Chimney sweeps: the first cold front fills your phone

The first real cold front rolls through North Texas, and a lot of homeowners decide that tonight is the night they light the fireplace. Then they smell smoke in the living room, or remember nobody has looked at the chimney since they bought the house, and they pick up the phone.

For a small chimney sweep crew, those calls land when you're on a roof or down in a firebox. Here's how to keep them from going to the next company on the list.

A note from Logan

I live in Prosper, and I've noticed the same thing every fall. One week it's still warm enough for shorts. Then a front comes through, the temperature drops overnight, and the whole neighborhood smells like wood smoke by Friday.

When I talk to owners in seasonal trades, they all describe the same week. The work is there. People want it. The trouble is that everyone decides at once, and they call at the exact moment the owner can't answer. A chimney crew is a good example. You can't take a call with soot on both gloves and your head in a flue.

That's not a sales problem. It's a phone problem, and it's one of the easier ones to fix.

What the cold-front phone looks like

If you sweep and inspect chimneys, you know the pattern. Here's what tends to come in once the weather turns:

• First-fire calls from people who want a sweep before they light anything this year
• "Something's wrong" calls about smoke backing into the room, a smell, or a damper that won't open
• New homeowners in the neighborhoods going up around Celina, Prosper, and McKinney who have never owned a fireplace before and don't know what it needs
• Inspection requests from people buying or selling a house
• Repeat customers asking to get back on the schedule before the holidays

Most of those calls come in the evening and on the weekend. That's when people are home, cold, and looking at the fireplace. It's also when you're finishing the last job of the day, cleaning up, or finally sitting down to eat.

Why the first one to answer gets the job

Somebody who wants a fire this weekend isn't going to wait two days for a callback. They search, find a few companies, and call down the list. The first company that picks up and takes their details is usually the one that gets on the schedule.

A voicemail greeting doesn't hold anybody's place in line. A lot of people hang up on it. The ones who leave a message usually keep calling, and by the time you call back, they've booked someone else.

The "something's wrong" calls matter even more. A homeowner who smells smoke wants to talk to someone now. If they reach you, or someone answering for you, they feel taken care of. If they reach a beep, they move on.

We wrote about the same kind of rush for roofers in When a storm hits DFW, every roofer's phone rings. A cold front is quieter than a hailstorm, but the phone works the same way.

What covering the overflow looks like

Here's what we set up for crews like this. When you don't pick up, the call forwards to a line that answers in your company's name. It asks for the caller's name, number, address, and what's going on with the fireplace, and texts all of it to you in about a minute. If the caller says something that sounds urgent, like smoke in the house, the text is flagged so you see it first.

So instead of a voicemail you'll get to after dinner, you get a text you can read on the roof: "Mark, house off Frontier Parkway, smoke coming back into the den last night, wants someone this week." You call him back when you're on the ground, and he already knows who you are.

A few things it doesn't do:

• It won't quote a price. Pricing stays with you.
• It won't tell anyone their chimney is safe. That's your call, after you look.
• It won't promise a time. Your schedule is yours.
• It won't pretend to be you. It answers for your company and takes the details.

Your number stays the same. Calls you answer work exactly like they do now. It only picks up the ones you can't.

When to set it up

The easy time is before the next front, not in the middle of the rush. Turning on forwarding takes a phone call and a short code. That's a lot easier on a mild afternoon than on the first cold Saturday with a full schedule.

It's also worth thinking past this month. The same line catches the holiday calls, the January "we finally used it and something's off" calls, and the spring calls about leaks and chimney caps.

If you want a quick way to see what a new customer hears right now, try the check in Call your own number tonight. It takes two minutes.

Why Logan sets it up himself

Logan sets up every line himself, and owners reach him on his cell, not a help desk. He's local to Prosper and Collin County, and he tests every tool himself before he recommends it to anyone.

Missed-call and after-hours answering is $250 a month, and the first 14 days are free. No contract. If it isn't worth it, cancel and turn forwarding off with one code.

Get it running before the next cold front. Start your 14 free days and Logan will call you to set it up.