After-hours call answering for Montreal HVAC contractors

A Tuesday in Montreal

Tuesday at 9am you're loading the truck in Montreal. The first call of the day is a new homeowner asking for a tune-up before winter. You're already booked solid by the time it's transcribed and sent back to your inbox. The phone's ringing in the truck cab and you're 14 feet up on a ladder.

The 4pm call is a homeowner whose AC stopped on the hottest day of the year. You can't take it. By 6:30pm there's an after-hours job too, a no heat at 2am in February with kids in the house. Two missed calls, one half-day of revenue, no way to triage from a ladder.

What changes

Avidra answers your phone, however you've wired it. Live with AI voice, or text-back if the call goes missed, or both running together. The caller gets a real response. You get the captured lead.

The Tuesday morning call still happens. You still can't answer mid-job. Now the homeowner gets a text in under five seconds asking the basics. By the time you're back in the truck the lead is qualified and sitting in your inbox.

Pick a pickup mode

You decide who picks up first. Run the human-first mode: your phone rings, and Avidra only steps in if the call goes unanswered. Or run the AI-first mode: Avidra picks up live and transfers when the caller wants a human. Most shops start human-first because the customer relationship still flows through you. AI-first makes sense once the volume is past what one person can handle.

Both pickup modes run on the Free tier. AI voice answering and SMS text-back are included at $0, with 30 voice minutes a month.

What it costs

Free for 14 days. No card to start. Plans after the trial run from a flat monthly rate, not per-call. Most HVAC contractors pay less per month than the value of one recovered job. See the pricing page for current numbers.

Where Avidra stops

Avidra handles the intake call, the back-and-forth qualifying, and the relay messages you ask it to send to your customers. The phone is the part it owns. The work past it stays with you and your existing tools.

The script will disclose your service-call fee if you tell it to, but it won't volunteer a price you haven't approved. It won't diagnose a no-cool by symptom. It won't tell a homeowner whether their compressor is shot. Equipment make and model gets captured. What you do with that information is your call.

Calls HVAC contractors in Montreal actually take

You probably recognize these patterns by now. Annual maintenance booking for spring or fall. Thermostat showing the right temp but no heat coming through. Condensate line clogged and dripping onto a hallway floor. Low refrigerant suspected after a long cooling run. Pick up first and you book the job. Pick up second and you don't.

Off-hours calls run differently. Tighter, more urgent, less willing to wait until morning. No AC during a heat advisory. No heat at 2am in February with kids in the house. The shop that picks up fast keeps the work.

What the year looks like

Two peaks. Heat advisories drive AC emergency calls May through August. Cold snaps and first-frost weeks drive no-heat calls late October through February.

For most HVAC contractors, the call volume isn't flat. You probably already plan staffing and on-call coverage around the peaks. Avidra runs the same in busy season as in slow. No per-call charges, no surge pricing when the inbox gets loud.

How setup actually works

Setup is forwarding plus a script. Your existing business number forwards to Avidra so the AI picks up live calls and catches the ones that ring through to voicemail. You edit the default intake script in both directions. Voice and SMS share the same questions.

Most owners are live the same day. The test is a single call from another phone. The AI answers the call, walks the caller through the intake script, and captures the lead. After that, ring busy and watch the text-back fire.

Why speed matters more than channel

The lead is warm for about five minutes after the call. After that, the caller has scrolled to the next name and most likely already dialed. Email lands too slowly to matter for booking decisions made in that first five minutes. A text-back inside seconds keeps the caller engaged through a short intake while you finish the current job. By the time you call back, the lead is qualified and already expecting your voice.

After-hours and on-the-ground in Montreal

Montreal winters mean no-heat calls that land at 11pm when the temperature drops fastest. Heat advisories in Montreal bring the AC-emergency wave you already know. Calls come from Plateau-Mont-Royal and from across Montreal. The phone doesn't care about postal codes.

Common questions

Try Avidra on your own number

Try Avidra on your real business number for 14 days. No card. See pricing and start when you're ready. Avidra works the same in Montreal as it does in the busiest market we cover. The intake script changes by trade, the rest stays the same.