Answering service

Most answering services take messages and forward emergencies by your instructions. Calling the vendor, booking the visit and checking the fix still fall to your team.

Answering services sell coverage by the minute, by the call or as a monthly plan. A live agent reads from a script you write: what to ask, who counts as an emergency and who to call. Some add an on-call page or a text to your phone. The message itself is the deliverable.

An example

At 11:40 PM ET a tenant calls about water under the kitchen sink. The agent takes her name, unit and phone number, checks the script, decides it is urgent rather than an emergency and emails your office. At 8:00 AM ET someone on your team reads the email, calls the tenant back, finds a plumber and starts the follow-up. The call was answered. The repair starts in the morning.

What to ask before you sign

• How a minute is counted, and whether calls round up
• Who decides what is an emergency, and what happens when the on-call person doesn’t answer
• Whether the service books vendors, or only passes messages on
• Where the message lands: email, text or your property management software

How Now Ours handles it

Ours answers tenant calls and texts at any hour in your company’s name, says it is an AI assistant, and asks the safety questions you set. It logs the case in your software, then keeps going: it offers the job to your technicians or vendors, books the visit and closes the work order when the fix is confirmed. Read the full comparison in now ours vs an answering service.