Frequently Asked Questions

Every trades business owner knows the feeling: the phone rings while you are on a job, under a sink, or driving between sites, and you watch that call disappear to voicemail. That caller will not wait. They will call the next contractor on the list.

Answering Now solves that. When you cannot answer, our AI agent picks up immediately, greets the caller by your business name, handles their questions, captures their contact information, and sends you a full summary by text and email within seconds of the call ending. Your customer gets answered. You get the lead. Nobody goes to your competitor.

Wayne Turner, one person in Boone, Iowa, built this specifically for trades businesses because the generic answering services do not understand your work. This one does.

You are probably wondering whether your customers will hear a robot and think you have gone cheap or impersonal. Here is what actually happens.

A caller dials your business number. Your agent picks up and greets them by your business name. It does not announce itself as automated, does not say "Press 1 for..." and does not sound like a phone tree. It listens, asks follow-up questions when needed, and answers common questions using a knowledge base built specifically for your business and your trade. If a caller needs to reach you directly, the agent tells them the owner will be in touch shortly and makes sure their name and number are captured in the summary headed to your phone.

After every call, you receive a structured email summary: caller name, phone number, reason for calling, urgency level, and any details they shared. That summary arrives within seconds of the call ending, so you can call back before they dial your competitor.

No. You keep your existing business phone number and your customers keep calling it exactly as they always have.

Here is how it works: during onboarding, Wayne provides you with a dedicated Answering Now forwarding number. You set up conditional call forwarding on your own carrier so that when you do not answer, calls route to that number and reach your AI agent. This takes about two minutes in your carrier's online portal or phone settings -- Wayne walks you through it. Your business number never changes, your customers never see a different number, and you stay in complete control of when the agent picks up.

Here is the honest answer about how this works. Most trades owners use conditional call forwarding -- when you cannot answer, your carrier forwards the call to your Answering Now number. That means your line is already busy or unavailable when AN picks up. Transferring back to that same number would just loop or go to voicemail.

So instead, your agent tells the caller: "The owner is unavailable right now, but I'm making sure they get your name and number immediately." Within seconds of that call ending, you receive a structured summary with everything the caller said. You call them back from the job site, knowing exactly who it is and why they called -- before they have a chance to dial your competitor. That callback, made from a position of full information, is a stronger closer than a blind transfer to a phone that is not being answered.

During onboarding, you spend about 10 minutes in a wizard answering questions about your services, hours, service area, and the calls you get most often. Wayne uses that information to build a custom knowledge base for your business. He also applies pre-built templates for your specific trade, so your agent delivers accurate answers from day one rather than learning from scratch on live calls.

After your agent goes live, Wayne personally reviews the questions it could not answer and updates your knowledge base so it handles those calls correctly going forward. That ongoing maintenance is included in every plan at no extra charge.

We have pre-built knowledge bases and call handling templates for HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, landscaping, general contracting, pest control, cleaning services, auto repair, property management, and house painting. If your trade is not on this list, we can still build a custom agent for you. The AI platform handles any type of phone-based customer interaction.

All plans include free onboarding, agent setup, and knowledge base configuration. There are no long-term contracts. Cancel anytime with one email.

Starter ($79/month) works well for solo operators and small shops that receive 5 to 10 calls per day. The 100 included minutes cover most one-person businesses comfortably. You get the full experience: a custom AI agent trained on your business, structured email summaries after every call, and knowledge base updates as your agent learns.

Professional ($149/month) suits growing businesses with steady call volume, typically 10 to 20 calls per day. You get everything in Starter with 300 included minutes and a lower overage rate ($0.30/min vs. $0.35/min). The additional minutes provide breathing room for busier shops without worrying about overages.

Business ($279/month) serves multi-crew operations and offices that handle high call volume. You get everything in Professional with 750 included minutes and the lowest overage rate at $0.25/min. This plan suits businesses where call volume is a daily reality and reliable coverage is essential.

A minute counts only while your AI agent is actively handling a call. If a caller hangs up after 45 seconds, that counts as less than one minute. Hold time and transfer time are not counted against your included minutes. We track usage down to the second and report it in whole minutes for billing.

Your agent keeps answering calls. We never cut off your service mid-month. Overage minutes are billed at a per-minute rate based on your plan: $0.35/min for Starter, $0.30/min for Professional, and $0.25/min for Business. If you consistently go over, upgrading to the next tier usually saves you money.

If you are skeptical about handing your phone calls to an AI system, that is a reasonable way to feel. The trial exists so you can test it with real callers before you spend a dollar.

The Starter plan includes 14 days completely free. Your custom agent goes live and handles real incoming calls just as it would on day 365. You hear exactly what your customers hear. If anything sounds off, email Wayne and he will adjust it. If Answering Now is not right for your business, cancel before day 14 and your card is never charged. No cancellation fee. No contract. No pressure.

Most owners know within the first few calls whether this works for them. You have 14 days to find out at zero risk. Professional and Business plans do not include a trial, but you can start on Starter and upgrade once you are ready.

Yes. We are actively building new capabilities such as calendar scheduling (so your agent can book appointments during calls), in-call SMS alerts, call analytics reporting, and custom integrations with tools your business already uses. As these features launch, we will add them to the appropriate plan tiers and update this page. Existing subscribers on any plan will receive new features included in their tier at no additional cost.

Yes. You can upgrade or downgrade at any time. Plan changes take effect at the start of your next billing cycle. If you upgrade mid-cycle, we prorate the difference so you only pay for the days remaining at the new rate.

Most agents go live within 2 to 5 business days after you complete the onboarding wizard. The wizard takes about 10 minutes. From there, Wayne builds your custom agent, configures your knowledge base, and runs a full round of test calls to confirm everything works correctly before your agent touches a real caller. Once it passes, Wayne sends you the forwarding number and you are live. See exactly what we ask during setup.

After subscribing, you complete a short onboarding wizard that collects your business name, hours, services, service area, and the questions your customers ask most often. It takes about 10 minutes. Want to get a head start? See exactly what we ask.

Wayne uses that information to build your custom agent and knowledge base. He runs a full round of test calls to confirm the agent handles your specific business correctly before anything goes live. Once the agent is ready, Wayne sends you the dedicated forwarding number along with simple instructions for setting up conditional call forwarding on your carrier. That forwarding step takes about two minutes on your end. Once you complete it, your agent is live and answering calls.

Wayne Turner, the founder, personally builds and maintains every agent. This is not a self-service platform where you configure a bot yourself and hope it works. You describe your business. Wayne handles every part of the technical setup, runs test calls, and keeps your knowledge base current.

When you email wayne@answering.now, Wayne reads it and responds. When your agent cannot answer a caller's question, Wayne updates your knowledge base so it handles that call correctly going forward. You are not buying access to a dashboard. You are working directly with the person who built the service and whose reputation depends on it working well for you.

Subscriptions are billed monthly through Stripe, a secure payment processor. Your monthly charge covers your plan's base rate plus any overage minutes from the previous billing cycle. Stripe handles all payment processing, and we never store your credit card information on our servers.

Send one email to wayne@answering.now or call (515) 349-7229. There are no cancellation fees, no long-term contracts, and no hoops to jump through. Your service continues through the end of your current billing cycle.

Yes. All data transmission uses encrypted connections (TLS/SSL). Call summaries are stored in a secure cloud database with access controls. Payment information is processed by Stripe and never touches our servers. For full details, read our Privacy Policy.

All calls are recorded so the AI can generate accurate summaries. This is how the service works -- without the recording, there is no summary. Callers are informed of recording at the start of each call. Recorded audio is stored securely and retained according to our Privacy Policy.