After-hours answering service
An after-hours
answering service,
on your own number.
Nights, weekends and holidays, answered on the line you already have. No after-hours rate, and nothing on your desk changes.
How it works.
Answers when you're closed
Forward your line at close and back in the morning, or leave it on her permanently. Both are normal.
Emergencies still reach you
Your rules decide what wakes somebody and what waits for the morning queue. She applies them at 3am exactly as written.
Books into tomorrow
The job goes into a real slot for the morning, so nobody has to call anybody back.
A text before you're up
Who called, what they wanted, what she did. You read it with your coffee.
The calls you never hear about.
A missed call after close doesn't show up anywhere. There's no voicemail because most people don't leave one, no missed-call log they'd recognise, and no record at all that somebody wanted to give you money at eight on a Friday.
That's what makes this hard to believe until you see a month of them written down. Owners routinely guess low by a factor of three.
She answers them. Not takes a message — answers them, books what can be booked, and escalates what genuinely can't wait.
After-hours is where the good calls are.
A water heater at nine at night, a no-heat call in January, somebody who has just been in a wreck, a customer whose car died in a parking lot. These are urgent, high-value and going to whoever picks up.
During business hours you have competition for those calls. After five, most of your competitors have gone home too — which makes the after-hours phone the cheapest advantage available to a small business.
And there's no after-hours rate here. It's the same flat monthly price whether the call lands at noon or at midnight.
What it costs
Included on every plan, from $89 a month.
There is no tier where this is switched off. The only thing that changes between plans is how much phone you have.
- Starter · 100 min, ~40 calls $89 /mo
- Small · 250 min, ~100 calls $175 /mo
- Standard · 500 min, ~200 calls $300 /mo
- Busy · 1,000 min, ~400 calls $500 /mo
- High Volume · 2,000 min, ~800 calls $850 /mo
Common questions
The things people ask.
Can she cover only the hours we're closed?
Yes, and it's how a lot of businesses start. You forward the line at close and unforward it in the morning, or we set it on a schedule.
Most people move to full coverage within a couple of months, because the daytime overflow turns out to be bigger than they thought.
Is there an after-hours rate?
No. It's one flat monthly price and a 2am call costs exactly what a 2pm call costs. Traditional answering services often charge more for nights and weekends.
What happens with a real emergency at 3am?
Whatever you told us to do. Warm transfer to your on-call phone, and if that doesn't answer, the next person on your list. She'll tell the caller plainly what's happening either way.
Anything that isn't an emergency by your definition gets booked for the morning, and the caller is told that rather than left expecting a truck.
Do I keep my number?
Yes. You keep the number on your trucks, your cards and your Google listing. We forward your existing line, so nothing about how customers reach you changes.
The next call is already on its way.
Half an hour is enough to know whether she'd work for you.
Not ready for either? Leave us a note instead.