Fitting Glass. Phone Ringing. AI Texted Back. Emergency Boarding Lead Captured.

When a customer calls your glazing business and the call goes unanswered — usually because you're holding a sealed unit on suction cups, fitting a pane into a frame, or carrying glass across a site — the system detects the missed call and sends the caller a professional text from your business number within seconds. The text explains you're currently fitting glass and asks the caller to reply with details of their glazing requirement — including whether it's an emergency boarding or a planned job like new windows. For a glazier, this instant response is critical because it catches two very different types of customer: the panicked homeowner with a smashed window who needs boarding tonight, and the planned buyer looking for new double glazing who's getting three quotes. Both types will call the next company if you don't respond quickly. The text-back acknowledges both and asks them to specify urgency, which lets you triage your callback list. When the customer replies, you receive a lead notification with their phone number, their description of the issue, and their postcode — everything you need to call back prepared. Glazing is one of the few trades where you genuinely cannot let go of what you're working on, and the text-back respects that reality while keeping your pipeline of leads flowing.

Glazing is one of the most hands-intensive trades in the industry. When you're working with glass, both hands are occupied holding, manoeuvring, and securing heavy, fragile panes that can weigh anywhere from 15kg for a small window unit to 60kg or more for a large sealed double glazed unit. You're using suction cups to position the glass, sliding it into frames, inserting glazing beads, and applying sealants — all tasks that require both hands and full concentration. Putting the glass down to grab your phone isn't an option unless you want to risk a £200 sealed unit shattering on the floor. Even during the preparation stage — measuring window openings, removing old glass, chipping out old putty on timber frames — your hands are dirty, covered in sealant, or holding tools. The phone might be in your pocket or in the van, but answering it during an active fit is either impossible or dangerous. This means a glazier working a typical installation day might miss every call that comes in during a four or five-hour fitting window. Without the text-back, all of those calls — quote requests, emergency boardings, follow-up jobs — would go unanswered and the customers would call a competitor before you ever knew they existed.

The text-back message is specifically written to separate urgent calls from routine enquiries. The message typically includes a line that says something like: "If it's an emergency — broken glass, boarding needed, security risk — please reply with your address and we'll prioritise you. For quotes on new windows, replacement glass, or other planned work, reply with a brief description and we'll call back today." This distinction is important because emergency boarding and broken glass situations have a completely different urgency profile to planned window replacements. Someone whose kitchen window was smashed by a football at 4pm needs boarding before nightfall — that's a two-hour window. Someone calling for a quote on new front windows will happily wait for a callback tomorrow morning. By asking the customer to self-identify their urgency in the text reply, you can triage your callback list effectively: board-up emergencies first, then urgent repairs, then quotes. This prioritisation means you never miss an emergency boarding job worth £80 to £200 because you were busy calling back someone who wanted a measured quote for a conservatory — which you can schedule for later in the week.

Yes — the text-back works for every type of business in the glazing industry. Whether you're a sole trader glazier, a two-person glass and glazing team, a window fitting business, a full-service window company, a window installation business, a double glazing installer, a commercial glazing contractor, or a specialist in heritage glass replacement, the core benefit is the same: your calls are captured when you can't answer the phone. The message is written specifically for your business, reflecting the services you offer and the customers you serve. A high-end window installation company fitting premium aluminium systems will have a different message tone than an emergency glazier focused on boarding and broken glass replacement. A commercial glazing firm serving shopfronts and office buildings will use different language than a domestic window fitter replacing sash windows in period homes. Whatever your corner of the glass industry — whether customers know you as a glazier, a window fitter, a glass company, a window installer, a double glazing company, or simply a glass and window specialist — the text-back presents your business professionally and captures every lead that comes in while your hands are occupied with glass.

The text-back is £29 per month as an add-on to the Speed Receptionist Core plan at £89 per month. Unlimited text-backs are included — there are no additional charges per message, which matters during busy periods when vandalism, storms, or burglary waves generate clusters of missed calls in a short timeframe. There's a one-time setup fee of £299, fully refundable within 30 days. For a glazing business, the value equation is straightforward. An emergency boarding job is typically worth £80 to £200. A standard glass replacement ranges from £60 to £300 depending on the unit size and glass type. A full set of new windows for a house is £3,000 to £10,000 or more. When even the smallest emergency boarding job more than covers two months of the text-back subscription, the financial argument is clear. Most glaziers miss multiple calls per week while they're fitting glass, and each of those calls is a customer who wants to give a glazier money. Losing them to voicemail is like fitting a sealed unit with the wrong side facing out — expensive and entirely preventable. There are no contracts, so you can cancel at any time if the service isn't generating value for your glazing business.

Yes — the system runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Emergency glazing situations don't respect business hours. A burglary at 11pm leaves a homeowner with a smashed patio door and a gaping security risk. Storm damage at 3am can take out a bedroom window, leaving a family exposed to wind and rain. Vandalism on a Friday evening can shatter a shopfront that needs securing before the weekend. All of these generate calls to emergency glaziers at antisocial hours. Without the text-back, those calls go unanswered and the customer immediately searches for "emergency glazier near me" or "24 hour boarding up service" and calls the next number they find. With the text-back, the caller receives an instant text that acknowledges their situation and asks for their address. Even if you can't attend until later, the customer knows a glazier is aware of their emergency and is going to call back — which buys you time to finish what you're doing and triage the situation before heading out. Emergency glazing jobs typically command premium rates, especially outside hours, so these are the most valuable leads you can capture.

Most glazing businesses are live within 48 hours of signing up. The process is minimal from your side — we handle virtually all of it. A short onboarding conversation covers your glazing business: the services you specialise in (emergency boarding, domestic window replacement, commercial glazing, sash window restoration, etc.), the tone you want the text to convey, and whether you want to differentiate between emergency and non-emergency enquiries in the message. We draft the text-back message and send it for your approval. Nothing goes live until you're satisfied with every word. Once approved, we configure the system on your existing phone number using call forwarding. You keep the same number that appears on your van, your Google listing, your business cards, and your Checkatrade profile. No new number, no software installation, no hardware. We test the system end-to-end before switching it on — making test calls, verifying text delivery, and confirming your lead notifications are functioning. Your total time commitment is about fifteen minutes across one or two short conversations. If you want to change the message later — for example, adding a note about new services like secondary glazing or acoustic glass — you can request changes at any point.

Voicemail fails glazing businesses in two specific ways. First, the split between emergency and non-emergency calls makes voicemail particularly problematic. An emergency boarding customer — someone with a smashed front door at midnight — is not going to record a voicemail and sit in a cold, unsecured house hoping you check your messages. They need help now, and they'll call the next glazier within sixty seconds. The text-back catches them because it makes contact instantly and asks for their address, which communicates that help is coming. Second, planned glazing customers — people shopping for new windows, replacement sealed units, or conservatory glass — are comparing three or four window companies. They're not going to leave voicemails with all of them. They'll call until someone picks up and start the quoting process with that company. The text-back keeps your glazing business in contention by responding instantly when you can't answer. The quality of information is also better via text: a customer who texts "cracked sealed unit in bedroom window, 800mm x 600mm, white UPVC" gives you far more useful details than a mumbled voicemail. You can prepare a price and call back ready to quote, which makes your callback more productive and more likely to convert into a booked job.

Yes, and this is the combination most glazing businesses opt for because it provides the most comprehensive lead capture available. The AI phone answering service is the primary layer: when a customer calls and you can't answer, the AI picks up the call, speaks to the caller about their glazing requirement, asks whether it's an emergency or a planned job, captures details about the type of glass, the window dimensions if they know them, and their contact information. For an emergency boarding caller, the AI provides reassurance that a glazier will be in touch shortly — which is exactly what a stressed, vulnerable customer needs to hear. The missed call text-back is the safety net. If a call drops before connecting to the AI, or the caller hangs up before the forwarding completes, the text-back catches it automatically. The caller still receives an instant response, and you still get their number and details. The AI phone answering is included in the Core plan at £89 per month. The text-back adds £29 per month. Together, they ensure that a glazier who's physically unable to answer the phone for most of the working day has the same lead capture capability as a large window company with a dedicated office team.

Yes — and for emergency glazing situations, the reply rate is exceptionally high. When someone has a broken window or a smashed door, they're feeling vulnerable and anxious about security. They've called a glazier and nobody answered. Just as they're about to search for another emergency glass company, a text arrives saying "sorry we missed your call, if you need emergency boarding please reply with your address and we'll prioritise you." That text changes everything. The customer goes from feeling ignored to feeling helped. They type their address and a brief description — "front window smashed, burglary, need boarding tonight, SL1" — and press send. That takes about ten seconds, which is faster than finding and dialling another glazier's number. Glaziers using the text-back consistently report that emergency callers have the highest reply rates of any enquiry type — typically 75% to 85% reply with their details. Even non-emergency callers — people looking for quotes on new windows or replacement glass — reply at around 60% to 65%, which is still well above what voicemail delivers. The text-back turns a missed call from a lost opportunity into an active lead, and for a trade where you genuinely cannot put the work down to answer the phone, that distinction is worth thousands per year.