Every call
answered.
Every job
booked.
A tradesman answers your phone as your company, books the job straight into your calendar, and hands you a day that is already full. A real person from 7am to 6pm. AI on the line every other hour of the year.
No setup fee. No contract longer than you want. One 30 minute call and you can be answering by next week.
THIS MORNING 0 CALLS SENT
TO VOICEMAIL
EXAMPLE BOARD · SHOP NAMES ARE FICTIONAL
Shops with 25+ techs
have filled the front
desk role. They book
twice as many calls
as smaller shops.
Want to know what your own missed calls are worth?
Book a 30 minute callAnd now we're
bringing that
convenience
to you.
The same front desk the big shops pay a salary for, without the hire, the desk or the payroll. You do not change how you work and you do not buy anything new. You forward your published number to us, which is one setting with your carrier. You keep your number, you keep your software, you keep every customer relationship. The only thing that changes is that the phone stops ringing out.
Forward your number
Takes about four minutes with your carrier. Your number stays yours. Forward all calls, or only the ones you miss.
We learn your shop
Your service area, your trades, your rates, what counts as an emergency, who to text at 2am and who can wait until Tuesday.
We answer as you
The caller hears your company name, your rates and your service area. To them it is your office, because that is exactly what it is.
The job is on your calendar
Booked into Jobber, Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan or Google Calendar before the caller hangs up. Not a message. An appointment.
Four minutes of setup. We do the rest.
Book a 30 minute callThe changing weather
in New England makes
hiring for demand
difficult.
A plumbing shop in Newton takes about sixty calls a day. During the heat spike in May 2022 it took two hundred and ninety seven in one day. After the arctic blast in February 2023, a Needham plumber fielded six hundred.
Eighty two percent of the oil heated homes in this country are in the Northeast. Every winter this region hands you three or four days where the phone does five times its normal volume, and every one of those callers is ready to buy right now. You cannot staff for that. You can rent it.
The next cold snap is not far off.
Book a 30 minute callWe're not like
every other
answering service
out there.
Yes, we are an answering service. That is the job, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. The difference is what happens after the phone gets picked up. You have probably tried one of the others: somebody in a room somewhere took a name and a number, and you got a text at nine at night with a job you now have to chase. That is not help, that is a to do list with extra steps. We do not take messages. Every call we take gets finished on the call.
A normal answering service
- × Reads a script written by someone who has never been in a crawlspace
- × Takes a name and a number
- × Cannot tell a slab leak from a dripping trap, so everything is an emergency or nothing is
- × Hands the job back to you to close
- × Bills you for spam, wrong numbers and thirty second hangups
Ground Control
- • Answered by a tradesman who has run the same calls you run
- • Books the appointment into your system, on the call
- • Triages properly. No heat in February goes to your phone. A quote request goes on the schedule
- • Transfers it to you when it genuinely needs you, instead of guessing
- • Never bills you for a call a person did not handle
They take a message.
We finish the call.
We do one job and we do it properly: your phone gets answered and the call gets resolved before it ends. That is the whole service. No marketing campaigns bolted on, no dashboard you will never open.
We answer as your company
Your name, your rates, your service area, your hours. The caller has no idea they reached anyone but your office.
We work out what they need
A tradesman is asking the questions, so the right ones get asked. No heat in February is not treated the same as a quote request.
We book it into your system
Into Jobber, Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan or your calendar, on the call, before they hang up.
Or we transfer it to you
When it genuinely needs you, we put it through. When it does not, we handle it so your day is not interrupted.
See the difference on a real call, with your real numbers.
Book a 30 minute callYou're in the field.
We'll handle the rest.
Flat monthly.
You know the
number before
the month starts.
One price, agreed before you start, that does not move because you had a busy month. Every plan includes unlimited AI coverage twenty four hours a day, every day of the year, at no extra charge. Plans differ in one thing only: how many calls a human takes for you.
No setup fee. Ever. Month to month if you want it, or lock a rate for three, six or twelve months and pay less for it.
We price it against
your actual call volume.
Every shop is different. A two truck plumbing outfit in November and the same outfit in January are different. So we do not put a package on a web page and hope it fits you.
Thirty minutes, with your call log in front of us. You will come off the phone with a real number, not a range, and if it is a fit we can get you set up on that same call. If the numbers say you do not need us yet, we will tell you that instead of quoting you.
Book a 30 minute callThree months takes five percent off your rate. Six months takes ten. Twelve months takes fifteen and locks that rate for the whole term, whatever happens to our pricing.
Evening and Saturday human coverage, and human coverage on holidays, are both available. Ask on the call and we will price it against your actual volume.
We bill
differently.
Most of this industry rounds every interaction up to a billable minute and hopes you never audit it. One of the biggest names in it settled a twelve million dollar class action over how it counted thirty seconds. Here is our rule, in public, before you sign anything.
- A call a person on our team actually handled
That is the whole list.
- Anything the AI resolved on its own
- Spam and robocalls
- Wrong numbers
- The same caller ringing back within two hours
- Anything under thirty seconds
No setup fee, and no charge for a call a person did not handle.
Book a 30 minute callLike having a
receptionist for a
fraction of the
price.
The honest alternative to Ground Control is not the cheapest answering service you can find. It is putting somebody at a desk. So compare it to that, and compare it with the full number rather than the wage. Once you add payroll tax, workers comp, benefits, the equipment and the desk itself, a front desk hire costs a good deal more than the salary figure most owners have in their head.
per year
- Fully loaded. Wage, payroll tax, workers comp, health, equipment, the desk they sit at.
- About 1,960 hours. Business hours only.
- Nothing after five, nothing on Saturday, nothing on a holiday.
- Cannot answer six hundred calls the day after the pipes freeze.
- Roughly seven in ten leave inside the first year, and you start again.
per month
- That entry plan is around a sixth of what the desk costs you. Even the largest plan we sell is roughly half.
- Flat. No payroll tax, no workers comp, no benefits, no equipment, no desk to sit at.
- The one thing you do provide is a user seat on the software you already run, so we can book into it. That is the only cost on your side beyond our fee, and it is the price of one extra user.
- Live human hours plus AI coverage on all 8,760 hours of the year.
- Evenings, Saturdays and holidays available as add ons.
- The cold snap is absorbed. That is the whole point of renting capacity.
- Does not quit, does not call out, does not need training again in March.
Bring the receptionist quote to the call and we will compare them properly.
Book a 30 minute callWhich system
are you on?
We book into the software you already run. You do not buy anything new, and you do not move your business into some platform of ours. If you are not on anything yet, we will get you on Google Calendar in an afternoon and you can decide about the rest later.
One user seat on your system, which you set up and pay for as part of the plan you already have. You add us the same way you would add a new employee. There is no integration to build and no API key to find, and if we ever stop working together you remove the user and our access is gone that second.
We are built for the one to five person shop in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. If you are a twenty truck operation with a dispatcher already, you do not need us, and we will tell you that on the call instead of selling you something.
Not sure if your system works with us? Ask.
Book a 30 minute callEvan McCartney
12 YEARS ON THE TOOLS · PLUMBING & GAS
- • Apprenticed across most of the trades
- • Settled in plumbing
- • Gas licences
- • Water operations
- • Commercial diving
Ground Control is run out of New Hampshire and answers for shops across New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Calls are recorded and announced, because both states require every party to consent. You get the recording and the notes on every call we take.
The person answering
your phone has
done your job.
Twelve years in the trades. Evan apprenticed across most of them before he settled into plumbing, carried his gas licences, ran water operations, and spent part of his career as a commercial diver. He has been the one under the sink, in the attic in August, and on the other end of a call from a homeowner who is frightened and talking fast and has no idea what the thing in their basement is called.
That range is why this works across trades and a call centre does not. When your customer says the boiler is making a noise, he knows which noise matters. When they start describing a panel, he is not reading it off a card. He knows what to ask so the truck shows up with the right part, and he knows the difference between a job you want and a job you should turn down, because he has taken both.
He is getting off the tools. He is not getting out of the trade.
Talk to Evan directly.
Book a 30 minute callThe things people
actually ask.
Do I have to change my phone number?
No. You keep your number, your listings, your truck lettering and your reviews. You set up call forwarding with your existing carrier and point it at the line we give you. If you only want us on the calls you miss, forward on no answer instead of forwarding everything. Either way it is a setting on your account, not a new number.
What happens at night and on Sunday?
The AI takes it, on every tier, at no extra cost. It answers as your company, handles the routine calls, books straightforward appointments and takes a proper message on the rest. Real emergencies get escalated to you by the rules you set. If you want a human on evenings and Saturdays instead, that is an add on and we will price it against your actual call volume.
What if the AI cannot handle the call?
It hands over. If the caller asks for a person, if the situation is urgent, or if the AI is not confident, it transfers to a human mid call rather than guessing. If nobody is available it takes the details and flags the call for a callback first thing. It is built to fail towards a person, not towards a voicemail.
Are calls recorded?
Yes, all of them, and every caller is told at the start. New Hampshire and Massachusetts both require every party on the call to consent, and in Massachusetts getting that wrong is a criminal matter, so the announcement is built into the line itself and cannot be turned off. You get the recording and written notes on every call we take for you.
Do I have to give you access to my software?
Yes, one user seat, and you are the one who sets it up. There is nothing technical about it. You add us as a user in Jobber, Housecall Pro, Service Fusion or whatever you run, exactly the way you would add a new employee, and we book into it from there. The seat sits on your plan, so it costs you what one extra user costs, and that is the only charge on your side beyond our monthly fee. You control it: if we ever stop working together, you remove the user and our access ends that second.
How long is the contract?
Month to month if you want it. Three, six or twelve month terms are available and take five, ten or fifteen percent off, and the twelve month term locks your rate for the whole year. There is no setup fee on any of them.
Will my customers know it is not me?
They will know they are talking to your office, which is true. We answer with your company name, we work from your rates and your service area, and the appointment lands on your schedule. We are your answering service, and a good one sounds exactly like your front desk, because that is the standard we hold ourselves to.
Can you take a card over the phone?
No, deliberately. We send your customer a payment link by text instead. Taking card numbers by voice drags everyone involved into payment compliance rules that a five person shop does not want and does not need. A text link is faster, it gets paid more often, and the number never touches us.
Still have a question? Ask it on the call.
Book a 30 minute callHow many calls did
you miss last week?
Most shop owners do not know, and the number is always worse than the guess. Give us thirty minutes. We will go through your actual call log, tell you what those missed rings were worth, and if it is a fit we will get you signed up on that call. If it is not worth fixing, we will say so and you have lost half an hour.
NEW HAMPSHIRE · MASSACHUSETTS · ANSWERED BY A TRADESMAN