Penny puts the furnace symptoms on the booking as your HVAC answering service.

Connect Google Calendar or Outlook for appointments during the call. Field-service connections send the intake after the call: a Request in Jobber or a lead in Housecall Pro for your team to review and schedule. The symptom, address and priority go with it. The record does not dispatch a technician. Zapier and signed webhooks cover custom connections.

Penny starts at $29 a month on Starter with annual billing, with Pro at $99 adding the on-call schedule. Paid plans include monthly minutes; when you choose to keep answering past them, 60 more minutes are added at a time at the plan’s rate. The answering service cost guide compares plans, included minutes, and usage charges.

She records “clicks, lights, then drops out” in the caller’s words, with the equipment details they know. Your technician can review that starting sequence before the visit and decide what to bring. Diagnosis and parts selection remain with the technician.

She captures the brand, the install year if the caller knows it, and whether you did the install, then books the visit and marks the booking as a warranty question for your office. She does not tell the caller whether a part or a repair is covered, because that depends on the registration, the labor terms, and who installed it, and that answer comes from you.

She asks whether the caller is on a plan and puts it on the booking. The times she offers are the open times on your calendar, the same for every caller; if you want her to mention the plan to a non-member, write that in your house rules.

She says the tech will diagnose it on site and that she would rather book the right visit than guess, then she notes that the caller asked about the compressor so the tech arrives ready for that conversation. The same goes for “is it low on Freon?”: refrigerant is a Section 608 job, a loss means a leak to find, and she never promises a recharge as the fix.

Yes, and she sorts them before she offers a slot. A tune-up or a maintenance visit goes into an open routine time. A no-cool call gets the symptom questions, the occupant question, and the earliest open time, same day if your booking rules allow it. A caller who says “tune-up” and then mentions the house is 88 degrees gets treated as a no-cool.

Only the one you set. If you give her a published diagnostic fee, she states it when a caller asks and notes that the tech gives a written quote before any repair. If you have not set one, she says pricing comes from the tech on site and books the visit. She never quotes a repair, a part, a system, or a plan price.

Gas and CO reports interrupt routine scheduling: the caller gets the safety instruction to leave and call 911 from outside, with the gas utility included for a gas report. Penny then emails you an urgent alert. Your shop sets separate temperature and occupant rules in plain English, and she offers only available appointments. See Emergency Rules for the full workflow.