Industries - An AI employee for your trades business
Assist IQ builds and manages AI employees for Scottish trades businesses: electricians, plasterers, builders, plumbers and renovation contractors. When you are on the tools, an AI employee can answer enquiries, follow up quotes and handle the repeatable admin that piles up at the end of the day. You stay responsible for the work, price and customer relationship.
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The problem every trades business knows.
The job is out the door by seven in the morning. You are on site all day. Your phone rings six times. You miss four of them. By the time you are back in the van at five, two of those callers have already booked someone else. The other two have gone cold. You spend the evening quoting, replying to WhatsApp, chasing unpaid invoices, and answering the message that says "just wondering if you're available?"
That is not a discipline problem. It is a physics problem. You cannot answer the phone and wire a house at the same time.
Most trades businesses at this stage try one of two things: they hire an admin person (expensive, and still not covering evenings and weekends), or they buy a call-answering service (impersonal, and it cannot qualify a lead or book a job). Neither is wrong, exactly. But there is a third option that did not exist a few years ago.
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The AI employee answer for trades.
An AI employee is not a chatbot. It does not just answer questions. It takes actions: it reads the incoming enquiry, qualifies the lead, sends a reply in your voice, books the callback or survey slot, and follows up if the prospect goes quiet. While you are fitting a bathroom in Dundee, your AI employee is handling the enquiries coming in from Arbroath.
Here is what a trades AI employee typically covers:
- Missed-call follow-up. A text message lands within minutes of a missed call, introduces the business, and asks what job they need doing. The lead is captured before they dial the next number.
- Enquiry handling across web, WhatsApp and forms. Every channel gets a reply. Out of hours, weekends, Bank Holidays.
- Quote follow-up. A quote that does not convert in 48 hours gets a timed chase sequence. One or two well-placed follow-ups recover jobs that would otherwise go cold.
- Review requests. After the job is done, an automated message asks for a Google review. No chasing required from you.
- Admin triage. Enquiries sorted, CRM updated, calendar booked. The information is in the right place when you need it.
The AI employee runs on the CRM, connected to your existing phone number and inbox. It does not replace you in front of the customer. It handles the operational layer so that when you do pick up the phone, the conversation is the right one.
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What this looks like in practice.
The businesses we work with in the trades sector share a common shape: strong reputation built on quality work, word-of-mouth referrals as the main source of new jobs, and a growing gap between the enquiries coming in and the admin the owner can actually keep up with.
A representative trades build joins missed-call response, enquiry capture, quote follow-up and review requests into one managed workflow. The point is not to replace the owner or survey the job automatically. It is to make sure a new enquiry receives a useful first response and the next agreed action does not disappear once the owner is back on the tools.
Our published proof library only contains approved live cases. See ScottishWill, HALO and PCMG Property.
Electrical businesses, plumbers, builders and renovation contractors across Scotland face the same pattern. The specific numbers differ by trade. The physics is identical.
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What it costs.
Cost depends on call channels, CRM, booking rules, integrations and the controls around customer communication. We do not claim that one recovered job will cover the service because job value and conversion differ by trade.
The AI receptionist service is being prepared for its next intake. If you want to discuss fit, book the £750 AI Ops Review and we will scope what your business actually needs. The AI receptionist page explains the boundaries and waitlist position.
We do not publish bespoke pricing publicly. It depends on trade, volume and what workflows need covering. The honest answer is: tell us how many enquiries you are losing and what a job is worth, and we will tell you whether the numbers work.
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Questions trades businesses ask us.
Is this just an answering service with a fancier name?
No. A call-answering service reads from a script and takes a message. An AI employee qualifies the lead, replies in your voice, books the job or follow-up into your calendar, updates your CRM, and follows up if the prospect goes quiet. It is connected to the real workflows of your business. A message-taker is a dead end. An AI employee is a working system.
What if a customer asks something the AI cannot handle?
The AI employee is built with escalation paths. If an enquiry needs your judgment, it flags it to you rather than guessing. You set the rules. You approve anything consequential. The AI handles the repeatable layer; you handle the exceptions. For trades businesses, the exceptions are usually the complex survey requests, the unusual jobs, or the customer who wants to speak to the person doing the work. Everything else is operational.
I am a sole trader. Is this for businesses bigger than mine?
No. The productised managed operations service is designed for sole traders and micro-businesses: one to four people, good at the trade, losing time to the admin. The AI employee does not care whether you have one van or four teams. It covers the gap between your phone ringing and someone answering it, regardless of business size.
What do I actually have to do to get this running?
The £750 AI Ops Review includes a 45-minute working session and a written plan. If wider work is agreed, timing depends on the phone setup, CRM, calendar, access and approval rules. We build and test the system against the agreed workflow, then manage it going forward. You approve the controls and remain responsible for the trade work and customer decisions.
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Ready to stop losing jobs to a full voicemail?
Book the £750 AI Ops Review. We will look at where enquiries arrive, what gets dropped and provide a written view of whether an AI employee would make a material difference.
A clear picture of what is useful, what is not and what should happen first.
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Related services: AI Receptionist · Managed Operations · AI Employees explained · Proof and case studies · Home
Assist IQ is a trading name of PCMG Consulting Services Ltd, registered in Scotland (SC852814). Based at 5 St Murdochs Crescent, Arbroath, Angus, DD11 5DA. We work with trades businesses across Scotland and the UK.
Tell us about your business
Tell us what keeps landing back on your desk. We’ll look at how the work really moves, where it gets stuck, and which part is worth fixing first.
The AI Ops Review is £750. It gives you a written plan, a clear order of attack, and an honest view of what should stay human.
No prep. No data handover. Start with the problem, not the software.