Consumer Unit Live. Hands Full. Missed Call. AI Texted Back. Lead Saved.

Every time a customer calls your electrical business and the call goes unanswered — whether you're on the boards, driving between jobs, or it's after hours — the system automatically sends the caller a professional text message from your business number within seconds. The text acknowledges that you're currently unavailable, lets them know their call was noticed, and asks them to reply with a description of the electrical work they need along with their postcode. When the customer replies, their response is captured and sent to you as a lead notification with their phone number, message content, and the time of the original call. This means that when you do call back — maybe thirty minutes later when you've finished a first fix or wrapped up a consumer unit changeover — you already know exactly what they need. You're not going in blind. The entire process is automatic and requires zero input from you while you're working. For electricians specifically, this is particularly important because you genuinely cannot answer the phone during large parts of your working day. You're not just being rude — you're working on live circuits, pulling cables through tight spaces, or standing on ladders with both hands occupied. The text-back ensures your leads are captured even when answering the phone isn't physically safe or possible.

Electricians have a unique problem that most other trades don't face to the same degree: you physically cannot answer the phone during significant portions of your working day for safety reasons. When you're working on a live consumer unit, replacing an MCB, or wiring a distribution board, putting down your tools to grab your phone isn't just annoying — it's genuinely dangerous. Part P regulations and the Wiring Regulations (BS 7671) exist because electrical work demands absolute focus. But here's the commercial problem: customers don't know that. When they call an electrician and nobody answers, they don't think "he's probably doing something dangerous." They think "he's not answering, I'll try someone else." The text-back bridges that gap. Within seconds of the missed call, the customer receives a professional message explaining you're on a job. They understand immediately, and most are happy to wait for a callback because they know you're not ignoring them. This is especially valuable for high-value enquiries like EICRs for letting agents, full rewires, or commercial electrical work — the kinds of jobs where the customer often calls two or three electrical contractors and goes with whoever responds first. Being fast, even via text, wins work.

The text-back captures every type of enquiry that comes through as a phone call, regardless of size or urgency. In practice, electricians using the system report capturing leads across the full spectrum: domestic rewires, fuse board upgrades, additional socket installations, lighting design consultations, outdoor power supplies, EV charger installations, and EICR requests from landlords and letting agents. Emergency work like power outages and tripped RCDs is also captured, though these tend to be the most time-sensitive and benefit most from the instant acknowledgement the text provides. Where the system particularly shines is with commercial and portfolio clients. A letting agent calling about EICRs for twelve flats doesn't leave a voicemail and wait — they call the next electrician on their list. A text that arrives within seconds keeps your business in the running. The same applies to builders and developers who need to book an electrician for second-fix work on a tight schedule. They're calling multiple sparks simultaneously, and the first to respond gets the contract. Whether the job is a simple socket change or a £15,000 commercial installation, the text-back ensures the enquiry isn't lost to an unanswered phone.

Voicemail is effectively dead for tradesmen's businesses. The statistics are stark: somewhere between 60% and 80% of customers who reach a voicemail hang up without leaving a message. They don't want to talk to a machine, especially when they need electrical work done and there are ten other electricians a Google search away. Traditional answering services — where a receptionist answers on your behalf — work better, but they're expensive. A decent UK-based telephone answering service costs anywhere from £50 to £200 per month, and many charge per call or per minute on top. They also require the call to be answered, which means the customer is speaking to someone who may not understand the difference between an MCB and an RCBO. Missed call text-back takes a different approach entirely. It doesn't try to answer the call — it acknowledges the missed call instantly via text. The customer gets a fast, professional response, and you get a structured lead notification. At £29 per month with unlimited texts, it's a fraction of the cost of a telephone answering service, and the information you receive is often clearer because customers type their requirements rather than explaining them verbally to someone unfamiliar with electrical terminology. For many self-employed electricians and small electrical companies, the text-back is the sweet spot between doing nothing and paying for a full answering service.

The missed call text-back service is £29 per month as an add-on to the Speed Receptionist Core plan at £89 per month. That includes unlimited text-backs — no per-message charges, no matter how many calls you miss in a given month. There's a one-time setup fee of £299 that's fully refundable within 30 days if you decide the service isn't right for your business. For context, a single consumer unit upgrade in the UK typically costs the customer between £350 and £600. An EICR is usually £150 to £250. Even a straightforward additional socket installation is £80 to £150. If the text-back rescues just one missed call per month that turns into a booked job, the service pays for itself several times over. Most electricians miss far more than one call per month when they're busy — four or five per day isn't unusual during peak periods. The maths is straightforward: lose one rewire enquiry per month to an unanswered call and you're leaving thousands in revenue on the table annually. The text-back costs less than a daily coffee from a good café, and it works every single day without fail.

Yes, the text-back operates 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Electrical emergencies don't follow business hours — a tripped consumer unit at midnight, a burning smell from a socket at 5am, or a total power failure on Christmas morning all generate phone calls to electricians at all hours. If you miss any of these calls, the text-back fires within seconds. For electricians who offer emergency callout services, this is especially valuable. An emergency electrical job is typically worth £150 to £400 or more depending on the issue and time of night. When a customer is sitting in the dark and calls an electrician at 1am, they're going to call the next one on the list within about ninety seconds if nobody answers. Your text-back makes contact before they've had time to scroll down to the next number. The text can be worded to address urgency — asking them to describe the issue and whether they smell burning or see any immediate danger signs, which helps you triage the call before you ring back. You can also pair the text-back with the AI phone answering service so that after-hours calls are answered live by the AI, with the text-back serving as a backup if anything slips through.

It's suitable for both, but it's arguably more impactful for smaller businesses. If you're a sole trader electrician, a self-employed spark, or a two-person electrical firm, you don't have someone sitting in an office answering phones while you're on site. Every missed call is a lead that nobody catches. Larger electrical contractors sometimes have an office manager or admin person who handles calls, but even they can't answer every call — particularly during busy periods or outside office hours. For the self-employed electrician specifically, the text-back creates a professional image that punches well above its weight. Your customers experience the same responsive, instant communication they'd expect from a large electrical company with a dedicated reception desk. They don't know whether you're a one-man operation working from your van or a firm with twenty electricians and an office in an industrial unit — and with the text-back in place, it doesn't matter. Whether you describe yourself as an electrician, an electrical engineer, an electrical contractor, a domestic installer, or a commercial electrical firm, the text-back adapts to your business identity because the message is written specifically for you.

The typical setup time is 48 hours from signing up to being fully live. The process is designed to require as little of your time as possible — we know you're busy and you don't want to spend half a day on tech setup. During onboarding, we have a short call to learn about your electrical business: the services you offer, the type of customers you serve, your working hours, and the tone you want the text message to strike. We then draft a text-back message tailored to your business and send it to you for approval. Once you're happy with the wording, we configure the system so it works with your existing phone number — no need to change your number, port anything, or install software. We use call forwarding, which means your customers keep calling the number they've always known. Before going live, we run end-to-end tests: making calls, checking the text arrives properly, and confirming that your lead notifications are working. The whole process requires roughly fifteen minutes of your time across one or two conversations. We handle the rest. If you need to update the message wording later — for example, when you add new services like EV charger installation — you can request changes at any point.

Yes, and this is the setup most electrical businesses end up choosing. The AI phone answering service acts as your frontline: when a customer calls and you can't answer, the AI picks up within a few rings, speaks to the caller naturally, asks about their electrical issue, captures their contact details, and sends you a full lead summary. It handles the call as if a knowledgeable receptionist were sitting in your office. The missed call text-back then acts as a safety net beneath that. If for any reason a call isn't picked up by the AI — a network glitch, a call that disconnects during forwarding, or a particularly short ring that drops before the transfer — the text-back catches it. The caller still receives an instant acknowledgement, and you still get their number and potential details. Together, the two systems create a layered approach where virtually nothing falls through. The AI phone answering is included in the Core plan at £89 per month, and the text-back is a £29 per month add-on. For an electrical business where a single missed EICR contract or rewire enquiry can be worth hundreds or thousands of pounds, the combined cost is negligible relative to the revenue it protects.

The overwhelming majority of customers have absolutely no idea the text is automated. That's by design. The message is crafted to sound like a real person in your office noticed the missed call and quickly sent a text — warm, professional, and human. There are no robotic phrases, no "DO NOT REPLY" disclaimers, and no corporate disclaimers. It reads like a text a professional electrical company would send. In terms of how it affects customer perception, the impact is consistently positive. Think about the alternative: a customer calls an electrician, nobody answers, and they either get a voicemail beep or the phone just rings out. Their immediate thought is that this electrical business either doesn't want the work or isn't professional enough to manage their calls. Now contrast that with receiving an instant text that says "sorry we missed your call, we're currently on a job — could you describe the electrical issue and we'll call you back?" The difference in impression is night and day. It signals that your electrical business is organised, responsive, and cares about customer communication. That perception builds trust, and trust is what converts a phone enquiry from a stranger into a booked job. Several electricians using the service have told us that customers actually comment on how responsive they are during the first callback, which sets a positive tone for the entire working relationship.