AI that answers the phone vs AI that texts back

Voice AI answers the call. The caller hears a synthetic voice, has a spoken conversation with it, and it books or logs the job. Almost every “AI receptionist for tradies” in Australia works this way.

Text-back lets the call ring out, then immediately texts the caller: sorry I missed you, what do you need? The conversation happens over SMS while you keep working. That's what we do.

They sound like variations on a theme. They behave completely differently, and which one suits you depends on things that have nothing to do with the technology.

Let's do this half first, because it's real.

• Older customers. Plenty of people ring a tradie precisely because they don't want to type. A text-back asks something of them that a spoken answer doesn't.
• Genuine emergencies. Someone standing in six inches of water wants a human voice, not a text thread. Voice AI can keep them on the line.
• Booking on the spot. A voice system can offer a time and close it inside the call.
• Landlines. A landline caller can't receive an SMS at all. Any text-back service, ours included, has to handle those differently.

If most of your work is emergency callouts from older homeowners, voice is probably the better buy and we'd rather tell you that than sell you the wrong thing.

• Nobody hears a robot. This is the big one. If the AI gets something wrong on a call, your customer hears it happen in your business's name. If a text is a bit stiff, it's a text. The downside risk is much lower.
• The customer can reply when it suits them. People ring tradies from work, from the school pickup line, from a job site. A text waits. A call doesn't.
• You get a transcript, not a summary. The actual words, addresses and phone numbers, spelled correctly, because they typed them. No transcription errors on a street name.
• Photos. A customer can send a picture of the leak, the switchboard, the crack. That's often worth more than anything they could describe out loud, and it's impossible on a voice call.
• You can take over mid-thread. It's just a text conversation on your own number. Pick it up whenever you're off the tools.
• Cost. Voice AI meters minutes because voice costs real money per second. Text doesn't, which is why the setup fees and monthly prices in this corner of the market are so much lower.

Some will. That's a genuine cost of the text-back approach and we're not going to pretend otherwise. The bet is that a text arriving about ten seconds after they hang up reaches most people before they've dialled the next number — and that it reaches them with your name on it, which a voicemail they never left doesn't.

Worth knowing: it's not either/or forever. Some tradies run text-back precisely because they intend to ring back personally within the hour, and just want the job details in hand when they do.

Whichever you choose, carrier voicemail has to be switched off. Voicemail answers on exactly the same conditions — you didn't answer, you were engaged, you were out of range — so if it's on it takes the call first and neither system ever sees it.

This trips up more setups than anything else in the category, and it's why “it doesn't work on prepaid” is such a persistent myth. It isn't the plan. It's voicemail.

How to turn voicemail off, carrier by carrier →

Look at your last ten missed calls and ask two questions: would these people text back, and would any of them have needed a human voice right then?

If most would happily text and few were emergencies, text-back does the job for a fraction of the price. If it's the other way round, buy voice. If you genuinely can't tell, that's worth knowing too — the leak test is two minutes and will tell you whether you've got a problem worth spending anything on.

What each option actually costs →