The 24/7 AI locksmith answering service that quotes and books the job
Locked out on the porch at 11 p.m. Keys visible on the driver’s seat in a grocery-store parking lot. Those callers don’t leave voicemails; they dial down the search results until somebody picks up and says a real price. Mercateer picks up on the first ring, quotes your actual lockout rate from your price book, and books the job at that number: nights, weekends, holidays, in 30+ languages. Built for owner-operators and small locksmith shops, with plans from $99/mo.
11:48 p.m. · Incoming call
“Locked out of my house, keys are on the kitchen counter. Can you come now?”
What is a locksmith answering service?
A locksmith answering service answers your company’s calls when you can’t: hands inside a mortise lock, mid-rekey, driving between jobs, asleep when the 2 a.m. lockout comes in. A typical service takes a message or books a callback; Mercateer also quotes your real lockout and rekey rates from your own price book and books the job at the price it quoted.
Every call answered 24/7
Picked up on the first ring: the 11 p.m. porch, the parking lot, the Sunday storefront. No hold queue, no menu, no voicemail.
Your real rates, spoken out loud
Lockouts, rekeys per cylinder, and standard lock changes quoted as a number from your price book while the caller is still on the line.
Dispatched with the whole picture
Address, cross street, which door. After-hours lockouts page your on-call locksmith with the location, the quoted price, and the full transcript, by your rules.
Plans from $99/mo flat
Flat monthly plans, not per-minute fees that bill you for every robocall and lead-reseller that hits your line.
What happens when the phone rings at 11 p.m.
Nobody locked out of their own house reads reviews on the porch. They run down the search results, call after call, and the first company that picks up and says a straight price usually wins the job. Here’s the call, minute by minute.
Answered on the first ring
No hold, no menu, no voicemail. The caller is on the porch with a dying phone, keys on the kitchen counter behind a locked deadbolt.
The location, captured properly
Address, cross street, which door. House, apartment, or car. For a car lockout: make, model, and where in the lot it’s parked. Your locksmith rolls up with the whole picture instead of circling the block calling a phone that just died.
Quoted from your price book
It quotes your residential lockout rate at your after-hours price, out loud: a real number, not a teaser that grows at the door. This caller has been burned before, or knows somebody who has. A straight price from your own price book is why they stop dialing.
Your on-call locksmith gets the page
An after-hours lockout fires the dispatch rule you wrote: name, address, cross street, which door, quoted price, full transcript, texted to whoever’s on call tonight. Nothing relayed through a message pad, nothing left for the morning.
And the 2 p.m. rekey call books itself
Tuesday afternoon, halfway through a lock swap across town, a shop owner calls from the road: an employee just left, and the storefront needs rekeying before it opens tomorrow. The agent counts the doors and cylinders, quotes your service call plus your per-cylinder rate, and books the first slot in the morning. Two calls you never touched: one dispatched inside two minutes, one priced and sitting on tomorrow’s schedule.
Callers have learned to dread the quote that triples at the door
Everyone who’s ever needed a locksmith in a hurry knows the story: a too-good number on the phone, a very different one at the door. Your callers are bracing for it before you say hello. Mercateer quotes your real rate from your own price book, books the job at that price, and keeps a transcript of exactly what was said, because it runs on a construction-estimating engine with your line items behind every call.
Price book
Home lockout
$120Car lockout
$95Rekey, per cylinder
$25After hours × 1.5
Your real price book, spoken out loud
Load your actual rates (residential and car lockouts, rekeys per cylinder, standard lock changes, your after-hours premiums), and when a caller asks what it costs, your line item becomes a spoken number on the call. The price they hear is the price you charge, which in this trade is the whole pitch.
You draw the quoting line
Lockouts, rekeys, and standard lock changes get a number on the phone. Safe work, automotive transponder and fob programming, and anything that depends on hardware you haven’t seen get a booked visit or the range you wrote, in your wording. You set that line once; the agent holds it on every call, at every hour.
Escalation rules
Live
Lockout after hours
Page the on-call now.
Safe or fob work
Book a visit to quote.
Anything else
Book the first open slot.
The transcript is your receipt
Every call is transcribed and summarized. The quote on the call is the quote on the record: if a customer ever asks what they were told, you read it back word for word. In a trade where callers expect the number to change at the door, that record protects them and you.
The first straight answer wins the lockout
A lockout caller works down the search results until somebody picks up. The companies that answer with “someone will call you back about pricing” lose to the one that says a real number. Picking up first with your actual rate is how the job becomes yours before the next listing gets a ring.
One front office, every channel
One consistent voice on every channel
Up and running in three steps
Load your price book and set your rules
Your lockout rates, day and after-hours. Rekeys per cylinder, lock changes by hardware grade. What gets a spoken number, what gets a booked visit instead, and who gets paged at 2 a.m.
Price book
Home lockout
$120Car lockout
$95Rekey, per cylinder
$25After hours × 1.5
Forward your line
Keep your number, the one on your van and your listings. Works with any phone setup or carrier, no hardware, no porting. Test it with your own calls before it goes live.
11:48 p.m. · Incoming call
“Locked out of my house, keys are on the kitchen counter. Can you come now?”
Calls get answered, quoted, and booked
Run it after-hours only, on overflow, or on every call, and switch it on or off whenever you want. Every call is transcribed and summarized, so you can read exactly what was quoted, word for word.
Last night
House rekey
BookedCar lockout
DispatchedHang-up
Textedevery call answered: porches, parking lots, closing time
flat plans to start, no per-minute fees
languages answered natively, on every call
Mercateer vs. a human answering service
| Mercateer | Human answering service | Answering it yourself | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pickup speed | First ring, every call, even three at once at closing time | Depends on staffing; queues during surges | Not while your hands are inside a mortise lock |
| Nights, weekends, holidays | Identical behavior at every hour | Covered, often at premium rates | You, woken at 2 a.m. Or the caller dials the next listing |
| Quotes your real rate from your price book | A straight number, spoken on the call | No, takes a message | Yes, you are the price book |
| Books and dispatches the job | Booked at the quoted price; lockouts page your on-call | Rarely (relays a callback request) | If you caught the call |
| Languages | 30+ natively, no transfer | Whoever happens to be on shift | Whatever you speak |
| Spam handling | Filtered, doesn’t cost you | Answered and billed like any other call | Screened by you, one interruption at a time |
| Price model | Flat plans, $99–399/mo | Typically $300–500/mo plus per-minute fees | Free, minus the lockouts that went to the next listing |
Comparison reflects typical category positioning. Confirm current details with each vendor.
Locksmith answering service FAQs
Every call answered. Every quote a real number. Every booking on the record.
It picks up on the first ring, 24/7/365, in your caller’s language. It quotes your actual rates from your price book, books at that price, pages your on-call for the lockouts, and transcribes every call. Forward your line and start free, with plans from $99/mo.
No credit card required