A tripping breaker can wait. A burning smell cannot
Vandial answers every electrical call, works out which of the two it is, and does the right thing with each — a booked slot for the first, a transfer and an alert for the second. It books against the electrician who holds the right ticket, not against a generic slot.
From $99 a month · Robocalls are never billed
Incoming callRosa Nieto“My breaker keeps tripping every time I turn the oven on.”
Booked — Thu 9–11, panel type captured
- After dark
- is when most of these calls come in, and when the office is shut
- Asked first
- on every call: any burning smell, smoke, or sparking?
- $0
- billed for robocalls and sales calls, on every plan
This is what your callers hear
The same receptionist a electrical contractor gets, answering as the trades we already run. Yours is in the middle — press play.
One electrical call, and what it left behind
Answered on the second ring. Every field below was captured during the call — nobody typed it in afterwards.
“My breaker keeps tripping every time I turn the oven on.”
Classified0:13
- new job
- fault-finding
- non-urgent
Captured0:40
- kitchen circuit, garage panel, oven-triggered
Booked1:00
- Google Calendar
- Thu 9–11
- Rosa
Booked — Thu 9–11, panel type captured
Read the whole electrical call, line by line
- 0:02Rosa Nieto: My breaker keeps tripping every time I turn the oven on.
- 0:05Vandial: I can get someone to that. Is there any burning smell, or any scorching around the outlet?
- 0:11Rosa Nieto: No, nothing like that. It just trips.
- 0:13Classified — new job · fault-finding · non-urgent
- 0:20Vandial: Does it trip the whole house or just the kitchen circuit?
- 0:25Rosa Nieto: Just the kitchen. Everything else stays on.
- 0:31Vandial: And is the panel inside or in the garage? Any idea of the make?
- 0:40Captured — kitchen circuit, garage panel, oven-triggered
- 0:52Vandial: The service call is $95. Thursday morning between 9 and 11 works — shall I book that?
- 1:00Booked — Google Calendar · Thu 9–11 · Rosa
Answered, understood, booked
One number, picked up on the second ring — at 2am, on a Sunday, while you're already working. By the time the caller hangs up, it is in your calendar.
It answers
Every call answered, including the one at 11pm from someone standing in a dark hallway wondering if it's safe.
- 0:00Incoming call
- 0:02Answered by Vandial2 rings
- 0:05“Hello, Marlow Plumbing.”
It understands
The safety question first, always — burning, smoke, sparking, water. Then the ordinary questions that decide the slot.
- Job
- Water heater — leaking
- Where
- 14 Marlow Street
- Access
- Side gate, dog in yard
- Urgency
- Today if possible
- Still on
It books
Booked against the electrician who holds the right certification, with the panel make and the circuit already written down.
Text to Dave · 13:01
You’re booked for today, 1–2pm. Reply R to move it.
It asks what you would ask
These are the questions the agent runs for electricians, and the operational reason each one exists. Change them, add your own, or take them out — they are configuration, not code.
Is there any burning smell, smoke, or scorching?
The first question asked, every time. It is the one answer that changes the call from a booking into an evacuation.
What exactly happens — and what were you doing when it did?
An oven-triggered trip is a circuit load problem. A random one is a fault. Different visit, different length.
Whole house or one circuit?
Separates a main-breaker or supply issue from a branch fault, and tells you whether this is an emergency at all.
Where is the panel, and what make is it?
Some panels need parts nobody carries. Knowing before the van leaves is the difference between one visit and two.
Has any water been near it?
Water and live power is an immediate escalation, not a booking — and callers rarely volunteer it.
Is anyone without power entirely?
A full outage with a medical device or a freezer full of stock is a priority. A dead socket in a spare room is not.
More than a electrical answering service
An answering service takes a message and charges you for it. Vandial knows your prices, your patch and your diary — so it books the job, or puts a real emergency straight through to you.
It picks up out of hours, and while your line is busy
Electrical calls arrive after dark and after storms, and they arrive from people who are frightened rather than inconvenienced. Vandial picks up on the second ring at any hour and asks the safety question before anything else.
It knows your prices, your patch and your hours
Tell it your service call fee, your certifications, whether you take on commercial, and how far you travel. It answers the boundary questions — will you do a fuse board, do you cover that ZIP code — that a message service has to defer on.
What it knows
Service call
$95
Service area
15 miles
After hours
$180
Panel changes signed by
Rosa and Marcus
What matters reaches you. The rest waits
You set what reaches you: burning smells, water near the panel, a full outage with a medical need. A dead socket is written up for the morning instead of waking you at one.
Your rule: if they say gas, flood or no heat — ring Sam, then me.
Every call written up, tagged and searchable
Every call recorded and transcribed, which in a trade with certification and liability attached is not a convenience. What the customer was told about safety is on the record, in their words and the agent's.
Dave Whitfield · Sunday, 4m 12s
Water heater, leaking
Leaking from the base. Booked for Tuesday 1–2pm. Side gate open, dog in the yard. Asked whether the service call fee applies — told $99, waived on repair.
Storms, and the morning after
A storm takes out supply across a whole district at once, and the calls that follow are a mixture of things you cannot help with — the utility's problem — and things that are urgent and yours. Vandial sorts them on the phone: a whole-street outage is told to ring the utility company, a tripped breaker panel that will not reset is booked, and anything smelling of burning reaches you inside a minute.
When it happens · Storms and supply outages
A normal month, then a surge month
- Billed per minute
- Your baselineTriples with the calls
- The bill peaks in the same week your phone does.
- Billed per call, like a human service
- Per call, every callEvery extra call, billed
- Including the robocalls and the wrong numbers.
- Vandial
- From $99 a monthThe same
- Call flows are unlimited on every paid rung, and there is no per-minute billing. The rungs differ only in how many unique customers you answer for — and a surge is mostly more calls from the same people.
Robocalls and sales calls are identified and zero-rated on every plan. They never count toward your included customers and never create a customer record.
What it will never do
You are handing your phone to something that talks to your customers when you are not there. These are the lines it does not cross in electrical, and the words it uses instead.
Burning, smoke or sparking ends the call
Any mention of a burning smell, visible smoke, sparking or scorch marks and the agent stops. It tells the caller to kill the power at the main and ring the fire service if anything is smoking, and it alerts you immediately. It does not book, price or attempt to work out the cause.
What it actually says
“If anything is smoking or you can smell burning, turn the power off at the main and ring 911. I'm alerting the on-call electrician right now.”
Water near live power goes straight through
A flooded basement with a panel in it, or water running near an outlet, is transferred to a human on the spot. This is the escalation callers most often bury halfway through a sentence about something else, so it is asked about directly.
What it actually says
“Don't go near the panel if there's water around it. Stay where you are — I'm putting you through to someone now.”
It will not diagnose a fault down the phone
It captures the symptom precisely and books the visit. It does not tell a caller their wiring is fine, that it is probably just the appliance, or that they can reset it and carry on. Being wrong about that in this trade is not a lost job.
What it actually says
“I don't want to guess at what's causing it — that's exactly what the service call is for. Let's get someone in front of it.”
The job lands where you already work
Google, Outlook, Apple, Exchange, CalDAV — whichever calendar you already keep. Then your payments, your CRM, and whatever you automate with.
…and a lot more besides
- Warm transfersWarm transfersAnnounced — who is calling and why, before you take the line.
- Spam never billedSpam never billedRobocalls are spotted, zero-rated, and never become a customer.
- A number per sourceA number per sourceVan, yard sign, Google listing — see which line brings the work.
- Team & on-callTeam & on-callTries you, then a second number, then whoever is on call.
- Run it by textRun it by textReply to a text to move a job, block a morning, clear a day.
- Clear a day, everyone toldClear a day, everyone toldCall off a wet Tuesday; every customer is told and re-offered.
- Never invents an answerNever invents an answerNo price or slot it was not given. It takes a message instead.
- Any trade, no codeAny trade, no codeGoal, questions and guardrails are settings, not a rebuild.
What electricians say before they say yes
Three objections, in the words they are usually put in. Where the objection is right, it says so.
“I'm not letting anything give electrical advice.”
It doesn't, and the boundary is hard rather than encouraged. It will not tell a caller their wiring is fine, that it is probably the appliance, or that it is safe to reset and carry on. It captures the symptom and books the visit — and if the words burning, smoke or sparking appear, it stops booking altogether.
“Half our calls are the utility's problem, not ours.”
Those are the ones it saves you most on. It establishes whether the neighbors are affected too, and sends a whole-street outage to the utility company instead of putting a service call in your calendar that nobody can bill for.
“Our work needs the right certification. It can't know that.”
You tell it once. Which electricians hold which tickets, and what work each can take, and it books against the right calendar — a consumer-unit change goes to whoever can certify it, not into a generic slot somebody reassigns on Monday.
Electrical questions, answered
What electricians ask before handing over their phone number — and what a electrical answering service can and cannot do for you.
What does it do if someone says they can smell burning?
It stops qualifying immediately. It tells them to switch off at the main and ring the fire service if anything is smoking, alerts you at once, and flags the call. It does not book it, price it, or try to establish what is burning. Smoke, sparking, scorch marks and water near live power are handled the same way.
Will it tell a customer whether something is safe?
No. It captures what they describe and escalates or books accordingly, but it does not reassure and it does not diagnose. Telling someone their wiring is probably fine is the one thing an answering service must never do in this trade.
Can it route by certification?
Yes. You tell it which of your electricians hold which tickets and what work each can take, and it books against the right calendar. A consumer-unit change goes to whoever can sign it off, not into a generic slot someone has to reassign in the morning.
What about calls that are actually the utility's problem?
A whole-street outage is not your job, and it is not booked as one. The agent establishes whether the neighbors are affected and directs those callers to the utility company instead of putting a wasted service call in your calendar.
Does it handle commercial as well as domestic?
Yes, and it can qualify differently for each. A commercial caller gets asked about access, after-hours working and whether the building has to stay live; a domestic caller does not. That routing is configuration, not a separate product.
Can it take on the quote calls too?
It qualifies them and books the site visit. Rewires, EV chargers and board changes all depend on what is already there, so the agent gathers the facts that make the visit worth making and leaves the number to you.
What does it cost?
Three paid rungs — Starter, Professional and Business — differing only in how many unique customers you answer for each month. Call flows, electricians, transfer destinations and full call history are unlimited on all of them. Robocalls are identified and never billed.
Already decided you want AI to answer it?
Then the question is which one, and that is a different page: what a generic AI receptionist gets wrong on a electrical call, and what is configurable about this one.
Not your trade?
The agent's questions, urgency rules, escalations and vocabulary are all configuration. Nothing about a trade is hard-coded, which is why there are 31 of these and not one.