Customer Service Automation for Aircon and Home Services
An aircon company cannot answer its most common question straight away. “How much to service my aircon” has no answer until you know how many units, what type and which service. So the exchange takes four messages before anything useful happens, and all four are handled by someone who should be on a job.
This page is for aircon servicing and home service businesses. It starts with the six workflows worth automating first, each linked to its own page with a description you can paste into AeroChat. Then it covers the messages that arrive, the channels customers use, the public data, two recipes you can copy in today, and the plan a business of your size typically fits.
Workflows you can automate
Each one links to a page with the flow, the description to paste, what to connect and what you still decide. The reasons for this order are on the ranked aircon and home services workflows page.
- Book a service visit by postal code and time window. Offers times for that area from the schedule in your field service software.
- Quote from your price list once the units and service are known. Asks the number of units, the type and the service first.
- Answer “when is the technician coming” from the booking. Tells dispatch if the window has already started.
- Check warranty on a repeat fault and arrange a return visit. Uses the last job in the customer’s history and your warranty terms.
- Renew a servicing contract in the chat. Reads the contract from your field service software and sends a payment link.
- Send leaks, sparks and burning smells to a person at once. Out of hours, the customer gets your emergency number.
What automation does for a home service business
- Quotes without stopping work. The workflow collects the number of units, the type and the service, and returns the price from your price list while your technicians are on site.
- Bookings that fit the route. It takes the postal code first and offers slots for that area on that day, so dispatch is not fighting the schedule.
- Emergencies reach a person at once. A leaking ceiling skips the queue, and the customer is told what to do right now.
The messages a home service business gets
Every job is priced on facts the customer has to supply.
| Trade | What the workflow collects before quoting |
|---|---|
| Aircon servicing | Number of units, wall-mounted or cassette, general service or chemical wash |
| Plumbing | What is wrong, which fixture, whether water is running now |
| Pest control | The pest, property size, one-off treatment or contract |
| Cleaning | Property size, frequency, whether it is a post-renovation clean |
| Electrical | The fault, property age, whether power is off |
The other common messages are “what time is the technician coming”, which is answered from the job schedule, “is this covered by warranty”, answered from the job record and your warranty terms, and the emergencies. Define emergencies by consequence rather than keyword: water leaking, sparking or burning smells, gas, no cooling in a home with an infant or an elderly resident, and a broken lock. Those bypass everything and go to a person, and out of hours the customer gets your real emergency number. You set this as a handover rule in AeroChat. See live chat handover.
The quoted price must come from your price list, applied by the system. In AeroChat you set the limits on what may be quoted or discounted. A technician arriving at a price different from the one in the chat is how home service companies lose reviews.
Channels customers use
WhatsApp and web chat, with WhatsApp far ahead in many markets. The trade gets many enquiries from search ads, and pointing them at a conversation instead of a contact form usually works better: a customer with three units and a weekend preference can say so in one message instead of filling in five fields. Technicians and dispatchers can take over any conversation from the AeroChat mobile app.
One AeroChat customer, a car detailing service, put the situation plainly in a Shopify App Store review: “especially when I am out servicing customers and cannot respond to enquiries in real time. Almost all our customers get in touch with us via WhatsApp.”
What the data says
| Figure | What it measured |
|---|---|
| About 20% | of the electricity used in buildings worldwide goes to air conditioners and electric fans |
| About 10% | of all electricity used worldwide goes to air conditioners and electric fans |
| About two-thirds | of the world’s households could have an air conditioner by 2050 |
Source: International Energy Agency, The Future of Cooling, May 2018.
| Figure | What it measured |
|---|---|
| 69% | of consumers say waiting on hold is a waste of time |
| 73.3% | prefer messaging when contacting a business |
| 79.3% | want proof a business is legitimate before engaging with it |
Source: Meta, State of Business Messaging. Kantar survey of 11,056 adults in 22 markets, commissioned by Meta, which owns WhatsApp, 2025.
Air conditioning is in more homes every year, and most units need regular servicing. That is a large base of recurring work, and the business that quotes clearly and turns up at the quoted price keeps the customer for the next service.
Recipe: quote and booking
Paste this into AeroChat (Skills, then Build from a description) and change the example values to yours.
Copy this into AeroChat
When a customer asks about aircon servicing, follow these steps.
- Ask how many units, whether they are wall-mounted or cassette, and whether they want a general service or a chemical wash.
- Quote from our price list: general service US$40 per wall-mounted unit, chemical wash US$100 per wall-mounted unit, with a minimum of 2 units per visit (example prices, change them to ours). Show the total and say the technician will confirm on site if the units are different from what was described.
- If they want to book, ask for their postal code first. Check the schedule in our field service system for the technicians who cover that area and offer three time windows.
- Ask whether someone will be home, and whether there is parking or lift access.
- For chemical washes, confirm the US$30 deposit (example amount) and send a payment link, and book once it is paid. For general servicing, book straight away.
- Find the customer in our field service system by phone number, or create them if they are new. Create the job with the address, units, price and access notes, assign it to the technician for that window, and confirm the date, time window, address and price.
If the customer describes water leaking, a burning smell, sparks or gas, stop and hand the conversation to a person straight away, and outside office hours send our emergency number from the knowledge base.
What to connect:
- Your price list and emergency number. Uploaded to the AeroChat knowledge base.
- Your field service software. ServiceM8, Jobber or Housecall Pro connect through their APIs. In ServiceM8, create an API key in its settings. In Housecall Pro, generate an API key from its app store (API keys are on its MAX plan). For Jobber, sign in and approve the access. Paste any key in when AeroChat asks for it.
- Running a small team from Google Calendar and a Sheet? Connect your Google account when AeroChat asks, and approve the access. The recipe then reads jobs from your calendars and customers from your Sheet.
- Payments. Airwallex is built in: connect your Airwallex account and AeroChat sends the payment link and confirms the payment. Money settles into your Airwallex balance, and AeroChat never sees card numbers. If you already take payments with HitPay or Stripe, both connect through their APIs with your API key. Payment links are included from the Growth plan.
- Your channels. WhatsApp and web chat. Built in.
Recipe: technician arrival and warranty questions
Copy this into AeroChat
When a customer asks when the technician is coming, check they are messaging from the phone number on the booking, then give the booked date and time window from the job in our field service system. If the window has already started, say the team is checking and notify dispatch with the customer’s name and address. When a customer asks whether a problem is covered by warranty, find their last job in our field service system and ask what is wrong. Our servicing warranty is 30 days on the same unit for the same fault (example terms, change them to ours). If it is inside the warranty, say we will arrange a return visit and notify dispatch. If it is outside, quote the service price instead. If the customer is unhappy with a job, apologise and hand the conversation to a person.
What to connect: the same connection to your field service software reaches each customer’s job history, and your warranty terms go in the knowledge base. Nothing else is needed.
After you paste a recipe, AeroChat builds it as a draft with a checklist: connect your accounts, upload your lists, then switch it on. Any keys are entered in the dashboard and never pass through the conversation.
Using a different system? If it has a public API, it connects to AeroChat the same way: describe what you want, paste in its key, and it runs.
Can’t find your tool? Message us in the chat on this page and we’ll tell you how it connects.
What a business of your size typically invests
AeroChat plans are priced on AI responses, the individual replies the AI sends. A quote and booking usually takes several responses. A worked example: a business with about 15 enquiries a day, at around five replies each, uses roughly 2,250 responses a month.
- An owner-operator with a few enquiries a day usually fits Starter: 500 AI responses a month and 3 team seats.
- A business with several technicians taking deposits in the chat needs Growth, because payment links start there. It includes 2,000 AI responses a month and 10 seats.
- A business at the volume in the example, with a dispatch team, usually fits Advanced: 5,000 AI responses a month and 25 seats. A Growth plan with a top-up can also cover it in a busy month.
Hot months can be topped up with extra AI credit. What the investment does is quote and book while your technicians are on jobs, and get emergencies to a person without a queue.
Let it quote while you are on a job
Upload your price list, paste the quote recipe, and ask it for three wall-mounted units on a chemical wash. If the total matches what you would have said, it is ready for your next enquiry.
Related reading: live chat handover, WISMO (where is my order), conversation-based pricing, payment link. All aircon and home services workflows. All industries.