Phone tree template for service businesses that book jobs
Five options built around booking, the questions each job type needs before a slot is held, and what lands on your calendar.
- Greeting: “Thanks for calling Clearpath Pest Control. We book inspections six days a week.”
- Menu: “To book a visit, press 1. To move or cancel a visit, press 2. If your technician is on the way, press 3. For a question about a treatment we did, press 4. For anything else, press 0.”
- Press 1, book: “Is this for ants, rodents, termites, or something else?” Ask the booking questions for that job type from the table below, then offer the first two open slots.
- Caller wants neither slot: offer the next three, then take a callback request with the preferred days.
- Press 2, move or cancel: “Please enter the phone number the visit is booked under.” Read back the visit found, then offer the next open slots or confirm the cancellation.
- Press 3, technician on the way: ring the dispatcher for 20 seconds. No answer: “Your technician is on today’s route. Dispatch will text you an arrival window within the hour.”
- Press 4, treatment question: ring the service manager. No answer: take a message with the address and the date of the last visit.
- Press 0: ring the front desk, then the shared mailbox.
- Caller says “termites” or “swarming” at any point: jump to the termite booking questions. Those inspections fill first.
Booking questions by job type
| Job type | Ask before booking | Slot length | Prep to tell the caller |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ants | Where in the home? Inside, outside or both? | 45 min | Clear the counters and the floor along baseboards |
| Rodents | Droppings, noises or a sighting? Attic, walls or kitchen? | 60 min | Keep pets out of the rooms named |
| Termites | Swarmers, mud tubes or damaged wood? Year the house was built? | 90 min | Clear access to the crawl space or garage |
| Something else | Describe it in one sentence; any photo you can text? | 60 min | Tech calls 30 minutes before arrival |
What each booking writes to the calendar
| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| Title | Termite inspection – Patel |
| Address | 88 Birch Lane, gate code 4417 |
| Callback number | Read back twice before saving |
| Job notes | Mud tubes on garage wall; house built 1978 |
| Prep given | Crawl space access, told on the call |
Lines that stop the second call
- Say the arrival window out loud and have the caller repeat it back.
- Tell the caller what to prepare while they’re still on the line. A room that isn’t ready is a wasted visit.
- Confirm the gate code or parking before you hang up. Techs lose more time at gates than on jobs.
- End every booking with “you’ll get a text confirmation”, so the caller doesn’t ring back to check.
How to adapt it for your trade
Replace the four job types with the four your customers ask for most. A cleaning company might use standard, deep, move-out and recurring. An electrician might use outlet or switch, panel, lighting and an emergency. Keep “something else” as the last one, always.
Write your booking questions so a stranger could ask them. Each one should change something about the visit: the slot length, the kit on the van or the technician sent. If an answer changes nothing, drop the question and save the caller a minute.
Put option 3 in even if you think few people use it. “Where’s my technician” calls land on the dispatcher’s phone mid-route, and giving them their own branch keeps them out of your booking line.
Load the slot lengths into your scheduling tool before the tree goes live. The tree offers “the first two open slots”, so the calendar has to know a termite inspection needs 90 minutes. Otherwise it’ll offer a gap that’s too short.
Call your own line and book a fake termite job end to end. Then check the calendar entry against the table above, field by field.
How GreetKeeper books the job while the caller is on the line
GreetKeeper books into your calendar on every plan. It asks the booking questions you set for each job type and offers open slots. Then it writes the visit into Google Calendar or Microsoft 365, with the address and your job notes.
Before it books, GreetKeeper reads the name, number and time back to the caller. The entry on your calendar matches what the customer agreed to.
After the call, your customer receives one text with the booking confirmation. A reply with the opt-out word stops further texts.
Your callers don’t press 1 to 4. GreetKeeper routes by what the caller needs, so “I’ve got ants in the kitchen” goes straight to ant booking, and “where’s my tech?” transfers to your dispatcher. It transfers to your team when a caller asks or the AI is unsure. It also answers the questions you train it on, like prep steps and service area.
Setup starts from your website. Point GreetKeeper at it for a first draft of your hours, services and FAQs. Then correct it and add the job types from your own table.
Professional is $149 a month for 750 answered calls, then $0.35 a call, and booking is included on every plan. Each plan comes with a dedicated local number and a 14-day free trial, every feature on, no card needed.
Questions people ask about this template
What should a service business phone tree include?
Booking first, then moving or cancelling, then “where is my technician”, then questions about past work, then a way to reach a person. That’s five options, and booking gets option 1 because it’s the call that brings in money. Every branch ends at a person or a message someone checks the same day.
Should a phone tree book appointments directly?
Yes, when the questions for each job type are short enough to ask on one call. Booking on the first call saves the callback, and a caller who hangs up with a time rarely rings a competitor. Keep a callback request as the fallback when no slot suits.
How do I handle “where is my technician” calls?
Give them their own option that rings the dispatcher, with a short fallback message when dispatch is busy. In this template the caller hears that an arrival-window text is coming within the hour. That keeps route questions out of the booking line.
What questions should a service booking call ask?
Ask only questions whose answers change the visit: where the problem is, what the caller has seen, and what sets the slot length. The table gives two or three per job type. Finish with the address, the gate code and a callback number read back twice.
Hear it book a job on the first call
Your job types, your slots, your calendar.