What is an answering service for electricians?+
An answering service for electricians answers your electrical line when the crew cannot pick up. OnCrew is the AI version: it greets callers in your shop name, listens for power loss, sparking outlets, burning smells, and panel failures, captures the service address and callback number, and alerts your on-call electrician with the summary, recording, and transcript. Plans start at $49 per month for 60 included minutes.
How much does an electrician answering service cost?+
OnCrew is $49/mo for 60 included minutes, $149/mo for 200 minutes, and $349/mo for 500 minutes, then $0.99 per minute. At full use that is about $0.82 a minute on Starter, $0.75 on Pro and $0.70 on Multi-Truck. Live answering services price by the minute or by the call. Their own pricing pages list PATLive at $49/mo plus $2.99 per minute, Ruby at $250/mo for 50 minutes and Smith.ai at $300/mo for 30 calls (PATLive and Smith.ai checked October 16, 2026; Ruby checked October 2, 2026).
Is OnCrew an AI dispatcher for electricians?+
No. OnCrew triages and alerts; it does not dispatch trucks or assign electricians. A licensed person on your team still decides whether to roll a truck, what to quote, and when to arrive.
Will the AI tell a caller to open a panel or reset the main breaker?+
No. On sparking, smoke, or a burning smell the script tells the caller to keep clear, to shut off the breaker only if safe, and to call 911 first on any fire risk. It never walks a caller through opening a panel or touching wiring, and never quotes a price.
Is there a free answering service available?+
Voicemail and forwarding to your cell are free, but nobody sorts a burning-smell call from a quote request and nobody is alerted. OnCrew is not free, but every plan starts with a 14-day free trial that does not ask for a card: forward your after-hours calls to it, read the transcripts, and cancel anytime if it is not a fit. After the trial, Starter is $49 a month for 60 included minutes with no setup fee, and a call that ends before anyone speaks is not counted against the plan.
What happens when a caller insists on a real person?+
With live transfer off, the default, Emily says the team is out on jobs (or, after hours, that the office is closed). She asks what the call is about and takes the details, with a note that the caller asked for a live person. If you switch live transfer on, she offers to connect the caller to the people you list. In the default handoff, if nobody picks up within about 25 seconds, or the ring time you choose, Emily comes back on the line and takes a message; with the direct handoff the caller stays on that phone, voicemail included.
Does it answer Spanish-speaking callers?+
Calls are handled in English by default. Spanish (Latin American) is a setting you switch on in your dashboard at no extra charge. English and Spanish are the languages Emily speaks today. If many of your callers speak Spanish, test it on your own line before you forward everything.
What is the best AI receptionist for an electrical company?+
The one that handles your calls, so test each against five things. Does it treat sparking, a burning smell from wiring, exposed live wires and power loss as urgent without you writing the rules, and tell the caller to keep clear and call 911 first if there is any fire risk? What is one billed unit (a call, a minute or a unique customer), and what does a storm-outage week cost at that rate? How does an urgent call reach your on-call electrician: by text, by email, or both, with the recording? What lands in your field software after each call? And what happens when a caller asks for a person? Place a sparking-outlet test call to each one before you forward your line.