A plumbing answering service for the 2am call.
Kaico Voice answers your line 24 hours a day, sorts the burst pipe from the Monday faucet, books the job onto your calendar and texts you what happened. Built in Tulsa, where the 24-hour plumbers who win are the ones whose reviews say they picked up. It works the same anywhere pipes freeze.
That phone number is the agent itself. Ask it what a homeowner standing in water would ask you.
The calls you lose are the ones you never hear ring.
Plumbing demand does not keep office hours. The water heater lets go at 11pm. The main backs up on Sunday morning with a house full of guests. The line that froze overnight thaws at 6am and starts spraying the garage. In Tulsa, about 260 people a month search "emergency plumber tulsa" and another 70 search "24 hour plumber tulsa", and a click on the emergency term costs about $84 (Semrush, September 2026). That 330-a-month slice is the after-hours business, and only a shop that answers after hours can win it.
Nationally, "plumbing answering service" is searched about 1,600 times a month, which tells you plumbers already know the problem. The owner who answers his own phone cannot pick up from under a sink or from the bottom of a trench, and the one who does pick up is the one not billing. The phone rings hardest in exactly the hours nobody can reach it.
Meanwhile, the homeowner with water on the floor is not leaving a voicemail. They call you, hear the machine, hang up and dial the next name on the map. Whoever answers first gets the emergency, the repair that follows, and the water heater replacement next year. We audited a Tulsa plumber this month whose reviews say he is the only local company that answers right away. That reputation is his entire business. Voicemail does not lose you a call. It loses you the customer.
What it actually does.
Six behaviors, no mystery. This is the whole product.
Answers every call, 24/7.
Nights, weekends, holidays, the first hard freeze. Every call is picked up on the first ring with your company name. No hold music, no voicemail.
Sorts the emergency from the Monday job.
It asks the questions you tell it to ask: is water running right now, can the caller reach a shutoff, is anyone without water. An active leak gets the next opening or your on-call number. A slow drain gets Monday.
Books straight onto your calendar.
It checks real availability and puts the job on the calendar you already use, with the caller's name, address, callback number and a plain description of the problem.
Transfers real emergencies to a human.
A gas smell at a water heater, or water the caller cannot stop at the main, is not something we let software handle alone. Those calls transfer to a person on your team immediately.
Screens spam and robocalls.
Robodialers, solicitors and junk calls get filtered out before they reach you. The calls that make it through are actual customers with actual problems.
Sends a transcript of every call.
Every conversation shows up in writing. You can read at 6am exactly what happened overnight, word for word, and catch anything that needs a human follow-up.
What an after-hours call sounds like.
It is 2:10 on a Saturday morning in January, and a homeowner hears water running inside the garage wall. He calls your number. Instead of voicemail, the line picks up on the first ring with your company name. The agent asks what is going on, and he says a pipe let go and he cannot find where to shut it off.
The agent asks the questions you gave it: can he reach the main valve at the meter or where the line enters the house, and is the water stopped. He finds the valve and gets it closed. The agent collects his name, address and callback number, checks your schedule and offers the first real opening: a plumber at 7:30 that morning. The appointment lands on your calendar with the full details, and the transcript is waiting when you wake up.
One standing exception: if he had not been able to stop the water, or had mentioned a gas smell near the water heater, the booking flow would have stopped and the call would have transferred to your on-call number immediately.
The proof, stated honestly.
A Tulsa shop we set up books after-hours jobs it used to miss. Every number we ever quote is reconciled against the owner's calendar first, which is why you will not see one here yet. How we verify, and the work so far.
Where the phone fits.
The phone is one part of Front Door, Kaico's monthly service for the trades: site care, Google listing, 24/7 answering, scheduler and job system, from $900 a month (pricing). Every project is scoped with a free front-door audit before we quote.
Plumber questions.
Can it tell an emergency from a Monday job?
It asks the questions you give it: is water running now, is anyone without water, can the caller reach a shutoff. Active leaks and no-water calls get the next opening or a transfer to your on-call number; a slow drain or a dripping faucet gets the next regular slot. You set the rules, and you can read every transcript to check them.
Does it quote prices?
Only what you tell it to. If you give it a trip fee or an after-hours rate, it will say that and nothing else. It never invents a number. Anything outside what you approved becomes a message, and the caller gets a text back so the lead stays warm.
What if I want to take the call myself?
Then take it. The agent picks up only what you cannot: the calls you miss, the calls after hours, the calls that come in while you are under a house. Most 24-hour shops we talk to answer their own phone and want to keep it that way. The agent is the backstop, not the replacement.
What does it cost?
The phone is sold inside Front Door, Kaico's monthly service for the trades, from $900 a month, month to month with 30 days notice. That includes site care, your Google listing, the self-serve scheduler and the job system. Every project is scoped with a free front-door audit before we quote.
Hear it answer before you spend a dollar.
Call the number below and you are talking to the actual agent. Ask it what a customer with a burst pipe would ask. Then decide.