A missed-call text-back that tells the truth

You are on a ladder, under a sink, or in traffic. The phone rings. You cannot take it. The caller does not know whether you are a real shop or a dead number. A text-back closes that gap with one honest message and one question. It does not book the job, and it does not pretend a truck is already rolling.

The bot, or the autoresponder, may send the first text. A person handles everything after the caller replies. If you want a recap of the job itself once the work is done, that is a different page: the driveway voice memo.

Write these down before you turn it on

• The business name you are willing to put in a text.
• The hours a human actually reads messages, including the time zone.
• The single inbox a human checks. Your own phone is enough if you are the only person on the tools.
• The towns you serve, and the work you do not do.
• A sentence for emergencies. If you do not roll a truck for emergencies, the text has to say so. Do not leave it implied.
• Quiet hours. A call at 10 p.m. should not get a cheerful text that sounds like someone is dispatching.

If any line is blank, write it on paper first. A bot repeats whatever you left blank, with confidence.

The two texts

Keep them short. During hours, a few minutes after a missed call:

This is [Business]. We missed your call. Reply with the town you are in and what you need. A person reads these messages [hours]. If this is an emergency, [the one sentence you already wrote].

After hours:

This is [Business]. We are closed. Reply with the town and what you need, and a person will read it when we open at [time]. We are not dispatching a truck tonight.

Inside either text:

• Name the business.
• Say that you missed them. Do not say you are on the way.
• Ask for the town and the need. Do not ask for a long history in the first bubble.
• Name when a human reads the reply.
• If you do not offer emergency work, say that in the same text.

Do not include a price. Do not include an arrival window. Do not include a joke.

What the sender must refuse

Whether the words come from a template or from a model that keeps chatting, these lines do not go out:

• A price, even a range, unless it is copied from a price sheet you published and you are willing to honor for that text. For a first text, silence on price is the better default.
• “We can be there today.”
• “You are on the schedule.”
• Any claim about a license, insurance, or code.
• Any detail from a previous job at that number. The first text does not know who is holding the phone.

When the tool is unsure, the only next sentence is: “A person needs to answer that. We have your number and we will read it during [hours].” Then it stops. The after-hours FAQ uses the same stop, with a sheet behind it.

The human handoff

Every text-back creates a line a person can see: time, phone number, and any reply. That line lives in the inbox you already check. Once a caller replies, a human takes over. The bot does not keep talking them into a visit.

Write one aging rule next to your hours. A workable default: if a caller replies and nobody has answered by the next scheduled inbox check, those replies are the first task of that check, before new outbound calls. Change the rule to match your real hours, then follow the rule you wrote.

Test it like a caller

Do this before you trust the text, and again any week you change the words.

1. Call the business number from a different phone. Let it ring out.
2. Confirm the text arrives, and that it is the daytime or after-hours version that matches the hour you called.
3. Reply with a town you do not serve. Confirm the next response does not invent a trip.
4. Reply with “how much to come today.” Confirm you do not get a price or a promise.
5. Confirm the human inbox shows the number and the reply.
6. If your texting channel uses STOP, send it and confirm that number is not texted again. This page is not a legal opinion about consent. If you are unsure what your channel requires, ask the provider or your own counsel before you enable anything.

When the bot is down

Tape the same two texts inside the visor or next to the shop phone, with the name of the person who sends them by hand. A setup you cannot run yourself for one day is a setup you do not understand yet. Hand-sending is the standard, not a failure.