A virtual receptionist for tradies and contractors, so the job is booked before you are off the roof.

The receptionist follows an urgent-job procedure you write before their first shift: what counts as an emergency in your trade, who is on call that day, and whether that tradie wants a warm transfer, an SMS with the address and details, or both. The caller hears your call-out or after-hours fee exactly as it appears on your price sheet, and is given an arrival window only if you have approved one. Anyone reporting a gas smell, sparking, a fallen powerline or an injured person is told to ring Triple Zero (000) first, or the emergency number your procedure names, and the on-call tradie is alerted straight after. Nobody gets talked through a repair or an isolation step unless you have supplied those exact words in writing.

No. Pricing a job and working out what is wrong both need you on site, and both sit under your licence. The receptionist can read out fixed prices you have put in writing, such as a call-out fee or a standard service charge, and nothing past that. Someone asking what a switchboard upgrade costs, or whether an old hot water unit is worth fixing, gets booked for a quote visit or offered a call back from you, with their question written down word for word. When a caller pushes for a ballpark, the receptionist explains plainly that every job is priced after you have seen it.

No. Most answering services run a shared pool of operators taking messages for many businesses at once, then send you a list to return when you get a minute. That suits a line with only a few calls a week. A DotVA receptionist is one dedicated person on your number who learns your suburbs, your call-out fee and the work you do and do not take, and who books the caller into your job software before they hang up. It is a human voice rather than an AI one, and the quiet stretches between calls go into chasing quotes and overdue invoices instead of sitting idle.

Yes. On a builder's or renovator's line the calls are homeowners with a new project, suppliers confirming deliveries and subbies checking when they are on. The receptionist logs each build or renovation enquiry with the block address and the budget the caller mentions and books the site meeting into your diary. They also confirm subcontractor bookings against the program you share, pass on site access and induction requirements, and collect certificates of currency and SWMS before a subbie starts. Homeowners wanting a progress update hear the one you have written, or get a call back from you. Variations, pricing and anything contractual come straight to you.

A dedicated receptionist covers the hours you book, which can start early or run into the evening, but no person is on your line through the middle of the night. Overnight and weekend calls are what the AI receptionist is for, from $89 a month plus setup: it takes the job details, books routine work, and alerts your on-call tradie about anything urgent under the same written rules your receptionist follows. If your business promises a person on the phone at 2am, a 24-hour call centre is the better tool for those hours, and Jenn will tell you that on the discovery call.

Manila, in the Philippines, is home base for the receptionist, but the shift follows your Australian clock. Trade days start early, so plan for the gap: 6:30am in Sydney or Melbourne is 4:30am in Manila, or 3:30am while daylight saving runs, Brisbane sits at 4:30am all year, and Perth lines up hour for hour. A pre-dawn start is built into the role when we recruit, so every candidate you interview has already agreed to it. Behind them, DotVA's Australian team in Melbourne runs the hiring, onboarding and invoicing.

Billing is hourly: $12-17 AUD ex GST for each hour you book. There is a minimum of 10 hours per week, roughly $520-736 a month, and full-time cover of 40 hours lands around $2,078-2,944 a month. Finding and matching your receptionist typically runs 7-10 business days, and the $500 up-front deposit is credited against invoice number one. There is no lock-in contract: you can end it at any time in the first 14 days after your receptionist starts, and any unused deposit is refunded less third-party recruitment costs such as job ads. From then on it is 30 days' notice, and if the fit is wrong within the first 30 days we find a replacement free. For nights and weekends, the AI receptionist is from $89 a month plus setup.