Does it know the difference between no heat and a tune-up?

It reads the reply for words that mark an emergency in this trade — no heat, no ac, not cooling, gas smell, smell gas and others — and escalates when one appears, including outside business hours. Anything else is queued with the caller's own words attached, so whoever rings back knows what they are walking into.

What happens at two in the morning?

The text goes out either way, because the caller is awake and deciding who to ring next. What changes is the escalation: an emergency match is flagged immediately rather than waiting for opening time, which is the setting most of this trade actually needs and most software does not have.

We already have an answering service. Why this?

Different job. An answering service picks up and takes a message, which is worth having and costs per call. This answers the calls that reach nobody at all, in seconds, and hands you the caller's own description of the problem. Plenty of companies run both.

Heating and cooling

The no-heat call you did not answer

No heat on the coldest night of the year is a call somebody answers within the hour, and it is rarely the company that missed it. What a text-back system does about that, in this trade specifically.

Written by Christopher Gillig, who files the carrier registrations behind these numbers. Last reviewed September 7, 2026.

Why this trade specifically

A no-heat call in January and a maintenance enquiry in April are the same missed call to a phone system and completely different to a business. The difference is in the reply, which is why the first message asks what is going on rather than announcing that we will be in touch.
The words that decide it are unglamorous and specific: no heat, no ac, gas smell, carbon monoxide, frozen pipes. So are the ones about who is in the house — elderly, newborn, infant — which change the answer even when the equipment fault sounds routine.
A system replacement in this trade bills between $6,000 and $18,000. A recovered maintenance call is worth a fraction of that, and the same automation catches both, which is why the reply matters more than the volume.
Cold snaps and heat waves produce the calls and also produce the reason nobody answers them: everybody is already on a roof or under a house. The busiest hour and the worst answer rate are the same hour.

The words that change the answer

This is the actual list. When one of these appears in a reply, the lead is escalated — outside business hours as well.

no heatno acnot coolinggas smellsmell gasburning smellwater leakingfrozen pipescarbon monoxideelderlynewborninfant

Response time by urgency
Urgency	Reply target
emergency	5 minutes
high	5 minutes
normal	15 minutes
low	60 minutes

What a recovered call is worth here

The jobs this trade quotes, with the value ranges the product uses when it estimates a pipeline.

No heatemergency urgency
No coolingemergency urgency
Repairhigh urgency
Maintenance / tune-upnormal urgency
System replacement$6,000–$18,000
Air qualitylow urgency

What happens, in order

A homeowner rings during a cold snap. The crew is out and nobody picks up.
The call reaches us. On a tracking number we ring the owner or dispatcher first, and only continue if that also goes unanswered.
The caller gets one text asking what is going on and where they are.
Their reply is read for the urgency words below. A match escalates it, including outside business hours.
An emergency is flagged for a callback in minutes; anything else is queued with the words the caller used, so whoever rings back already knows what they are walking into.

missed call textback

This is Northgate Heating, sorry we missed your call. What is going on, and where are you? Reply here, or BOOK to book.

Asks what and where, because in this trade the answer usually names the emergency. It is one segment, and there is no em dash in it — a single character outside ASCII would push the whole message into UCS-2 and cost a third more to send.

emergency ack

Hi Dana, Northgate Heating has your message and is treating it as urgent. If this is a gas leak or emergency, call 911.

Sent when the reply matches an emergency word. It acknowledges and escalates and does not advise, because advising on a possible gas leak by text is not something software should do.

Questions

Does it know the difference between no heat and a tune-up?: It reads the reply for words that mark an emergency in this trade — no heat, no ac, not cooling, gas smell, smell gas and others — and escalates when one appears, including outside business hours. Anything else is queued with the caller's own words attached, so whoever rings back knows what they are walking into.
What happens at two in the morning?: The text goes out either way, because the caller is awake and deciding who to ring next. What changes is the escalation: an emergency match is flagged immediately rather than waiting for opening time, which is the setting most of this trade actually needs and most software does not have.
We already have an answering service. Why this?: Different job. An answering service picks up and takes a message, which is worth having and costs per call. This answers the calls that reach nobody at all, in seconds, and hands you the caller's own description of the problem. Plenty of companies run both.

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