Some calls are not bookings. A caller who names a hazard — gas, carbon monoxide, smoke, fire, sparking — is told to hang up and call 911, before anything else and without being sold a service visit first. The words are fixed, said by the system rather than the model, and said once.
Three tiers
A named hazard gets the direct instruction, in these words: "Please hang up now, get everyone outside, and call 911. Do not touch any light switches on your way out. Someone from the shop will call you right back."
A description that usually means a hazard — a detector going off, a strange smell, fumes, headaches since the heat came on — gets the softer pointer to 911, then questions: "If anyone is in danger, or you smell gas or smoke, hang up now and call 911. Otherwise, tell me what is happening and I will get this to the team."
A caller who says "it's an emergency" without describing one hears the same softer pointer. Then they are asked what is happening, so a burst hose is not sent to 911 and a gas smell is never missed.
What the office sees
The call is marked as an emergency on the home screen and in the day's count, with the number to call back if one was captured. The caller has been told someone will call right back, so call back as soon as it is safe to, day or night. Set an after-hours on-call number so someone can.
What the shop should do
- Treat the callback as first in the queue, whether or not a booking exists.
- Do not rely on the agent's transcript for the technical picture; the caller was frightened and brief.
- Listen to the recording (unless the caller declined recording) if there is a dispute about what was said. The notice, the 911 instruction and the times are all in it.