Who rang: Rewa Ngatai. New customer, first time she has rung you.
Number: 021 447 0912
Where: 14 Sturdee Street, Sockburn. Single storey, no dog, gate on the left.
You cannot answer the phone with your hands full
Your phone answered while you are on the tools. Every call taken, every job written down. From NZ$129 a month.
How it works
Four steps. You do the first one and we do the rest.
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Tell us the number
One form. Your mobile, your business name and your trade. It takes about forty seconds.
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We build it
Your agent is built and trained on your trade and your hours inside 24 hours. Then we ring you and play it to you.
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You divert your phone
Your existing number, diverted. Nothing ported, nothing installed, and you can switch the divert off from your own handset.
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Jobs turn up
Every call answered and written up, texted to you, and lodged in your job system where the software allows it.
A missed call is a job that went to whoever answered
That is the whole argument. Everything else on this page is detail. Put your own numbers in and see what a normal week is costing you.
Those are your numbers, not ours. We have not put a figure in your mouth and there is no survey being waved at you. Not every missed call was a job, so halve it if you like. It is still a number worth looking at.
A job-brief builder for the tools tradies already use.
Choose a trade and job system. Take away a question template and a clear handover—without pretending every connection books jobs the same way.
The agent builder
Build yours with Talkify Your rules. No IT project.
The jobs you take. The areas you cover. Who gets the urgent ones. Build a front desk that works the way your crew does.
builderExample buildAdd a part
Incoming callYour existing business numberForward calls when you choose
The monthly number
One decent job can cover it
The rate does not change because the call came after five, on Sunday or through the Christmas closedown.
First 3 months
NZ$129 a month
Then
NZ$199 a month, with no lock-in.
In the plan
200 call minutes, 50 texts, up to three agents on your number and three calls answered at once.
Set up
NZ$0. We build it, train it and let you hear it before you divert the number.
Small or seasonal
Pay as you go is NZ$10 a month for the number, then NZ$1 a minute, with NZ$10 credit to start.
Get set up
Tell us the trade and the number. We do the rest, and we ring you before it answers a single call.
Your number
You keep it. Nothing is ported and nothing is moved. You divert your existing number to us, and you can turn that divert off from your own handset whenever you want.
Set up
Your account opens straight away. Your agent is built and trained within 24 hours, and we walk you through it before it goes anywhere near a customer.
On site
Nothing to install. No app on the van, no tablet in the ute, no new phone system. It is a divert and a text.
What the caller hears while you are up a ladder
It answers in your business name, in a New Zealand or Australian voice, and it does not pretend to be you.
Answers
Good afternoon, Halswell Plumbing. What has happened?
Caller
There is water coming through the ceiling in the hallway.
Answers
Right, that one is urgent. Can you get to the toby and turn the water off at the street?
Caller
I think so. It is under the letterbox.
Answers
Do that first. I have got your address and this is going to Dean now. He will ring you back himself to confirm a time. I am not going to guess at one for him.
What it will not do
It does not quote. It does not promise a time you have not agreed to, and it does not give trade advice down the phone. It takes the call, works out how urgent it is, writes the job down properly and gets it to you. That is reception, not a tradesperson.
What lands on your phone before you are off the ladder
A text, and the same thing by email. Written the way you would write it on the back of a docket, with nothing missing.
9:41
Monday, 31 August9:41
You will ring her back to confirm a time. No time was given to her.
Who rang
Rewa Ngatai. New customer, first time she has rung you.
Number
021 447 0912
Where
14 Sturdee Street, Sockburn. Single storey, no dog, gate on the left.
The job
Water through the hallway ceiling. Upstairs bathroom sits above it. Toby is under the letterbox and she has shut it off.
How urgent
Today Active leak, water is off, ceiling still dripping.
Promised
You will ring her back to confirm a time. No time was given to her.
An example, written the way a real one arrives.
It plugs into the things you already use every day
No new system to learn and nothing to install. The work turns up where you already look for it.
Simpro
Match the caller to a customer and site, then capture the job details.
Explore the connection →
Fergus
Put new enquiries and customer details into the job workflow your team already uses.
Explore the connection →
Tradify
Send the enquiry into Tradify by email. No customer lookup or direct diary booking.
Explore the connection →
iTrade
Capture the details and request a visit. Your team confirms the schedule.
Explore the connection →Your job system comes first. Talkify also connects to calendars, accounting tools and CRMs. Actions vary by system; we confirm the exact workflow with you. See more connections →
Connect the tools you already run. No need to change job software.
Running something else? Tell us what you use and we will quote the integration work.
Most answering services stop at the message. Yours stops at the job.
A name and a number scribbled down is not a job. The work only counts once it is sitting in your system, on the right customer, with nothing for you to re-key.
Fergus
The New Zealand one. The job is created in Fergus with the customer, the site address and the notes already on it, and where you have asked us to, a time is held in the real diary while the caller is still talking. There is more on that on the plumbers page.
Simpro
Common on the Australian side, and on the bigger commercial jobs in New Zealand. The caller is matched against your existing customers where they are already in there, so the job is lodged against the right account rather than opened as a stranger.
ServiceM8
Worth knowing before you ask. ServiceM8 sells its own AI phone agent and it is live in New Zealand. Using theirs means moving your number onto their phone add-on. Ours never asks you to do that. If you are already deep in ServiceM8 and happy there, theirs is a fair thing to look at, and we connect to it either way.
Tradify
Be clear about this one. Tradify is a one way email connection. The job arrives in Tradify as an enquiry off the back of the call. It cannot look a caller up in your Tradify customers and it cannot read or book your Tradify diary, because Tradify does not open that up to anybody.
iTrade
A visit is requested against the customer. It is not a confirmed time, because that is how iTrade works, and the caller is told the same thing. Nobody sits at home waiting on an appointment that was never actually booked.
Xero
Your Xero contacts become the phonebook. A regular is known by name the moment they ring, without anyone looking it up, and if they are ringing about their own invoice they get a straight answer instead of a message taken. Card details are never read out over the phone.
MYOB
The same idea for the MYOB side of the market. Your customer list is what a caller is recognised by, so a twenty year regular is not handled like a cold enquiry off a Google ad.
Google Calendar
If your week lives in a shared Google Calendar rather than a job system, that is the diary it reads and writes. It books into the real diary, so it is never a guess at whether you are free.
Zapier is there for anything with a hook on it, and every call can post into Slack or Microsoft Teams if you want the office to watch them come in.
Running something else? Tell us what you use and we will quote the integration work.
What makes this different from the rest of them
Four things, and none of them is the voice. The full version, limits included, is on why us.
We sell the line, not a layer on it
Numbers are provisioned on our own carrier account and the routing is ours to change. One number, one bill, and nobody in the middle when something breaks at three in the morning.
Both phones get told
An urgent job is texted to your mobile within seconds of the call ending, and the caller gets a text confirming what was taken. That second text is why they stop ringing other numbers.
Every connector is ours
Written one at a time, and nothing is named on this website until the connector behind it exists. That is why our list is shorter than some and why every name on it is real.
No diary, no list, no problem
If you have no calendar we keep a real one for you and it books into that. The customer list fills itself from the calls, so after a few months you have one without typing anything in.
Answering business calls since 2024, built by a Christchurch software studio that has been going for over twelve years. Real New Zealand and Australian voices, and iPhone and Android apps for reading the job back from the phone in your pocket.
Where we draw the lines
The limits are worth as much as the features, so here they are up front.
Your calls stay in your country
New Zealand numbers are +64 and those calls are handled in New Zealand data centres. Australian numbers are +61 and those calls are handled in Australia. Neither crosses the Tasman to be answered.
Your details are not sold
Not yours and not your customers. No lists, no data broking, and nothing handed to anyone outside the business for their own use. It is written down plainly on the privacy page.
You keep your number
Nothing is ported and nothing moves onto our phone system. You divert your existing number to us, and you can turn that divert off from your own handset, on your own, at any hour.
What it will never do
It does not quote. It does not promise a time you have not agreed to. It does not give trade advice down the phone, and card details are never read out over the phone. It is reception, not a tradesperson.
After five, and the weekend
You can have it on all day, or only when your own phone gives up. Most start with after hours and weekends, because that is where the calls were going nowhere.
It knows your hours and it knows the public holidays, so it answers differently at ten at night than it does at ten in the morning. If you would rather read about out of hours cover on its own, there is a whole site for that at callanswering.co.nz.
The one that pays for it
A Sunday call-out at full rate, taken properly instead of ringing out, covers a fair chunk of the month on its own. That is usually the call people tell us about afterwards.
Pick your trade
The calls are not the same and neither are the questions worth asking. Eight trades, each written up on its own.
Booking held in the diary
Leaks, blockages, call-outs
Plumbers
A burst pipe at nine at night is not a new bathroom quote, and it should not be handled like one.
Urgent jobs triaged
Faults, safety, after hours
Electricians
Half the house is dead and there is a burning smell. That call gets sorted out from the rest before it reaches you.
Every lead written up
Enquiries, site visits, quotes
Builders
Nobody rings a builder at midnight. They ring at ten on a Tuesday while you are on a roof, and they only ring once.
Everyone answered at once
Leaks, reroofs, insurance
Roofers
The wind gets up and every roof in town rings in the same hour. Nobody gets an engaged tone.
Sized before it books
Decks, doors, fit-outs
Carpenters
There is no emergency in carpentry, so a call that rings out is a job that quietly went to somebody else.
Error code taken down
Breakdowns, installs, servicing
Heat pumps
Heat pumps here and air conditioning across the Tasman, with the same rush arriving in opposite seasons.
Access width recorded
Rounds, paving, earthworks
Landscapers
Everybody looks at their section on the same warm Saturday, and that is the morning you are on a digger.
Booked as a half day
Lists, rentals, small jobs
Handyman
Nine little jobs on one list is a half day. Booking it as an hour costs you the rest of the afternoon.
The six things everybody asks
Will it sound like a real person?
It sounds like a person, and it says it is an assistant if anybody asks. New Zealand calls get a New Zealand voice and Australian calls get an Australian one. You listen to yours and sign it off before it answers a single customer, and you can pick a different one.
Can I keep my number?
Yes, and you never hand it over. You divert your existing number to us, which takes a couple of minutes on your own handset. Nothing is ported and nothing moves onto another phone system. You can turn the divert off yourself whenever you want.
Will a real emergency still get through to me?
Yes, and that is the point of the triage. You decide what counts as an emergency for your trade. When one comes in it rings you rather than sitting in a text, and it can keep chasing down a roster until somebody actually picks up.
Does it work with Fergus, Simpro or ServiceM8?
Yes. Fergus, Simpro, ServiceM8, iTrade and Tradify can all connect. Supported actions depend on your system. Enquiries carry the site address and the notes on it. Tradify is a one way email connection only, so it cannot look a caller up or read your Tradify diary.
What happens if I am already on another call?
It picks up the second one instead of leaving it to ring out. That is the overflow case, and it is how most people start: your own phone first, and this catching whatever you could not get to. Nobody is queued behind anybody else.
How much does a tradie answering service cost?
The monthly business plan is NZ$129 for the first three months, then NZ$199, with 200 minutes, 50 texts and three calls at once. Pay as you go is NZ$10 a month for the number plus NZ$1 a minute. There is no setup fee and no lock-in.
Get your phone answered
Your account opens straight away and your agent is built within 24 hours. No card, and nothing answers your phone until you have heard it and said yes.