For home services business owners · Back office
Write a phone script for a new office hire
A one-page call script for a new office hire: what to ask on every call, what to say, and which calls go straight to you.
The prompt
Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and fill in each part in [BRACKETS]. Owners hiring or training someone to answer the office phone.
I run a home services business and someone new is starting on the office phone. I want a one-page script they can keep by the phone, written the way I take a call. What I have: - What we do and what we do not do: [OUR SERVICES] - The towns or area we cover: [SERVICE AREA] - How a job gets booked, step by step: [HOW WE BOOK] - Calls that always come to me: [CALLS FOR ME] - What to say if a caller mentions gas, smoke, sparks or flooding: [SAFETY STEPS] What I want: 1. Put my safety steps at the top of the page, word for word, set apart so they cannot be missed. 2. Write a short greeting and the questions to ask on every request call, in order: what is going on, how long, where in the house, and how to reach them. 3. Write what to say when we do not do that work or do not cover their area. 4. Write how to book a job using my steps, and how to end the call. 5. List the calls that come to me and the exact words for handing them off. Rules: - Write a draft for me to read. Do not send anything. - Use only what I gave you. If something is missing, ask me instead of guessing. - The script never quotes a price, guesses a cause or promises a time. It tells the caller who will. - Do not write any safety advice of your own. Use only my safety steps. - Leave out card details, door and gate codes, and anything else private. Give me back: - The one-page script, ready for me to edit - A short list of questions the new hire should ask me in their first week
When to use it
Someone new starts on the phone next week, and how you take a call still lives in your head.
When not to
Do not hand it over without reading it yourself. It does not replace showing them how you handle a safety call or an angry customer.
What to paste in
- [OUR SERVICES]: The work you take and the work you turn down, in plain words.
- [SERVICE AREA]: The towns or roads that mark the edge of your area.
- [HOW WE BOOK]: What the office does to book a job, step by step, including what goes into your scheduling app.
- [CALLS FOR ME]: The calls only you take, for example price questions, complaints, landlords or anything about a past bill.
- [SAFETY STEPS]: What you want said when a caller mentions gas, smoke, sparks or flooding, in your own words. If you have not written this yet, write it first.
Never paste
- Real customers' names, phone numbers or addresses from past calls
- Logins or passwords for your scheduling app or phone system
A filled-in example
Sample. Fictional business, fictional client.
OUR SERVICES: Home plumbing repair, water heaters, drain cleaning, sump pumps. No new construction, no septic, no gas line work. SERVICE AREA: Grand Rapids, Kentwood, Wyoming, Walker, Grandville. HOW WE BOOK: Get first name, phone, address and what is going on. Check the board for the next open window. Read the window back. Tell them the tech will text when on the way. CALLS FOR ME: Price questions, anything about a past bill, complaints, landlords and property managers. SAFETY STEPS: If they smell gas, tell them to leave the house and call the gas company from outside, then text me. If water is near the electrical panel, tell them to stay away from it and text me.
What you should get back
- Your safety steps at the top, word for word
- A greeting and the questions to ask on every call, in order
- Handoff words for every call that comes to you
- No prices, causes or promised times anywhere in the script
What stays with you
The prompt writes a draft. You decide what happens to it, and nothing should reach a customer until you have read it. Decisions about money stay with a person every time, and so do health questions and complaints. When KeenHand builds a routine like this, every message carries the same four decisions: Automate, Approve, Revise, Reject.
Related
- Sort after-hours voicemails by urgency. The night's voicemails sorted into call back tonight and call back tomorrow by your own rules, with safety words pulled to the top for you.
- Turn call notes into a quote checklist. Rough notes from a request call sorted into what you know and what is missing before you can quote, plus a text asking the customer for photos.
More: every prompt for home services, back office, and AI for home services.
Which three fit your home services business?
The free quiz scores your home services business on sixteen things and picks the three prompts aimed at your three lowest. It takes about three minutes.