Layer7
Every call answered.
Every job booked. Even at 2am.
A 24/7 AI receptionist for HVAC, plumbing, roofing, electrical, garage-door and restoration companies. It picks up on the first ring, takes the details, books the visit into your calendar, and transfers a genuine emergency straight to your on-call technician. Live in 48 hours, on the number you already use.
The demo runs in this browser tab — no signup, no form, and nothing gets dialled. Pick your trade and the receptionist answers as that kind of business, so a roofer hears a roofing receptionist. Describe a problem the way one of your customers would, then try to trip it up.
Talk to it right now, in your browser
Pick your trade and the receptionist answers as that kind of business. Describe a problem the way one of your customers would — or try to trip it up. It runs in this tab, so nothing gets dialled and nobody's phone rings.
These are made-up companies built for the demo — Milton Comfort Heating & Cooling and friends. The receptionist will offer you appointment times but will not write to a real calendar here. On a live client line, it does.
A missed call is not a missed call. It is a job your competitor books.
People with a broken furnace or a flooding basement do not leave a voicemail and wait. They hang up and dial the next company. The call you miss on a Sunday night is worth hundreds or thousands of dollars, and you never even know it happened.
The hours you cannot cover are exactly the hours the emergency work comes in.
How the jobs get lost
The call comes in while you are under a sink or on a roof, and it goes to voicemail.
It is 9pm on a Sunday and a furnace is out — the caller phones the next company on the list.
Your voicemail is full, or the caller simply does not leave one. Most do not.
A quote request gets treated as "I will call them back Monday" and never does.
It does the job a good receptionist does
Not a voicemail box with a nicer voice. It holds a real conversation, then puts a booking in your calendar.
Answers every call on the first ring, 24 hours a day, including evenings, weekends and holidays
Asks the questions you would ask — what is wrong, address, when they are free, how to reach them
Books the visit directly into your Google Calendar, and never double-books an occupied slot
Spells names back before booking, so "Afroz" does not become "Aphros" on your schedule
Books quotes as real on-site appointments, not vague callbacks
Corrects and reschedules a booking if the caller changes their mind mid-call
Takes a detailed message when a call is not a booking, and texts it to you
Transfers a genuine emergency straight to your on-call technician, in one hop
You get the engineer who built it. Not an account manager.
Layer7 Consulting is Afroz Ahmad — a CCIE-certified network engineer with 20+ years of experience, based in Milton, Ontario. He writes your call flow, tests it on your line, and answers the phone when something is wrong at 7am on a Tuesday.
No offshore handoff. No support queue. No ticket number. When a receptionist that answers emergency calls goes wrong, you need a person who knows how it was built — not a chatbot apologizing for the wait.
Answering your calls within 48 hours
You keep your number. You do not install anything. There is no new phone system.
A 20-minute intake call
Your hours, your services, your pricing rules, your emergency number, and which calendar bookings should land in. That is everything we need.
We build and test it
We configure your receptionist, run it through your real scenarios, and call it ourselves until it handles the awkward ones — mumbling, interruptions, vague callers, hang-ups.
You forward your line
We provision a private line and you point your existing number at it with call forwarding — always, only after hours, or only when you do not pick up. Customers keep dialling the number on your truck. You fill in no forms and verify no identity; that is our side of the wall.
One price, published. No demo required to see it.
All prices in CAD, plus HST. Cancel with 30 days' notice — and if you leave, we port the number to you. There is no free trial: the $497 exists so we only work with people who will actually use the thing.
Busier than 240 calls a month?
Multi-crew, several locations, or heavy after-hours emergency volume — tell us your numbers and we'll quote the minutes you actually need. No tier to squeeze into.
Work out whether it pays, before you talk to us
We have no case studies to show you yet — this is a new offer and we would rather say so than invent a testimonial. So do the sum yourself. It is not complicated.
A service call, a repair, an emergency callout. Most trades put it somewhere between $200 and $1,500.
Count the ones after 5pm, on weekends, and while you are under a sink. Check your call log — the number is usually worse than the guess.
Not all of them. A missed call that gets answered still has to become a booking, and some never would have.
At a typical trades ticket, one recovered job a month covers the $297. Everything after that is margin. If your honest answer is that you never miss a call, you do not need this — and we would rather you kept your money.
What it does not do
Everything below is easier to hear now than to discover in month two.
It is AI, and callers are told so.
We do not pretend it is a person. In practice callers do not mind — what they mind is voicemail.
It will not quote a price you have not given it.
It works from your pricing rules. Where there is no rule, it books the visit or takes a message rather than inventing a number.
It is not a dispatcher and it is not a salesperson.
It answers, qualifies, books, and escalates. Complex negotiation still needs you.
A real emergency goes to a human immediately.
Emergencies are transferred to your on-call number in one hop. The AI does not try to handle a gas leak.
No lock-in.
Cancel with 30 days notice. If you leave, we port the number to you — the published number was always yours. You are not held by your phone number.
Questions owners actually ask
Do I have to change my phone number?
No, and nothing about your current phone system changes. Here is the actual mechanism: your published number stays yours, on your truck and your van and your Google listing. You set call forwarding on it — always, after hours only, or only when nobody picks up — pointing at a private line we provision for you. Your customers dial the number they always have. The private line is plumbing; it is never advertised and nobody sees it. That is also why you never fill in an identity-verification form to get started, and why "cancel any time" is real — the number that matters was always yours.
What happens on a real emergency — a gas leak or a burst pipe?
The receptionist recognizes it and transfers the caller straight to your on-call technician in a single hop, with no extra hold. If that transfer fails, it takes the details and texts you immediately.
Will it book on top of a job I already have?
No. It reads your live calendar before offering any time, and it holds a slot the moment a caller picks it so two callers cannot take the same one. If you block time with Google appointment schedules rather than events, tell us at setup — those are invisible to every calendar API, and we handle them separately.
What does it do when it does not know the answer?
It says so plainly, takes a full message, and texts it to you rather than guessing. It is built to hand off, not to bluff.
How fast can it go live?
48 hours from the intake call in most cases. The slow part is you deciding your rules, not us building it.
What does it cost?
$497 to set up and $297 a month plus HST, including 600 answered minutes — roughly 240 calls. Beyond that it is $0.35 a minute, and we warn you at 80% of your allowance so a bill never surprises you. One price, no tiers to work out. If you run busier than that, tell us your numbers and we will quote the minutes you actually need. Cancel with 30 days notice.
Will you text me, and can I stop it?
Yes. We text you when a job is booked, when a message is taken, and when a call is escalated — sent only to the business owner or staff number you give us at setup, never to your customers without your instruction. Every message identifies the business and replying STOP ends them immediately. Message and data rates may apply.
Will my customers know they are talking to AI?
Some will. Rather than quote you a statistic, we put a live demo on this page — talk to it in your browser and judge it with your own ears, the way your customer would. It answers in a natural voice, and when a call needs a human it hands off instead of stalling.
I found an app that does this for $20 a month. Why is yours $297?
Those are real and they work. The difference is who does the setup. With a $20 tool you write your own call scripts, build your own booking flow, connect your own calendar, decide your own emergency rules, and fix it yourself when it breaks at 2am. We have never met a tradesman who finished that setup. You are paying for the build and for someone accountable when it matters, not for the minutes.
Who actually does the work — is it offshore?
No. Layer7 Consulting is Afroz Ahmad, a CCIE-certified engineer in Milton, Ontario. He builds it, tests it, and is the person you reach when something is wrong. There is no account manager between you and the person who wrote it.
What happens to my call records?
Every call produces a log with the caller details, what was discussed, and what was booked — and it belongs to you. Transcripts, summaries and outcomes stay with your business, so the record of a conversation survives the conversation. If you leave, you take it with you.
Which trades is this built for?
HVAC, plumbing, roofing, electrical, garage doors, and restoration — owner-led companies where a missed call is a lost job worth hundreds or thousands. We are based in Milton, Ontario and work with businesses across Halton, the GTA, and remotely.
In short
- What it is: a 24/7 AI voice receptionist for home-services trades — HVAC, plumbing, roofing, electrical, garage doors and restoration.
- What it does: answers every call, qualifies the caller, books the job into your calendar, takes messages, and transfers genuine emergencies to your on-call technician.
- What it costs: $497 setup and $297/month plus HST, including 600 answered minutes, then $0.35/min. Cancel with 30 days notice.
- How fast: live on your existing number within 48 hours of the intake call.
- Who builds it: Afroz Ahmad, CCIE-certified engineer, Milton Ontario. No offshore handoff, no account manager.
- Try it first: talk to it in your browser on this page and book a fake job. No signup, no form.
Compliance. Every call opens by telling the caller they have reached an AI assistant and that the call is recorded — the notice Canadian privacy law (PIPEDA) expects before anything is captured. Call audio and transcripts are processed in the United States by our voice provider; that transfer is set out in our privacy policy. Text messages we send on your behalf follow CRTC and anti-spam (CASL) rules — identified sender, and STOP honoured immediately. Further reading: Office of the Privacy Commissioner, CRTC on CASL.
Rather just call or text?
Say your trade and what happens to your calls today. That is enough to quote you.
Four questions. That's the whole form.
Enough to quote you properly. We reply within one business day — or call 289-207-2727 and skip this.