The 24/7 AI electrician answering service that quotes and books the job
A homeowner staring at a sparking outlet at 11 p.m. doesn’t leave a voicemail; they call the next electrician on the list. Mercateer picks up, quotes the job from your price book, and books it on your calendar. In the caller’s language, whichever one that is, every hour of the year: nights, weekends, Christmas morning.
11:38 p.m. · Incoming call
“Half the house just went dark and the breaker won’t reset.”
What every caller gets, every hour of the year
Answered 24/7/365
Nights, weekends, and holidays: every call answered while you’re in a panel or off the clock.
Quoted from your price book
Your real prices, spoken on the call, not a script built to dodge the price question and push a visit.
Booked on your board
Straight onto your calendar, with a text confirmation in the caller’s pocket before they hang up.
30+ languages included
Your customer’s language isn’t an add-on or an upcharge: 30+ languages are included in every tier, with no transfer and no shift to wait for.
Four calls, start to finish
Here’s what emergency electrician call answering looks like when it actually works: four calls, walked through end to end. Three of them finish with a spoken price.
9:40 p.m.: half the house dark
The breaker won’t reset and the bedrooms are black. Mercateer answers and runs your triage script: which rooms are out, any burning smell, is the main on. No safety flags, so it quotes your after-hours troubleshooting call straight from your price book, then offers tonight’s emergency slot or the first one tomorrow. Your rules decide which gets offered. The caller takes the morning slot and gets an SMS confirmation. You get a one-line summary text. Quoted from your book, booked, board updated.
12:40 a.m.: a loud pop wakes the caller
The outlet behind the dryer is scorched and the laundry room smells like burning plastic. This is a safety call, and the agent treats it like one. Per your script, it tells the caller to shut off the main breaker, and if there’s smoke or flame, to get out and call 911. Then it wakes your on-call electrician with a one-line summary and the callback number. No quote, no upsell, no scheduling games on a safety call. The escalation runs exactly the way you set it, every time.
6:05 a.m.: the kitchen circuit is dead
Fridge and freezer out, a week of groceries on the line, and the caller leaves for work in an hour. Triage first: breaker reset tried, GFCI checked. Then the quote (your morning service call, read from your price book) and the first open slot on today’s board. SMS confirmation to the caller, summary text to you.
Tuesday, 10 a.m.: EV charger install inquiry
You’re halfway through a service upgrade when the overflow call comes in. The agent answers, quotes the Level 2 charger install from your flat-rate book, answers “how long does it take,” and books the slot: estimate visit or install, whichever your rules call for. The daytime job you’d have lost to voicemail is on the calendar before lunch.
It quotes the job from your price book
Answering services take a message. AI receptionists book a visit. Mercateer quotes the job. And because nobody prices a panel rebuild sight-unseen, you decide, line by line, what it quotes, what it ranges, and what it never prices.
Price book
Service call: diagnostic
$89Panel breaker replacement
$250Whole-house surge protector
$400After hours: troubleshooting $189
Your real prices, spoken on the call
Mercateer runs on a construction-estimating engine: your price book lives in it as real line items, not a chatbot script. Service-call and diagnostic fees, flat-rate items like EV charger installs and whole-house surge protectors, ranges where you’ve set them. Raise your rates and the spoken quote changes with them.
Booked on your board, not a message in your inbox
It reads your real calendar, books into open slots, holds emergency slots by the rules you set, and texts the caller a confirmation before they hang up. It works with the tools that run your schedule, or no software at all, even paper.
Last night
Half the house dark
BookedBurning smell, outlet
DispatchedHang-up
TextedDispatch and escalation, your rules
Put your on-call rotation in once. Safety keywords (sparking, burning smell, smoke, shock) trigger an immediate call to whoever’s on call, with a one-line summary and the callback number. Routine calls hold for morning and land on the board, not on your nightstand.
Safety calls handled like safety calls
If there’s active fire or smoke, the agent tells the caller to call 911 first. That’s the script, not fine print. When a call goes beyond its rules, it doesn’t improvise: it transfers to you or your on-call tech and texts the context ahead, so you’re never answering cold.
Answers in the caller’s language, natively
A homeowner with a dead panel at 2 a.m. who calls in another language gets the same answer, the same price-book quote, and the same booked slot, in that language, with no transfer. 30+ languages are included free in every tier.
One front office, every channel
The same agent that answers your phone also answers your website chat, your texts, and your email: one brain, one calendar, one transcript trail. A caller who hangs up early still gets a text back, and a chat lead gets the same price-book quote a phone caller gets.
Built for the 2 a.m. call
Every call on a storm night
When a line of storms knocks out half a county and every electrician’s phone rings at once, a human service puts callers in a hold queue. Mercateer answers all of them at the same time, so every caller gets the first ring, even when the whole county is calling.
After-hours on your terms
Forward your line at close and take it back at open, or let it ride 24/7. Either way, the 2 a.m. caller gets the same triage, the same price-book quote, and the same booked slot as the 2 p.m. caller.
Every call on the record
Every call (answered, transferred, or after-hours) ends as an SMS or email summary plus a full transcript you can read back line by line. Nothing gets lost in a portal, and nothing gets faxed.
You hold the controls
Record your own greeting, write the scripts, switch it on or off whenever you want, test it on yourself before it ever takes a live call, and listen to any recording afterward.
No new hardware, no rip-and-replace
Forward your number
Keep the number that’s on your trucks and your Google listing. Forward calls after-hours, on overflow, or full-time. It works with any phone system.
Load your book and your rules
Bring in your price book and calendar, then set what gets quoted, what gets ranged, who’s on call, and which words trigger a wake-up.
Test it, then go live
Call it yourself. Ask it the awkward questions. When it answers the way you would, flip it on.
Mercateer vs. a traditional answering service
| Mercateer | Traditional answering service | Answering it yourself | |
|---|---|---|---|
| After-hours coverage | 24/7/365, included | Often an overnight upcharge | You’re the night shift, every night |
| Quotes the job | Yes, from your price book | No, takes a message | Yes, from memory, half inside a panel |
| Books the job | Yes, onto your calendar | Sometimes, as a callback request | Yes, once you’re down the ladder |
| Caller’s language | 30+ languages, every call | Depends who’s on shift | As many as you speak |
| Ten calls at once | Answers all of them at the same time | Hold queue when it’s busy | One at a time; nine go to voicemail |
| Spam handling | Filtered, never billed | Billed by the minute | Costs nothing but the interruption |
| Price model | Flat monthly tiers, or per booked call | $300–500/mo plus per-minute fees, often a setup fee | Free, paid for in missed calls |
Traditional answering services vary by provider. Comparison reflects typical message-taking services for the trades. Offerings and pricing differ, so confirm current details with any vendor you’re considering.
Electrician answering service FAQs
Your next no-power call gets answered, quoted, and booked, even at 2 a.m.
Forward your number, load your price book, and test it on yourself before it ever takes a live call.
No credit card required