Before the first North Texas freeze: a plumber's phone plan

Every plumber in North Texas knows the night is coming. A hard freeze rolls in, pipes split in attics and outside walls, and by morning the phone won't stop ringing.

You can't add hours to that day. What you can do, in October, is decide what happens to the calls you can't take.

A note from Logan

I live and work in Prosper, and I talk to a lot of plumbers around Collin County. When I ask about winter, almost nobody brings up the work. The work is fine. They bring up the phone.

Anyone who was running calls in February 2021 remembers it. Pipes burst all over DFW at once, and every plumber had more calls than daylight. The jobs were there for days. The hard part was keeping track of who called, where they were, and whose water was still running across the floor.

Most freezes aren't that bad. But even an ordinary one, a night or two in the teens, sends a wave of calls to the same few shops on the same morning. That's the day to plan for, and October is the time to plan for it, because you have a free hour now and you won't then.

What freeze day looks like on your phone

Here's what a freeze morning tends to bring:

• Burst pipes in attics and exterior walls, often found when someone turns on a faucet and gets nothing, or hears water where there shouldn't be any
• Outdoor spigots and backflow devices that cracked overnight
• Water heaters acting up after the cold snap
• Calls from people who aren't your customers yet, because their usual plumber's line is busy or full

Meanwhile you're doing what you should be doing: under a house, in an attic, or shutting off a main for someone in a panic. Every call that rings while your hands are busy goes to voicemail.

And on a freeze day, a caller with water coming through the ceiling doesn't wait for a callback. They hang up and dial the next name on the list. Then the next one. Whoever picks up first gets the job, and often gets the customer for years.

The calls that matter most get lost first

On a normal day, a missed call is a small loss. On freeze day it's different, for two reasons.

First, the calls aren't equal. Some are "my outdoor faucet dripped a little." Some are "water is pouring out of my ceiling and I can't find the shutoff." If all you have is a pile of voicemails, you can't tell which is which until you've listened to every one.

Second, voicemail boxes fill up. If yours is full by mid-morning, nobody can even leave a message.

So the goal for winter isn't to answer every call yourself. You can't. The goal is that every caller talks to your company, every lead lands somewhere you can see it, and the emergencies rise to the top.

What to set up before it hits

None of this takes long, and all of it is easier on a slow afternoon in October than at 6 AM on freeze day.

1. Check your voicemail box. Clear it out, and record a greeting that tells people what to do while they wait, like finding the main shutoff.
2. Decide who handles overflow. If it's you, admit that's no one when you're under a house. If it's a family member, make sure they know which questions to ask: name, address, what's leaking, and whether the water is off.
3. Write down your emergency rule. What counts as "call this person right now" for your shop? Active water inside the house? No water at all? Put it in one sentence.
4. Know your callback order. On a flood day, you'll call back the people with water running first. Make sure whatever system you use can tell you who those are.

Some shops handle this with a helper at the kitchen table. Others use an answering line.

How an answering line handles a freeze morning

This is what we set up for plumbers. When you don't pick up, the call forwards to a line that answers in your company's name. It takes the caller's name, number, address, and what's going on, and texts it to you in about a minute.

If the caller says water is coming through the ceiling or they can't shut it off, the text is flagged as an emergency, so it's the first thing you see when you climb out of the crawl space. Your number stays the same. Calls you do answer work exactly like they do now.

It won't quote prices or promise a time. Those stay with you. What it does is make sure the caller with water on the floor talked to your company, not your voicemail, and that you know about them before you dial anyone else.

If you want to see how that flag works, we walked through it for tree service in Tree on the roof, or trim next month?, and the same idea applies to a burst pipe.

Why Logan sets it up now

Logan sets up every line himself, and owners reach him on his cell, not a help desk. He's local to Collin County, and he tests every tool himself before he recommends it. Setting this up takes a phone call and a forwarding code, which is a lot easier on a quiet October Friday than in the middle of a freeze.

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 on your line before the cold does. Start your 14 free days and Logan will call you to set it up.