EE
O2
Vodafone
Three
giffgaff
Sky Mobile
SMARTY
Talkmobile
iD Mobile
Asda Mobile
Virgin Mobile
HVAC after-hours answering
without a call centre
Heating and air conditioning work is seasonal in the worst possible way: the phone rings hardest exactly when you are busiest. The first cold snap of the year brings a week where every call is somebody with no heating, and every one you cannot answer goes to whoever picked up next.
Why heating engineers miss calls
You are inside a boiler cupboard, in a loft, on a roof next to a condenser unit, or holding a manometer while a system settles. Much of the work is in plant rooms and basements with no signal. And the seasonal peaks mean the weeks you are least able to answer are the weeks the most people are ringing.
The maths
What one missed heating call is worth
A service or a small repair is modest. A boiler replacement or a full air conditioning installation is thousands, and commercial maintenance contracts are recurring revenue that runs for years. During a cold snap the caller who cannot reach you has no intention of waiting — they will have somebody booked within the hour.
TextTheCaller is £6.49 a month. Set against the value of the work above, it only has to keep one caller from ringing the next name on the list to have paid for itself several times over.
What to write in your text
You write the message once and it goes out on every missed call. Here's one that works for heating and air conditioning engineers:
Thanks for calling Ashvale Heating. I'm on a job and can't answer. I'll call you back today. No heat or hot water? Call again and I'll prioritise it.
It sends from your business name
The caller sees your business name, not a phone number — so there's nothing for them to reply to. Give them something they can act on instead: a booking link, an email address, or a time you'll ring back.
160 characters
One SMS segment. The example above fits with room to spare, and we'll show you the count as you write so nothing gets cut off.
How it works
No app, no new number, no contract.
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1
Sign up with your mobile number
Enter your number, pick your network and set your business name. No password — we email you a magic link.
About 30 seconds
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2
Set unanswered-call forwarding
Follow the tailored dial-code or handset instructions for your carrier, then make a quick test call.
One time only
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3
Write your text-back
Use the example above or write your own. Next time a call rings out, the caller gets it within seconds.
Change it any time
It works on your existing number on every compatible UK network, and only ever triggers on calls you don't answer. Pick up as normal and nothing happens at all. If you want the general version before the heating and air conditioning engineers detail, read the missed call text service overview.
Step two is the only one that changes depending on who your line is with. We have written the unanswered-call divert up for each network separately — EE, O2, Vodafone, Three, giffgaff, Sky Mobile, SMARTY, Talkmobile, iD Mobile, Asda Mobile and Virgin Mobile — because the menu names, the codes each one accepts and what happens after a SIM swap are genuinely different. If you are not sure where to start, the general guide to stopping calls going to voicemail covers the part that is the same everywhere.
Worth knowing for heating and air conditioning engineers
Plant rooms and basements are signal dead zones, which is worth testing deliberately. The divert is applied by your network before the call ever reaches your handset, so it works with no bars — but proving that on an actual job during the trial is more convincing than taking our word for it.
Questions from heating and air conditioning engineers
It is an after-hours safety net, not a call centre. Nobody answers the call or triages the fault. The caller gets the message you wrote, which can tell emergency callers to ring again, use an emergency number, or book online.
Not automatically — everyone gets the same message. The way round it is to write a message that tells urgent callers what to do, which is what the example above does.
Not if you add them to the skip list, which most engineers do for their contract sites and facilities managers.
That does not affect it at all. The forwarding happens on the network side and the text comes from us, so your handset does not need to be reachable.
Also built for
Every missed call is a job someone else gets
Keep your number. Two minutes to set up. Cancel whenever you like.
7 days free, then £6.49/mo. Cancel any time.