In restoration, the first company to answer gets the job. Mercateer picks up on the first ring at 2:40 a.m., runs your full loss intake, quotes your emergency call-out from your rate sheet, and texts your on-call crew everything they need to roll: address, loss type, access, transcript. Every call, every night, in 30+ languages. Built for water, fire, and mold restoration companies, with plans from $99/mo.
2:40 a.m. · Incoming call
“Water’s coming through the basement ceiling. Can you send someone now?”
What is a restoration answering service?
A restoration answering service answers your company’s phone when nobody can: at 2 a.m., mid-extraction, on the night a hard freeze hits the whole county. A typical service takes a name, a number, and “water in the basement,” then promises a callback. Mercateer runs your complete loss intake, quotes your emergency call-out from your rate sheet, and dispatches your on-call crew by your escalation rules, while the caller is still on the line.
Every call answered 24/7
Picked up on the first ring: nights, weekends, and holidays. Flooded basements don’t wait for office hours.
Full loss intake on every call
Address, loss type, water source and category, standing water depth, rooms and flooring, power, access. Your script, run the same at 3 p.m. and 3 a.m.
Call-out quoted from your rate sheet
Emergency call-out and mitigation rates spoken as a number on the call, agreed to before the truck moves.
Crew dispatched with the whole picture
Your on-call crew chief gets the text by your escalation rules, with the intake answers and the full transcript attached.
What happens at 2:40 a.m. when a basement floods
A homeowner standing in two inches of water doesn’t leave a voicemail. They call the first company in the search results; if it rings out, they call the second. Whoever picks up gets the loss, and the calls come in at 3 a.m. by definition. Here’s the call, minute by minute.
Answered on the first ring
February, 2:40 a.m. No hold, no menu, no pager relay. The caller describes water coming through the ceiling of a finished basement: carpet underwater, still spreading.
Runs your full loss intake
Is the main shut off (and if your script includes shutoff instructions, it reads them). Clean supply line or sewage. How deep is the standing water. Which rooms, what flooring. Is the power on. Gate code, dogs, where to park the truck.
Quotes your emergency call-out
Your after-hours call-out, straight from your rate sheet: a number spoken out loud and agreed to on the call, not “someone will call you back about pricing.”
Pages your on-call crew chief
The text lands with the address, loss type, source, rooms affected, access notes, the quoted call-out, and the full transcript. Enough to load the right truck without a callback.
You read the summary at 7, with coffee
And the Sunday-night sewage backup a property manager calls in, in another language, goes the same way: answered natively from the first word, your commercial intake run (units affected, building access, who can authorize the work), a drop-everything dispatch under your rules, and the summary delivered in your language.
A complete loss intake, not a name and a number
A restoration answering service earns its keep in the first two minutes of the call: that’s when the intake happens or doesn’t. A message desk hands you “Mike, 555-0182, water in basement,” and your crew chief still has to call back, wake the homeowner up again, and ask everything the desk didn’t. Mercateer works the loss while the caller is on the line.
Your rules
Standing water: page the on-call now
Sewage (Cat 3): dispatch now
Mold or old stains: book an assessment
Your intake script, every question, every call
Property address and a callback number. Loss type (water, fire, smoke, mold) and the source. Clean supply, gray, or sewage; whether the source is stopped; standing water depth; rooms and flooring; power and utilities; access and occupancy. Sewage flagged in the intake means PPE and the right machines load before the truck leaves the shop. A complete intake is what the truck gets loaded from.
The call-out quoted while the caller’s still on the line
Mercateer runs on a construction-estimating engine. Load your rate sheet (after-hours emergency call-out, extraction and mitigation rates, whatever you price) and the answer to “what does it cost to get a crew out tonight” is a number, spoken on the call. You draw the line once: the call-out gets a spoken quote, full mitigation scope gets a crew chief’s eyes on site. The agent holds that line at every hour.
Price book
After-hours call-out
$250Emergency water extraction
$850Dehumidifier, per day
$95Mitigation scope priced on site
Dispatch by your rules
Standing water, an active source, sewage, a commercial loss: whatever you define as drop-everything pages your on-call crew chief with the whole picture. A week-old stain or a mold-inspection request doesn’t wake anyone at 4 a.m.; it books an assessment for morning. Robocalls and spam never get through, and every call (dispatched, booked, or filtered) produces a summary and a full transcript.
Insurance captured, never advised
If your script asks for the carrier, the claim number, or whether a claim’s been filed, the agent records the answers. That’s it. It never tells a caller what’s covered, what to file, or what a carrier will pay. Coverage stays between the homeowner and the adjuster.
Built for the nights the losses actually arrive
“Water’s coming through the ceiling.”
On-call dispatched tonight
Set up without changing your number
Load your rate sheet, intake script, and escalation rules
Your call-out fees, your water questions, your on-call rotation, your definition of drop-everything.
Escalation rules
Live
Standing water
Page the crew chief now.
Sewage backup
Dispatch with PPE loaded.
Anything else
Book a morning assessment.
Forward your line
Keep your number, the one on your trucks and in your referral partners’ phones. Works with any phone system or carrier, no hardware, no porting. Call it yourself before it goes live.
2:40 a.m. · Incoming call
“Water’s coming through the basement ceiling. Can you send someone now?”
Turn it on
Run it after-hours only, on overflow, or on every call, and switch any time. The same agent answers your website chat, texts, and email from the same script, and every call is transcribed and summarized seconds after hang-up.
Last night
Mold inspection
BookedFlooded basement
DispatchedHang-up
Textedevery call answered: nights, weekends, the Fourth of July
languages answered natively, the caller’s included, summaries in yours
setup fee, and no contract to cancel
Mercateer vs. a human answering service
| Mercateer | Human answering service | Answering it yourself | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pickup | First ring, every call, every hour | Depends on staffing; queues on storm nights | Answered when your hands are dry, voicemail when they’re not |
| After-hours | Identical at 3 a.m. and 3 p.m. | Covered, often at premium rates | Your cell on the nightstand, every night of the year |
| Loss intake | Your full script, every question, every call | A name, a number, “water in basement” | Nobody asks better questions (when you can pick up) |
| Quotes your call-out | Yes, spoken from your rate sheet | No, takes a message | Yes, from memory, standing in someone’s flooded kitchen |
| Dispatch | Texts your on-call with intake, access, quote, and transcript | Relays a page; your crew calls back blind | You’re intake, dispatch, and on-call: all one phone |
| Storm surge | Every simultaneous call answered at once | Hold queue: callers dial the next company | One at a time, on the night they all call at once |
| Languages | 30+ answered natively; summaries in yours | Only if a bilingual operator is on shift | Whichever languages you speak |
| Price | Plans $99–399/mo | Typically $300–500/mo plus per-minute fees | Free, if your nights and Saturdays count as free |
Comparison reflects typical category positioning. Confirm current details with each vendor.
Restoration answering service FAQs
The next loss goes to whoever answers first
Flooded basements don’t wait for office hours, and neither do the companies that win them. Put a first-ring answer, a complete loss intake, and a quoted call-out on every call tonight. Start free, no contract, no setup fee.
No credit card required