembers the answers.
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.
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. PamVA's phone-answering plan is $149, flat — with a $69 text-only tier below it.
PamVA flat plan: $149/mo
PamVA runs its own booking engine and mirrors busy times with Google Calendar and Cal.com from day one — and reads your Apple or Outlook calendar from its published feed — 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.
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 signs and gets back as a PDF, and show you a dashboard of the actual dollars the phone caught. That's the layer we add.
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.
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.
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.
The first ten Okanagan trades get 50% off their first 6 months — Front Desk for $74.50 — free in-person setup, and a rate locked for life — in exchange for honest feedback and, if Pam earns one, a review.
Claim a founding spotTransparent CAD pricing — no "request a quote," no per-seat charges as you add techs. The field-service basics land on Front Desk; the price book, proposals, and service plans live on Pro, still below where Housecall Pro gates its top features.
On a roof all day — every missed call still gets answered and booked.
Every call answered 24/7 — with arrival windows, deposits, and your whole front office online.
The price book, proposals, service plans, and your crew's day.
14-day free trial · no card · unlimited users on every plan · full pricing & founding offer →
Every field-service platform sells AI phone answering as a paid add-on, and gates the estimates and recurring plans behind their top tier. Here's the same toolkit, priced flat:
| WHAT YOU GET | JOBBER | HOUSECALL PRO | SERVICEM8 | PAMVA |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI phone answering | AI Receptionist +US$29/mo | CSR AI, sold separately | AI Phone Agent behind US$32/mo phone add-on | ✓ Included, every plan |
| Per-user pricing | US$29/user | Basic 1 user / Essentials 5 users | Unlimited users, but job-capped tiers | Unlimited users, no per-seat fee |
| QuickBooks / Xero sync | Higher tiers | Gated to Essentials US$149 | — | ✓ Included from $149 |
| Estimates with good / better / best options | — | Sales proposals gated to MAX US$299 | — | ✓ On Pro $249 — per-line detail, signed PDF, approve more than one, full audit trail |
| Recurring service plans | — | Gated to MAX US$299 | — | ✓ On Pro $249 |
| Photo attachments on jobs | — | Photo reports gated to Essentials US$149 | — | ✓ Included |
| Monthly cost | US$49 Core + US$29 AI | US$59 / $149 / $299 | Job-capped tiers | $149–$249 CAD flat |
Workiz publishes no pricing at all — every tier is "Request pricing." Competitor pricing as published July 2026.
The digest lands at 7 with today's jobs and yesterday's catches. At 9:40 you're under a furnace when a call comes in — Pam books it with the address, an honest arrival window, and a travel buffer to the job before it. The caller who says "furnace replacement" triggers a text to your pocket while they're still on the line — you call back in ten minutes with the job already on paper. At lunch you send an estimate with as many options as the job needs; the customer compares them, types their name to sign, and a PDF of it lands back with both of you — and the one that goes quiet nudges itself until it expires, then stops. After the last job, the invoice goes out as a texted pay-link — and the one from three weeks ago that's still open nudges itself, so you don't have to be the collections department too.
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.
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 signs from their phone, 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.
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.
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.
No contracts, 14-day free trial, no card up front. One flat price — $149/mo on Front Desk, no per-minute meter and no surprise overage bill, ever — and that includes the field-service basics: arrival windows, travel buffers, deposits, and estimates the customer accepts from a link. The price book, good/better/best proposals, and service plans are on Pro at $249; founding trades get it far cheaper. See full pricing.
You don't have to wait. A small bridge plan (~$69) 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.
Their phone shows their own day — just their jobs, today's and tomorrow's, with the address, the time, and what the customer said when they booked. One tap on "on my way" texts the customer an arrival window; one tap on "start job" stamps the clock and opens that job's report right there, so it's half-written before the truck's back at the shop. Photos go straight onto the job. Instead of typing a note on a phone keyboard standing in someone's basement, they tap record, say what they did, and it comes back typed — a transcript in the job's notes inside about a minute, audio kept alongside it. That same mic's not just for the job card anymore — it's on the report, the estimate, every notes field. Tap it, talk, tap stop, and clean text lands in a couple seconds, part numbers and measurements coming back exactly as said. And when they hit save, the title's already written from what got done — one less box to fill in. Waiting on a part? Mark the job waiting-on-parts and Pam can answer the customer's "is it in yet?" call herself. It runs in the phone's browser — nothing to install — and a tech who'd rather text than open it can just message the business number: "what's next," "push my 2pm back 30," "add a note to the 2pm." They see their own jobs, not your books.
Say it's Tuesday. Your tech opens My Day before pulling out of the yard — their jobs, today and tomorrow, each with the address and what the customer told Pam when she booked. The 9:00 carries a "Not confirmed" stamp, so they ring ahead rather than lose the morning to a maybe.
At 9:40 they're under a furnace on a $100 inspection, and there's a crack in the heat exchanger. Nobody drives back to the shop to write that up. In the driveway they open the job, hit "Quote this job," pull the part and labour from your price book, and put up two options with the photo of the crack on them. Move a price off book and it asks why; the answer rides with the line. The note she'll read gets talked in, not thumbed in with cold hands.
It goes out the way she asked to be reached, text or email; she reads it at the kitchen table, picks one, and types her name to sign. A branded PDF of what she signed lands back with her and on the job, and you hear about it the moment she accepts. Writing it up ate the morning, so one tap pushes the rest of the day 30 minutes — it names who'd get a text, and nothing sends until you say go.
The part's a week out. Your tech marks the job waiting on parts with the date it's due, and today's inspection still gets paid today: checkout takes its $100 on a texted pay-link, a card, or cash. The signed quote isn't swept into that bill. It moves onto the return visit, where the work actually happens.
Thursday the part lands. Marked in, and she gets the text herself — good news, the part for your furnace is in, here's the link to book the return. Next week the repair gets done and checkout already carries her signed lines, locked to what she agreed to. Nothing re-keyed, nothing to argue about at the door. It syncs to QuickBooks, the review request goes out, job closed.
Two visits, one job, and nobody typed it twice. That's a Pro day — price book, options, My Day. On Front Desk you'd still send the estimate, get it signed and take the money; you'd just price it yourself.
See it book a job before you spend a dollar — call the live line, or book a demo set up for your trade.