Call forwarding for handymen, in plain English

Most handymen run the business off one cell phone, and that phone rings while you're on a ladder, under a vanity, or driving between jobs. The idea of an answering line sounds good until you wonder what it does to your phone, your number, and the calls you do pick up.

The piece that makes it work is called conditional call forwarding. It's an old phone feature, not new software, and it's worth understanding before you try anything.

What call forwarding actually is

Your cell carrier can send a call somewhere else when you don't answer it. That's all forwarding is. It's been built into phone service for years, and most people never touch it.

There are two kinds that matter here:

• Forward everything. Every call goes straight to another number and your phone never rings. That's not what you want.
• Forward when you don't answer. Your phone rings like normal. If you pick up, you talk to the customer like you always have. If you don't, because your hands are full of drywall mud or it's 9 PM, the carrier sends that call on to the answering line.

The second one is conditional forwarding. It's the one we use. Nothing about your phone changes when you answer. The only calls that move are the ones that would have gone to voicemail.

What it looks like for the caller

Say a homeowner in Prosper needs a ceiling fan hung and a door that won't latch fixed. They find you on Google and call.

Your phone rings. You're on a roof and can't get to it. Instead of hearing your voicemail greeting, the caller hears a friendly voice answer in your company's name. It asks what the job is, where the house is, and how soon they need someone. After hours, it asks if it's an emergency.

To the caller, someone at your company picked up. They don't get a beep and a decision about whether to leave a message or try the next name on the list.

What it looks like for you

When the call ends, you get a text with the caller's name, number, address, and what they need. Emergencies go at the top.

You finish the job you're on. When you climb down, you call them back already knowing it's a fan and a door latch in Prosper. You can tell them right away whether you have the part, when you could get there, and what it might cost. That's a better first callback than "Hey, you called earlier, what's going on?"

What doesn't change

This is where most owners relax a little.

• Your number stays the same. Customers keep calling the number on your truck and your cards. Nothing to reprint.
• Your phone stays the same. No new phone, no app you have to open, no second line to carry.
• Calls you answer work exactly like today. Forwarding only kicks in on the ones you don't.
• You still do the selling. The answering line doesn't quote prices, promise times, or book jobs. It takes down the job and gets it to you. You decide the rest.

How you turn it on and off

Forwarding is set by dialing a short code on your phone. Your carrier handles the rest. The exact code depends on your carrier, so we give you the right one for yours when we set it up. It's a one-time thing.

Turning it off is the same idea: you dial a different code, and you're back to how it was. No contract to get out of, no software to uninstall. That matters, because a tool you can't easily walk away from is a tool you should be careful about signing up for.

Why this matters more for handymen

A plumber gets a call about a leak. A handyman gets a call about a leak, a sticky door, a TV mount, and a fence board, all from the same customer. Those are good jobs, and they're the kind people shop around for. If you don't answer, the next handyman on the list probably will.

You can't stop working every time your phone buzzes. Your hands are busy, and the customer you're standing in front of deserves your attention. Forwarding plus an answering line means you don't have to pick between the job in front of you and the one calling in.

If you're wondering what the answering line will and won't say on a call, we covered that in what an AI answering line won't do.

What this looks like in the free trial

We put answering on your line for 14 days, free. Setup takes about 15 minutes. Logan walks you through the forwarding code for your carrier, then you call your own number, let it ring, and hear what your customers will hear.

For those two weeks, every call you would have missed gets answered and texted to you. At the end, you'll know how many calls you were missing and when they came in. Then you decide if it's worth $250 a month. No contract, and you can turn it off with one code.

More on how it works is on the call answering page.

Start your 14 free days.