Get Urgent Home Service Breakdowns to a Person at Once
This recipe makes sure an emergency never waits in a queue. Water leaking, a burning smell, sparks, gas, a broken lock, or no cooling in a home with a baby or an elderly person all skip every other workflow. AeroChat gives the safety step first, alerts your on-call person, and out of hours sends your real emergency number. Set it up before any other workflow goes live. Part of the aircon and home service workflows.
Why this one comes first
A customer types “aircon dripping on the power socket” in the middle of asking for a quote. If that message gets the next quote question, or a booking for Thursday, the business has failed the customer at the worst moment.
The volume is low. The stakes are high, so this rule runs alongside every other workflow.
What counts as urgent
Define it by consequence, not by keyword. A customer rarely writes “emergency”.
- Water. Leaking through a ceiling, onto electrics, or a burst pipe.
- Electrical. Sparks, a burning smell, smoke, or power tripping repeatedly.
- Gas. Any smell of gas.
- Heat risk. No cooling in a home with an infant, an elderly person or someone unwell.
- Security. A broken lock or a door that will not close.
The recipe
Copy this into AeroChat
These rules apply to every conversation, including in the middle of any other workflow.
- If a customer describes water leaking through a ceiling or onto electrics, a burst pipe, sparks, a burning smell, smoke, power tripping repeatedly, a smell of gas, a broken lock, or no cooling in a home with an infant, an elderly person or someone unwell, stop what you were doing.
- Give the safety step first, from our safety notes in the knowledge base. Examples: for water near electrics, switch off the unit and the power at the switch if it is safe to do so. For gas, do not use switches or flames, open the windows, leave and call the gas emergency line.
- Ask for their address and a phone number we can call, if we do not have them.
- Tag the conversation “urgent”, write a one-line note with the problem and address, and hand it to our on-call person straight away.
- During office hours, tell them a person is taking over now. Outside office hours, send our emergency number from the knowledge base and tell them to call it.
Never ask an urgent customer for a quote, a booking or a deposit first. Never tell them a problem is safe. If you are not sure whether it is urgent, treat it as urgent. Reply in the customer’s language.
Change the list and the safety notes to your own before you paste it. Your safety notes must say to call the emergency services for a fire, and the gas emergency line for gas.
What to connect
- Your safety notes and emergency number. Upload them to the knowledge base, with your office hours and the public emergency numbers that apply.
- AeroChat’s handover, tags and notifications. Built in. Urgent conversations show at the top of the inbox.
- The AeroChat mobile app. So your on-call person sees the alert and takes over from their phone.
- An on-call rota. Decide who is on call each night and weekend, and set them as the handover person for those hours.
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 you still decide
- The full list of what counts as urgent for your trades.
- The safety steps for each one.
- Who is on call, and the emergency number customers call out of hours.
- Whether you take urgent jobs out of hours, and at what price.
AeroChat follows these as written. When a message is close to the line, it treats it as urgent.
The result to expect
Customers in an emergency get a safety step in seconds and reach a person without waiting behind routine enquiries. Out of hours, they get a number they can actually call.
Before you go live, test each item on your list from a friend’s phone and check the alert reaches your on-call person. In the first month, read every urgent conversation and add anything that was missed.
See also live chat handover and service booking.
Set your emergency rules first
Paste this recipe with the booking one, then message “aircon dripping on the power socket” and check it reaches your phone.
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On Shopify? Install AeroChat from the Shopify App Store.