You are on a roof and the phone is in the truck
A homeowner who wants a kitchen done in the spring is calling three contractors this afternoon. Whoever answers gets the walkthrough, and you are forty feet up with a nail gun.
Caller
“We're looking at a kitchen and a half bath, maybe opening the wall between the kitchen and the dining room. We've got drawings from an architect. Are you taking work for the spring?”
What happened next
- Captured scope: kitchen, half bath, one wall opening, architect drawings exist
- Qualified: spring timeline, drawings in hand, property owner-occupied
- Booked a Thursday 8:00am walkthrough, address and gate code taken
- No price discussed, because the scope is nothing like fixed yet
A general contractor is the hardest trade to reach by phone
You're not sitting in a van between calls. You're on a site, in a crawl space, up a ladder or queueing in a permit office, and your calls arrive during all of it.
The specialized trades at least have a rhythm. A homeowner calls a plumber when water appears, a roofer after a storm. Yours arrive when somebody finally decides to do the thing they've thought about for two years, and that decision won't wait for you to come off a roof.
Your callers are also mixed in a way HVAC and plumbing callers are not. Some have drawings and a budget. Some want a number over the phone for a job they'll never do. Some want a handyman and have called a general contractor by mistake. Sorting them is worth more to you than answering faster.
GreetKeeper answers while you're working, asks the three questions that separate a real project from a price shopper, and puts a walkthrough on your calendar with the scope already written down.
Sorting a project from a price shopper
Three signals do most of your sorting. None need judgment, and your caller will tell you all three plainly if asked.
| Signal | What it asks | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | What rooms, and is a wall or a roofline moving | Structural work needs drawings and permits, and it is not a phone quote |
| Drawings | Is there an architect or a designer already | A caller with drawings is months further along than one with a magazine cutting |
| Timeline | When do you want work to start | Spring is a real answer. Sometime is not, and both are worth knowing |
| Ownership | Do you own the property, and is anyone else deciding | A spouse or a landlord not on the call changes what a walkthrough is worth |
| Budget, if you ask for it | The range you gave it, offered as a band | Optional. Some contractors want it on the call, others never ask. Your choice. |
What it does with a spring kitchen call
The job on this call is to get you a walkthrough worth driving to, with enough written down that you turn up prepared.
Take the scope in the caller's own words
Not a category. A homeowner saying open the wall between the kitchen and the dining room tells you more about your bid than a dropdown marked renovation ever will, and you get it verbatim.
Ask about drawings and permits early
Whether there's an architect, whether anything has been submitted. That answer decides whether your first visit is a measure-up or a conversation about how the process works for them.
Refuse the phone estimate, politely
Your wording for why a number over the phone would be wrong. Most homeowners accept it when you explain it; the ones who won't were never going to be your customer.
Book the walkthrough on your real calendar
A slot you can keep, with the address, the gate code and the scope attached. Subcontractor calls, supplier calls and warranty callbacks route separately rather than filling the same list.
One bid you would have missed
Starter is $49 a month for 200 answered calls at 45 cents after, which fits a one-crew outfit taking calls from site. A contractor running several crews with subs, suppliers and warranty calls on the same number is usually on Professional at $149 for 750 calls, then 35 cents.
Because it counts calls rather than minutes, a homeowner who takes eight minutes to describe a kitchen costs you the same as a supplier confirming a delivery. Per-minute billing punishes you for exactly the calls you want most.
It does not bid work
What contractors ask
How is this different from the HVAC or plumbing pages?
Those trades triage an emergency; you qualify a project. A no-heat call needs a decision in ninety seconds, and a spring kitchen needs scope, drawings and a timeline written down. Same product, genuinely different script.
Will it turn away small jobs?
Only if you tell it to. Plenty of contractors set a minimum and have it explain that politely, with a referral line for smaller work. Others take everything and sort it themselves later.
Can it handle my subs and suppliers?
Yes, and it routes them separately from homeowner calls. A supplier confirming a delivery window shouldn't land in the same list as your bid pipeline.
Does it work with Jobber or Buildertrend?
Google Calendar and Outlook take a direct write. Jobber and ServiceTitan go through Zapier as a record your office turns into a job. Housecall Pro goes through Zapier too, as a new customer only. Those routes run on our webhook, caught with Webhooks by Zapier on a paid Zapier plan, because there's no GreetKeeper Zapier app yet. Buildertrend has no verified path, so it's listed as not connected on our integrations pages rather than as a logo.
What about warranty calls from a job I finished last year?
They get captured with the address and the original job if you've given it that list, then routed wherever you want warranty work to go. Keeping those out of your new-enquiry queue is usually the first thing contractors set up.
Hear it qualify a kitchen job
Your minimum, your consultation fee, two minutes.