Answering service glossary
Justin McKelvey
Founder of Local Call AI. Built it after watching friends in the trades lose thousands of dollars to missed calls.
In short
These are the terms that come up when a contractor shops for call coverage — what an answering service actually is, how it differs from an IVR or a virtual receptionist, and the billing words that decide what you pay. Each definition answers the term in its first sentence, so you can skim.
- Answering service
- An answering service is a company that answers a business's phone calls on its behalf, usually outside office hours or when staff are busy. Traditional services use human agents and bill per minute or per call; AI answering services use a voice agent and typically charge a flat monthly rate.
- Virtual receptionist
- A virtual receptionist answers calls in your company's name from outside your office, handling greetings, screening, and scheduling as an in-house receptionist would. The term covers both human services and AI receptionists.
- AI receptionist
- An AI receptionist is software that answers business calls in a natural voice, qualifies the caller, and books appointments without a human on the line. Unlike an automated menu, it holds a two-way conversation and can handle several calls at once.
- IVR (interactive voice response)
- An IVR is the automated phone menu that asks callers to press a number to reach a department. It routes calls but does not answer questions or book work, which is the main difference between an IVR and a receptionist, human or AI.
- Warm transfer
- A warm transfer is when whoever answers the call briefs the next person before connecting them, so the caller does not repeat themselves. A cold transfer just forwards the call. Most AI services escalate by text rather than warm transfer.
- After-hours answering
- After-hours answering is call coverage outside normal business hours — evenings, nights, weekends, and holidays. For trades it is where most emergency calls land, and human services often charge a premium for these hours while flat-rate AI services do not.
- Call overflow
- Call overflow is what happens to calls arriving while your line is already busy. Without coverage they hit voicemail; an overflow service answers them instead, which matters most during storm weeks and seasonal spikes when calls arrive in bursts.
- Call triage
- Call triage is deciding how urgent a call is and routing it accordingly — a burst pipe tonight versus a dripping faucet on Tuesday. Good triage follows rules the business sets, rather than treating every call the same.
- On-call rotation
- An on-call rotation is the schedule deciding which technician handles after-hours emergencies on a given night. An answering service that respects the rotation wakes only the person on duty instead of calling everyone.
- Dispatch fee (trip charge)
- A dispatch fee, or trip charge, is what a contractor charges to send a technician out, separate from the repair itself. After-hours dispatch fees are usually higher, and stating the fee before booking prevents disputes at the door.
- Call deflection
- Call deflection is resolving a caller's need without a person having to handle it — answering hours or directions questions automatically, for example. It reduces workload but is not the same as capturing a job, which needs qualification and booking.
- First call resolution
- First call resolution is the share of callers whose need is fully handled on the first call, without a callback. For contractors the practical version is whether the call ended with an appointment booked or just a message taken.
- Abandoned call
- An abandoned call is one where the caller hangs up before reaching anyone — on hold, ringing out, or at the voicemail greeting. Roughly 85% of callers who reach voicemail hang up without leaving a message.
- Call forwarding
- Call forwarding sends calls from your business number to another number under conditions you set — always, when busy, or after a set number of rings. It is how most businesses connect an existing number to an answering service without changing the number they advertise.
- Per-minute billing
- Per-minute billing charges for agent talk time, typically $0.50–$1.35 per minute in 2026. The bill rises with call volume, so it costs most during the busy weeks that generate the most revenue. Flat-rate plans charge the same regardless of volume.
- Bilingual answering
- Bilingual answering means calls are handled fluently in more than one language — usually English and Spanish in the US. The useful version switches language mid-call when the caller prefers it, rather than routing them to a separate menu option.
- Lead capture
- Lead capture is recording enough about a caller to follow up — at minimum a name and callback number. For service businesses it usually also means the service address and what the problem is, since a technician cannot be dispatched without them.
- Field service management (FSM)
- Field service management software runs a contractor's scheduling, dispatch, invoicing, and job records. Jobber, Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, and JobNimbus are common examples. An answering service is only as useful as its ability to get calls into that system.
- Recording disclosure
- A recording disclosure tells callers the call is being recorded. Roughly a dozen US states, including Florida and California, require every party to consent, so businesses there must state it at the start of the call rather than afterwards.
- Missed call cost
- Missed call cost is the revenue lost when a call goes unanswered, calculated as the share of callers who never call back multiplied by the average job value. For contractors a single missed emergency call often exceeds a month of answering-service fees.
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