An AI receptionist for heating engineers that answers through the winter rush
When the first cold snap hits, your phone does not stop. OptiFlow answers every boiler breakdown, service and installation enquiry, books it into your diary and sends you the details, from £49 a month.
The heating season problem
Heating engineers live with a strange calendar. For eight months the phone is manageable. Then the temperature drops, every boiler that was marginal in October fails in the same week, and you physically cannot answer the volume of calls while also fixing boilers. The customers you cannot answer ring the next engineer, and some of them become that engineer’s annual service customers for the next ten years.
An AI receptionist flattens that peak. It answers every call, no matter how many come in at once, with your business name. It asks what the boiler is doing, reads back the error code the customer sees, confirms the address and whether there are vulnerable people in the house, and either books the breakdown or flags it to you as urgent. The service calls, the quote requests and the landlord certificates get booked into the slots you have set aside for them.
OptiFlow Lite starts at £49 a month for sole traders and small heating firms, with unlimited calls answered around the clock. Larger heating and plumbing businesses with a trade counter or an office can step up to the OptiFlow Voice Agent, which also quotes, checks stock and takes payment on the phone.
What it handles for a heating business
Boiler breakdowns
It captures the make, the fault code, whether there is any heating or hot water and who is in the property, then alerts you or books it in according to your rules.
Annual services and gas safety certificates
Landlords and homeowners ring to book servicing. It offers the slots you have set aside for routine work and confirms the appointment.
New boiler quotes
It explains your survey process, asks the questions that affect the price such as property size and current system, and books the survey.
Priority customers and care plans
If you run a service plan, it recognises plan customers from your list and treats them as priority.
Parts and return visits
When a repair needs a part, it books the return visit and reminds the customer what to expect.
Overflow during cold snaps
On the worst days it takes every call you cannot, so nothing goes to voicemail and nobody rings a competitor.
Built for Gas Safe businesses, not a generic call centre
A generic answering service does not know the difference between a frozen condensate pipe and a failed PCB. Your AI receptionist does, because it is set up with your services, your rules about what counts as urgent and the questions you need answered before you drive to a job. It can tell a customer how to check a frozen condensate pipe safely while they wait, which saves you a wasted journey on a freezing morning.
It books into the calendar you already use and keeps your working hours in mind. It never promises an engineer by a particular time unless that rule is one you have given it. And it sends you every detail straight away, so you walk into each job knowing what you are facing.
Set up takes a short call. You keep your existing number and forward it, either permanently or only when you cannot answer. During the quiet months you can leave it handling overflow, and when winter arrives it is already trained and ready.
Calls it answers in a heating business
The first frost
Forty calls in a morning, all boiler failures. The receptionist answers every one, sorts them by vulnerability and fault, books the ones that can wait and flags the ones that cannot.
The landlord’s portfolio
A landlord needs gas safety certificates for twelve flats. It takes every address and tenant contact and books them in an efficient order across your days.
The quote that would have gone cold
A homeowner wants a new combi priced. It takes the details, explains the survey and books it for the next available slot, so they do not ring the national chains.
Questions people ask
Can it give safety advice on the phone?
It gives only the advice you have approved, such as how to check a frozen condensate pipe. It never attempts to diagnose beyond that.
Does it handle gas emergencies?
If a caller reports a smell of gas it tells them to call the National Gas emergency line immediately, then lets you know. That rule is built in.
Will it cope with winter volumes?
Yes. It answers every call at once, with no queue and no engaged tone, which is the whole point for a heating business.
What does it cost?
OptiFlow Lite starts at £49 a month with unlimited calls. The Voice Agent for firms with a sales office starts at £1,500 a month and adds quoting, stock checks and payment by phone.
Hear it take a breakdown call
Book a ten minute demo and we will ring your phone with the receptionist live so you can hear how it handles a boiler fault, a service booking and a quote.
Related reading: AI receptionist UK, AI receptionist for plumbers, AI receptionist for electricians, AI receptionist use cases by industry.