A tenant with no hot water rings at six in the morning
Your maintenance calls arrive whenever something breaks, which is never during your office hours. GreetKeeper answers, separates the emergency from the annoyance, and logs the unit.
Caller
“Flat 3B at Ashcroft Court. There's no hot water at all this morning and the boiler's showing an error code, F28 I think.”
What happened next
- Logged unit 3B, Ashcroft Court, no hot water, boiler code F28
- Checked against the emergency rules: no heating or hot water counts as urgent
- Texted the on-call contractor the unit, the code and the access instructions
Every unit you manage is a phone that can ring at any hour
Two hundred units gives you two hundred boilers, two hundred sets of pipes and two hundred people entitled to ring when something stops working.
Most of those calls aren't emergencies. A dripping tap, a squeaking door, a question about a rent date. They arrive at the same hours as the genuine ones, so whoever you have on call answers all of them to find the one that matters.
Getting it wrong costs you in both directions. Sending a contractor out at midnight for a slow drain burns your callout fee, and missing a leak above an occupied flat downstairs turns into a repair bill and a dispute with your landlord.
GreetKeeper answers every one, applies your own emergency definition, logs the unit and the fault, then wakes your on-call contractor only when your rules say to.
Applying your emergency definition, consistently, at three in the morning
Your rules already exist in your management agreement. This is what they look like applied the same way every night.
Identify the unit before anything else
Building and unit number, read back to your caller. Everything downstream depends on it, including which landlord pays and which contractor holds your keys.
Match the fault against the emergency list
No heating or hot water, an uncontainable leak, a total power loss, a door that won't lock. Those are yours to define, and the system applies them identically at three in the morning and three in the afternoon.
Read the self-help instruction first
Where the stopcock is, how to reset a tripped switch, how to read a boiler code. Your own wording, which settles a fair share of your calls without anyone driving anywhere.
Dispatch or queue
An emergency texts your on-call contractor with the unit and the access notes. Everything else becomes a logged work request waiting on your desk on Monday.
What it can write into a management platform
Your management software is where you want the ticket to land, and the honest answer is that none of it takes a direct write.
| Tool | How it connects | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| Google Calendar | Writes directly | Direct write, useful for viewings and scheduled inspections. |
| Outlook Calendar | Writes directly | Direct write, same behavior. |
| AppFolio | Not yet | No verified write path. The request is captured and raised by your team. |
| Buildium | Not yet | Not verified. |
| Yardi | Not yet | Not verified. |
| Zapier | Through Zapier | Our webhook, caught by a Zap on a paid Zapier plan, reaches anything with a Zapier app, including a helpdesk or a shared spreadsheet. |
Weighed against one unnecessary callout
Your saving here is as much about not dispatching as about answering.
| Plan | Monthly | Calls included | After that |
|---|---|---|---|
| StarterFor a single location taking calls one line at a time. | $49 | 200 | $0.45 per call |
| ProfessionalBooking, routing and transfers included, not an add-on. | $149 | 750 | $0.35 per call |
| ScaleFor busy phones and longer opening hours. | $349 | 2,000 | $0.25 per call |
Under fifty units, Starter usually fits you: $49 a month, 200 answered calls, 45 cents each after. Several hundred units generates real volume and belongs on Professional at $149 for 750 calls, then 35 cents, or on the multi-location pricing if you run separate offices.
One midnight callout you avoided, for a fault your self-help instruction would have fixed, covers most of a month. One correctly escalated leak covers rather more.
It is not a substitute for your on-call rota
What managers ask
How does it know what counts as an emergency?
You define the list, usually straight from your management agreement. No heating, an uncontainable leak, no power, a door that won't secure. It applies your list the same way at every hour.
Can it tell a tenant how to reset the boiler?
It reads the instruction you wrote, including a code lookup if you supplied one. It won't improvise, and anything past your wording becomes a dispatch or a logged request.
Does it raise a ticket in AppFolio?
Not directly, because there's no verified write path to AppFolio, Buildium or Yardi. Through Zapier it'll reach your helpdesk or a spreadsheet, and otherwise your office raises it from the written record.
Will it deal with a tenant in arrears?
No. Arrears, notices and disputes route to one of your people. The system takes maintenance and general inquiries, and you'll want to keep that boundary firm.
Can different buildings route differently?
Yes. You set contractor, access notes and emergency rules per building, so a portfolio with three different plumbers behaves correctly.
Related to this
Hear it take a 6am maintenance call
Your emergency list, your on-call rota, two minutes.