Live chat for home services: plumbers, HVAC, and electricians

When a pipe bursts, nobody wants to fill out a form. They want three things: is this an emergency, do you cover my area, and what will it cost. Live chat on your site answers all three the moment they ask — with a real person on the other end, not a bot.

The questions that sort an emergency from a quote

Every trade conversation starts at the same fork: is this urgent, or can it wait for a normal visit? Ask in this order:

• Is it an emergency — water actively leaking, no heat, no power — or can it wait for a regular appointment?
• What's the job: a repair, an install, or a new project?
• Roughly how big is it — one fixture, one room, or the whole system?
• Where is the property, so we can confirm we cover that area?
• If it's a quote: is there a date you need it done by?

Skip size and budget questions for a dripping tap; save them for whole-system jobs, where they decide what you quote.

A welcome message that sounds like dispatch

“Hi! Thanks for stopping by. Quick question — is this an emergency, or can I schedule you a normal visit?”

It tells the visitor a human who understands dispatch is reading, and hands you the triage answer before you've asked for anything. Keep the one-question shape: emergency callers want speed; quote-seekers want to know they're in the right place.

Canned replies for the questions you answer every week

Save these and every job starts faster:

• “We cover [towns]. What's the property address or zip code?”
• “If it's actively leaking or you have no heat, call us now at [number] — and send a photo through chat if you can.”
• “For a job that size we'd quote it on-site. We can come by [day] between [time] — does that work?”
• “That's actually an electrician's job — but here's what I'd check first before you call one…”
• “Can you send a photo? It helps me bring the right parts the first time.”

A photo request is your superpower: a control board with a burnt spot tells you more than three paragraphs of describing ever will.

What you need before you call back

When a lead comes in, you need five things to act on it: name, phone number, property address or zip, job type, and — for emergencies — a photo, plus a time window if offered. That's the whole card; everything else you can ask when you call.

What the conversation should look like

Visitor: Hi, my water heater is leaking from the bottom.

You: Sorry to hear that! Is it actively leaking right now?

Visitor: Yes, dripping pretty steadily.

You: Okay — first, turn off the cold-water valve on top; it's the handle right above the tank. Our emergency number is [number]; call us and we'll get a tech out today. What's your address so I can confirm we cover you?

The visitor got an action they could take immediately — more trust than any brochure — and you got a qualified emergency lead.

When you're on a job, not at a desk

You can't watch a chat window under a sink. So set your hours to the times you actually dispatch: during the day visitors get a live greeting and a human reply; after hours they get the offline message form — name, number, what's going on, emergency yes/no — waiting in your inbox as a thread.

Closed hours flip the widget automatically. Back at the van, that after-hours leak shows up with an unread badge, a banner, and an alert — the emergency message is the first thing you see in the morning. No bot fielded it; no lead died in a form nobody checks.

What it buys you

You stop losing the jobs that arrive when you're on the tools. Emergency callers get a human and an actionable answer in seconds; quote-seekers confirm you cover their area before they call. Every conversation is a lead you can qualify before the truck rolls — or politely decline, which costs far less than a wasted dispatch.

Set it up in about five minutes

The pain with chat is plugins, accounts, and code. GreetMode is one snippet — a widget script with your site id — pasted once into your site's HTML. If you can paste text into your site settings, you can install it; five minutes per site, step by step at /install. Match the widget color to your brand, set your hours, and you're live.

See it on a site like yours

Open the demo widget on the GreetMode homepage and play the caller: ask about an emergency, then a quote. After you install, send yourself a test message to see the loop from both sides.

Plans

You're not paying per tech or per conversation. One flat monthly bill: Standard $14.99/month for up to 3 sites, Multi $19.99/month for 4–6 sites, and Custom via /contact for 7+. Questions answered at /contact too.

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