Plumbers: what to do when customers ask an AI assistant who to call

Most plumbing jobs start with something going wrong. Water on the floor, no hot water, a drain that won’t clear. The customer wants one thing: someone who can come today.

They used to search and call the first few numbers. Some of them now type one sentence to ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude and wait for a name. This guide is about being that name, and about what it costs when you are.

What customers now ask

The questions are short, and they almost always carry a deadline:

• “The water heater is leaking. Find a plumber who can come today.”
• “The kitchen drain is backed up again. Who can clear it tonight?”
• “Get me two quotes to replace a water heater this week.”
• “One of my rentals has no hot water. Who can be there tomorrow morning?”

Notice what’s missing. Nobody says “I own an older house” or “I manage three rentals.” The assistant often knows that already, and with the customer’s OK it can say so. That matters later, when your agent decides what to offer.

What the assistant needs before it names you

An assistant doesn’t scroll through ads. It asks who can do the job, checks what it can verify and comes back with one business to call. For a plumbing job, that means it looks for:

• Your area and your hours. Which towns you cover, and whether you take calls at night and on weekends. If your site doesn’t say it, the assistant can’t.
• The work you do. Water heaters, drains, leaks, repipes. A plain list of services beats a paragraph about quality.
• Proof it can check. Your license number, your insurance, your reviews, your warranty on the work. Put them on your site. With haggl.ai you can also add them to your public haggl.ai page, with the links that show them.
• A firm answer on price. This is the gap. You can’t post a price for every leak. But your agent can make a firm offer on the spot.

The offer that fits a plumbing job

When the floor is wet, speed wins before price does. So the first offers worth allowing aren’t money off at all:

• A waived call-out fee. It’s simple, the customer understands it at once, and it takes away the cost of picking up the phone.
• A priority slot. For an urgent job, “today” is the offer.
• Money off the job, inside your limit, for the jobs you want most.

You set two numbers and your agent stays inside them: a monthly budget (say, $500) and your limit for any one job (say, 20% off). It never goes past either, whatever the customer’s assistant asks for.

Then tell your agent which customers matter most to you. In plumbing, that is usually the ones with more than one building: landlords, property managers, realtors. A landlord with a leaking water heater today has other water heaters. Your agent can give that customer more than it gives a one-off job, and it decides case by case.

That’s also the difference between this and a public code. A code goes to everyone, including customers who would have called anyway. An offer from your agent goes to the customer in front of it.

How the job reaches you

By phone, the way it always has. When the customer accepts, their assistant gives them your number, or your WhatsApp if you use it, and a deal reference. They call, quote the reference, and you book the job as you always do.

You also get an email with the reference and the terms of the deal, so whoever answers the phone knows what was promised. There is no new inbox and no lead form. haggl.ai never holds the customer’s contact details.

How to set it up

Use the site you already have.

• WordPress. Create your free workspace: your site, your phone, your budget and your limit per job. On the last step, download the haggl.ai plugin. Your ID is already inside. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New Plugin → Upload Plugin, then Activate. You don’t need WooCommerce.
• Wix. Add the haggl.ai app for Wix from the Wix App Market. It creates your workspace and imports your services from Wix Bookings, with your phone. You set the budget in your Wix dashboard.
• Any other site. Create the same free workspace, then add one line of code to your site.

Each of these adds a small script to your site, so an assistant that visits finds your agent. Installing haggl.ai doesn’t guarantee a call. It means that when an assistant does come, your business has an answer.

What it costs

2% of the job, 6% for priority customers. First 10 free. No monthly fee.

A standard booking is 2% of what the customer paid. That covers a job at your normal price, at your public offer, or with extras only, such as the waived call-out fee.

A priority customer is one your agent gave a better deal than your public offer, because they’re worth more than one job. Those bookings are 6%.

You pay only for jobs you confirm. When the customer books, select Confirm this booking in your deal email and enter what they paid. If they never book, mark the deal Not used, and there is no fee. The full terms are on the pricing page.

The reasoning behind paying this way is in Jobs, not leads. For the product itself, see haggl.ai for home services.

The goal is small and concrete. A water heater fails somewhere in your area. The owner asks an assistant. Then your phone rings, and the caller reads you a reference.