Nico, for HVAC and plumbing companies
An after-hours answering service for HVAC calls
When a system fails at 9pm, the call goes to whoever answers. Nico is an AI receptionist for HVAC companies: it picks up as your business, gets the details a dispatcher would want, and pages your on-call tech under rules you set. When it is not urgent, it takes a proper message and lets everyone sleep.
Nico answers this line. Call it, describe a broken furnace, and see what it asks.
New call with Nico
+1 (555) 014-2071
Length 2:48 · How it went Good
Summary: No-cool call from an existing customer inside the service area, elderly occupant in the house. Escalated to on-call under your heat rule while the caller was still on the line.
Recording + transcript in thread · illustration, stand-in caller · reply here to ask me anything about the call
An HVAC after-hours answering service, in plain terms.
It is an HVAC after-hours answering service run by an AI, and this page does not pretend otherwise. It answers, asks, writes down and escalates. It does not diagnose, and it does not send a truck on its own.
Answers as your company
Your greeting, first ring, 2am on a Sunday. It says the line is recorded and asks what is going on.
Gets the job, not just a name
Name, callback, service address, what the equipment is doing, whether they are a customer, what they want next, and whether you go there.
Escalates under your rules
You decide what is urgent. When a call matches, it texts and rings your on-call person while the caller is still talking, and says so.
Gives way to a person
Ask for a human and it offers the transfer menu or pages someone. It does not argue, and it does not claim to be one.
The call
A no-cool call, after closing.
An illustration: the business, the caller and the address are stand-ins. The order of the questions, and what happens on the last line, is exactly what Nico does.
- 1
Nico: Thanks for calling Redwood Mechanical, this is Nico on a recorded line. The office is closed until 7:30 tomorrow, but I can take the details and get the right person moving. What's going on?
- 2
Caller: Our AC quit about an hour ago. It's 88 in the house and my mother's here, she's 82.
- 3
Nico: Okay. Let me get a few things so the on-call tech has what he needs. Your name, and the best number to reach you on?
- 4
Caller: Priya Ramaswamy, 555-014-2071.
- 5
Nico: Thanks, Priya. And the address where the unit is?
- 6
Caller: 41 Alder Court, Redwood City.
- 7
Nico: Got it, that's inside the service area. Is the outdoor unit doing anything at all, and do you know roughly how old the system is?
- 8
Caller: The outside fan isn't spinning. Inside blows air but it's warm. It came with the house, so I'm not sure how old.
- 9
Nico: That's fine. Have you used Redwood before?
- 10
Caller: Yes, you did the furnace last winter.
- 11
Nico: Then you're in the system. With the heat and your mother there, I'm treating this as urgent: I'm texting the on-call tech now, while we're talking. Is there anything else he should know before he calls you?
- 12
Caller: No, that's it. Thank you.
Why it escalated
Not a judgment call. The business wrote a rule — no cooling above a temperature, or a vulnerable person in the house, means page the on-call tech now — and Nico matched the call to it and said what it was doing. Your rules can be stricter or looser.
Hear it
The same call in each voice. Both run at the same speed; pick the one that sounds like your business.
- MarinA general Nico call, not an HVAC one.
- CedarSame call, flatter delivery.
No HVAC recording exists yet. These are real recordings of Nico on a general call, for the voice and pacing; the words are not the ones above.
What the office receives
A card in Slack, a record in your system, and a thread that answers questions.
The card at the top of the page is the summary. In the thread beneath it is everything Nico captured and did. What it reads: your contacts and calendar, where connected. What it writes: a contact, a draft job, the card. Booking a real slot, and anything that costs money, waits for a click.
- Caller
- Priya Ramaswamy
- Callback
- (555) 014-2071
- Service address
- 41 Alder Court, Redwood City — in service area
- Equipment
- Central AC, age unknown, installed before purchase
- Symptom
- No cooling. Outdoor fan not running; indoor air warm
- Customer
- Existing — furnace replaced last winter
- Urgency
- Escalated under the heat-and-vulnerable-occupant rule
- Next step
- On-call tech texted 9:14 PM; job drafted for the morning board
Updated the contact in Salesforce: Ramaswamy, existing customer, furnace job on file. Drafted a job, No cooling — outdoor fan not running, for the morning board. Texted and rang the on-call number.
On my way. Approve the job.
Job posted. Recording and transcript are above if you want them on the drive.
An exception, handled the same way
New call with Nico
Summary: Walk-in cooler down at a restaurant outside the service area; commercial refrigeration is not something Redwood does. Took the details, said so to the caller, created no job. Flagged for the morning in case you want to refer them on.
Urgency and escalation
You write the rule. It follows the rule.
What counts as urgent
You tell it: no heat below a temperature, no cooling above one, a vulnerable person in the house, water where it should not be, a smell of gas. It matches calls to your words. It does not decide a noise is dangerous, and it never tells a caller how to fix anything.
When nobody answers the page
It has texted and rung the on-call number you gave it. If nobody picks up, the caller still gets a proper message, the card sits in Slack marked urgent, and it is first in the morning digest. Nico errs toward waking someone, and tells you when it did.
When something is down
The recording, transcript and Slack card do not depend on your CRM or calendar being reachable. If a write into one fails, the card says which, so a person creates the record by hand instead of finding out a week later.
Booking
A booked slot, or a request. It tells you which.
A booked slot
Where Nico has the calendar, it checks a real opening, reads it back, and books it. Google Calendar, or a job system it has been given access to. Salesforce, Airtable and Slack are connected today.
An appointment request
Everywhere else it captures the window the caller wants and a person confirms in the morning. It says so to the caller in as many words, so nobody thinks a truck is coming that is not.
If your dispatch board lives somewhere else, say so on the first call and we will tell you whether Nico can write to it before you pay. There are no logos here for systems it does not touch.
Coverage and cost
Point the line at it when you choose.
Nico is a number you forward to, so the forwarding rule is the configuration. After you close is the usual one; forward-on-busy sends the second caller to Nico instead of a hold tone; weekends are the cheapest place to start. Run one, two or all three. Changing it is a call to your phone provider.
- Setup, your escalation rules and the transfer menu are part of the plan, not a fee
- Connecting your CRM or calendar is included, where the system has an API
- No per-user charge, however many people read the calls
The plans, same for HVAC as for anyone
- Starter$39/month, 100 minutes included, then 35¢/min
- Business$99/month, 350 minutes included, then 30¢/min
- Growth$199/month, 750 minutes included, then 28¢/min
Only connected talk time counts. Worked examples and the crossovers between plans are on the pricing page.
The plumbing call
Same intake, one different rule.
As an AI receptionist for plumbers, Nico asks the same shape of questions and pages under your rules; water still running where it should not be is usually one of them. It does not troubleshoot. It gets the address, what is leaking and whether the water is off, and pages the plumber. One Nico, configured for the calls you get.
- 1
Nico: Redwood Mechanical, this is Nico on a recorded line. We're closed until the morning, but tell me what's happening and I'll get someone on it.
- 2
Caller: The water heater in the garage is leaking. There's maybe an inch of water on the floor.
- 3
Nico: Is the water still coming, or have you been able to shut it off?
- 4
Caller: Still coming. I don't know where the valve is.
- 5
Nico: Okay. I'm paging the on-call plumber now. Your name, the address, and the number to call you back on?
- 6
Caller: Marisol Vega, 8 Larkspur Lane, 555-014-2088.
Questions HVAC and plumbing owners ask
Do we keep our number?
Yes. You forward your line, or only your after-hours line, to the number we give you. Fifteen minutes with your phone provider; if it does not work out, you unforward it.
What does a caller actually hear?
Your company name, and that the line is recorded. Then a question, not a menu. If a caller asks, it says it is an AI answering for you; it never claims to be a person.
What if the caller wants a human right now?
It gives way: the transfer menu, or paging the on-call tech while the caller is still on the line, depending on your setup. What it cannot do is put a person on the same call itself.
Can it book the job?
Where it has your calendar or job system, it books a real slot. Everywhere else it captures a preferred window as a request and a person confirms in the morning. It tells the caller which of those it is doing.
What about questions it cannot answer?
It says it does not know and does what you told it to do next: take a message, offer the transfer menu or page someone. It does not guess, and it does not give repair advice.
What happens if our CRM or calendar is down?
The call is still answered, recorded and transcribed, and the card still lands in Slack. What fails is the write into the other system, and the card says so.
What counts against our minutes?
Connected talk time only — not ringing, hold, or the write-up. Past your allowance the minutes bill at your plan's rate; nothing stops working, and you are alerted at 80%.
The voice, the interruption handling and the Slack setup are on the main Nico page, and the systems it connects to are listed under integrations.
Point your after-hours line at Nico.
Fifteen minutes to forward the number. The first week's calls arrive with recordings, and you tune the rules as you listen.