Handling urgent and emergency calls with an AI answerer

Urgent calls need a different path from routine ones. A dripping tap can go into a booking queue. Water pouring through a ceiling can't. Set the answerer up to spot the second kind early and hand it to a person.

What counts as urgent

You decide, not the software. Water damage may be slow and minor, or it may be instantaneous and catastrophic, as with burst pipes and flooding¹. A plumber's list of urgent problems might include:

• water that can't be stopped
• water near power points or coming through a ceiling
• a sewage backup inside the home
• no water at all to a house with young children or someone vulnerable
• a gas smell

Write your own list. Keep it short and specific, because the answerer works from what you give it.

Gas smells need a different answer

Traces of mercaptans are usually added to natural gas to help people identify leaks, and the smell may be perceived as rotting eggs or a faintly unpleasant skunk smell². The same source says people who notice the odour must evacuate and avoid open flames and electrical equipment².

So the answerer shouldn't try to talk a caller through a gas problem. It should give the number for your area's gas emergency service or emergency services, as set out by your gas supplier or fire service, and then alert you. Check the right numbers for each place you work, because they differ between countries and states.

How to get the call to a person

An answerer can connect the current caller to another party, as phone services such as Twilio's describe³. That's the live transfer. But that same documentation says the attempt ends when the other end is busy, unanswered or hung up³. A transfer to one phone that's in a pocket underground is a transfer to nowhere.

So plan the fallback:

1. Ring the on-call person first. Give the transfer a sensible time limit.
2. Ring a second person if the first doesn't answer.
3. If nobody picks up, tell the caller honestly that you haven't reached anyone yet, take their details, and send an urgent text to the on-call phone.
4. Keep trying. A message that nobody sees is the same as a missed call.

Don't leave it to voicemail

Voicemail lets callers leave a message when the recipient can't answer, but simple systems may not give any active notification⁴. More advanced ones can deliver by email or text message⁴. For an emergency, an email nobody reads for an hour is too slow. Set the urgent alert to make the phone buzz, and test that it does.

Be careful what the answerer says

Keep it to logistics. Ask where and how bad, then say when a person will call back or arrive. Don't let it promise an arrival time you can't meet. Don't let it say a problem is "nothing to worry about." It can't see the pipe.

Insurance is another trap. An insurance policy may or may not cover water damage costs¹. The answerer shouldn't say whether anything will be covered. Customers should ask their insurer.

Test it with real scenarios

Ring your own number and pretend to be a customer with a burst pipe, then one with a gas smell, then one with a slow drip. Do it at night. Note how long it takes for your phone to ring, and what the caller hears while they wait. If the caller gets silence, fix that first.