Out of hours call answering for tradesmen
Pulsemint is an out of hours answering service for tradesmen. It answers the calls you don't want to take in the evening and at weekends, takes the customer's details and the job, marks whether it's urgent or can wait until morning, and texts you a summary. It costs the same at 9pm on a Sunday as it does at 9am on a Monday. It costs £199 a month including up to 50 captured calls, and you can try it free for 14 days with no contract.
The reason this matters is simple: a lot of homeowners only ring in the evening, because they're at work during the day. Their free time is your family time. This page covers how out of hours cover works and how to set it up so you only hear about what you need to.
Pulsemint at a glance
- What it does
- Answers the calls you miss, takes the caller's details and the job, and texts you a summary within about a minute
- Price
- £199 a month including up to 50 captured calls
- Free trial
- 14 day pilot, no card needed
- Contract
- None. Cancel any time.
- Hours
- Every hour of every day, same price
- Your number
- Stays the same. Unanswered calls divert to Pulsemint.
- Setup
- Done for you, about ten minutes of your time
- Coverage
- Anywhere in the UK
Try Pulsemint free for 14 days
Leave your name and email, then pick a time for a 15 minute setup call. No card and no contract. You keep your number.
Want to hear it first? Talk to the agent now. It answers questions about Pulsemint itself, and nobody will ring you back.
Why evening calls are a problem
Think about when your customers actually ring. A homeowner who works nine to five notices the leak or the tripping breaker when they get home. They spend the evening on Google and ring around. At the weekend they finally have time to sort the jobs they've been putting off.
That leaves you three choices. Answer at the dinner table and become the tradesman who's always on his phone. Ignore it and lose the job to whoever does pick up. Or let something answer for you and decide in the morning.
How Pulsemint handles out of hours calls
It answers every call you don't
Your phone diverts any call you don't pick up after a few rings. During the day that might be when you're on a job. In the evening it's everything, unless you choose to answer.
It sorts urgent from routine
You decide what counts as urgent when we set it up. For a plumber, that might be active leaks only. For a heating engineer, anyone vulnerable without heat in winter. Everything else is marked routine, so you can read it with your coffee in the morning.
It tells the caller what happens next
Callers are told you'll ring back, and when. "First thing tomorrow" is a perfectly good answer for a dripping tap, and most people are happy with it as long as someone has actually taken their details.
It costs the same at any hour
Human answering services usually charge more for evening and weekend cover, or only offer it on higher plans. Pulsemint is £199 a month whenever the calls come in.
What it won't do
It won't quote a price, promise a date or agree to anything on your behalf. Those are your decisions, and an agent that guesses at them creates problems. It tells the caller you'll ring them back, and if someone asks whether they're talking to an AI, it says yes straight away.
What an evening looks like
Between 6pm and 10pm on a Sunday, four calls come in while you're at home. Pulsemint answers all four. You glance at your phone once:
ROUTINE. Quote for new consumer unit, 3 bed semi, any day next week. Ravi, 07700 900812. ROUTINE. Outside lights not working since storm. Not urgent. Claire, 07700 900833. URGENT. Whole house no power, neighbours have power, RCD won't reset. Tom, 07700 900854. ROUTINE. Landlord, 2 EICRs due January. Example Lettings, 07700 900875.
You ring Tom back, and the other three can wait until morning. Nobody went to a competitor and you had your evening.
Setting boundaries
The point of out of hours cover isn't to make you available all the time. It's the opposite. You can stop answering at six knowing nothing is being lost, and you decide whether to look at the texts at all before morning.
Some tradesmen check once at around nine and only act on anything marked urgent. Others turn notifications off overnight and read everything at seven. Both work, because the details are written down either way.
Does it pay for itself?
Use your own numbers, not anybody's industry statistics. Open your phone and count last week's missed calls. Take out the suppliers, the spam and the people who rang back later. Be realistic about how many of the rest you'd have won, then multiply by what a job is worth to you.
Work out how many calls you get after 6pm and at weekends, which your call log will show. If two of those a week are jobs you'd win, at £150 each, that's about £1,300 a month. If they're mostly people you'd have rung back anyway, a good voicemail greeting may be all you need.
If the sum comes out small, you probably don't need an answering service. A better voicemail greeting and missed call text back will do. I'd rather you knew that before you sign up for anything. If you want to put your own figures in, the calculator on the Pulsemint homepage does the sum for you.
Setting it up
You keep your number. The number on your van, your website and your Google listing doesn't change. Your phone diverts the calls you don't answer, after however many rings you choose, and Pulsemint picks up instead of voicemail. Most UK networks let you set that divert in a couple of minutes, and I'll walk you through it for yours.
The setup itself takes about ten minutes of your time. I ask what you cover, which areas you work in, what you never want it to say, and what counts as urgent for you. Then I build the agent and you ring it yourself to test it before a single customer hears it.
If anything ever goes wrong at our end, the divert fails safe: calls ring your mobile exactly as they do today. You're never worse off than you are now.
Common questions
Can I choose which hours it covers?
It answers whenever you don't. In practice that means it covers you during jobs in the day and everything in the evening unless you choose to pick up yourself.
Does out of hours cost extra?
No. It's £199 a month including up to 50 captured calls, at any time of day or night.
How does it decide what's urgent?
You decide when we set it up. Each trade is different, so we agree what counts as urgent for you, and everything else is marked routine.
Will it wake me up?
Only if you let it. The texts arrive like any other message, so you can turn notifications off overnight and read them in the morning.
What does it tell callers about when I'll ring?
Whatever you want. Most tradesmen have it say they'll ring back first thing in the morning, unless the job is urgent.
Is it a real person?
No. It's an AI agent, and it says so if a caller asks. That's why it can answer at any hour for the same price.
Who is behind this
I'm Shadman, and I build and run Pulsemint myself from Lowestoft. When you start the pilot, I set the agent up for your business and you deal with me directly, not a support queue. If it doesn't catch jobs you'd otherwise have lost, don't keep it.