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Same answer, every call
Write a one-page answer sheet for the questions your phone gets every day
List the questions callers ask over and over, write the one true answer for each, and keep it where anyone answering the phone can see it.
Why one sheet matters
When three different people answer your phone, callers often get three different answers. One says you're open until six, another says five-thirty. One quotes a price, another says "it depends." Customers notice. A one-page answer sheet fixes that. Everyone, including a part-timer on their first day, gives the same true answer. AI helps you write it fast, but the facts come from you.
Step 1: Collect the questions people really ask
For one week, keep a sheet of paper by the phone and put a tally mark next to each question you hear. Add the questions that come in by text and email. Ask your team what they get asked.
You can also paste a batch of customer emails into a chat tool (with names and numbers removed) and ask: "List the questions these customers ask, starting with the ones that come up again and again. Group ones that mean the same thing."
You'll usually end up with ten to fifteen questions that cover almost every call.
Floor vote
Does everyone at your business give callers the same answers?
One vote per device. Change it any time.
Loading votes…
Step 2: Write the true answers yourself
This part is yours. AI doesn't know your hours, your prices, or your service area, and it will happily invent them. For each question, write the real answer in your own words:
- Hours, including holidays.
- Where you work, and where you don't.
- What you charge, or the honest version: "We give a price after we see the job."
- How to book, change, or cancel, and your real cancellation rule.
- What to bring, how long it takes, where to park.
Guessing | The sheet
Guessing
Uh, I think we close at six? Pricing kind of depends, you'd have to ask the owner.
Different answer every call.
The sheet
We're open until 5:30 weekdays. We give a price after we see the job, and the visit is free.
Same true answer, every time.
Step 3: Let AI make it easy to say out loud
Paste your questions and answers and send:
Rewrite each answer so it can be said out loud on the phone
in under 15 seconds. Keep every fact, price, time, and
policy exactly as written. Don't add anything. If an answer
is unclear or contradicts another answer, mark it [CHECK].
Then read every line yourself. If a fact changed, change it back.
Step 4: Add the "hand it to a person" list
Some questions nobody should guess at. Put them at the bottom with who handles each one:
- Emergencies.
- Complaints.
- Billing disputes.
- Anything about a specific customer's account or history.
Step 5: Keep it current
Put the date at the top and one person's name as the owner. When a price or policy changes, the owner updates the sheet the same day and prints a new copy. An old answer sheet is worse than none, because it's wrong with confidence.
Where the sheet goes next
The same page trains new hires. It becomes the FAQ on your website. And if you ever put an AI agent on your phone line (Deeplathe builds agents that answer, book, and reschedule for local service businesses), this sheet is what it should answer from. An agent can only be as right as the sheet behind it. Some callers will still want a person, which is what the hand-off list is for.
If calls are slipping through while everyone's busy, here's what happens to after-hours calls at a local business.
Field check
Field check
Three questions. Honest answers. No score sent anywhere but this page.
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Will you tally the real questions for a week?
Short close
Tally the real questions, write the true answers yourself, let AI make them easy to say, and list what goes to a person. Date it, own it, keep it current.
Keep these
The working rules
Different people give callers different answers. Then: Collect the repeat questions; Write the true answers yourself; Let AI make them easy to say; Mark what must go to a person.