Call a business that can't pick up. See what the caller gets.
Pick a trade, type your business name if you like, and press Call. The call rings out, and the texts that follow are the ones the agent sends, answered from the business's own prices and hours.
Your business name only changes the replay. It isn't sent anywhere unless you book and send it yourself.
Try it on your trade
Ridgeline Roofing Co.
(888) 555-0142
10:14
Messagesnow
(888) 555-0142
Ridgeline Roofing here, sorry we missed your call. This is our automated assistant. What can we help with? You can also book a free inspection: ridgeline.example/book. Reply STOP to opt out.
The crew is up on a roof.
So who sent that text? Call and see.
Call Ridgeline Roofing Co.
A replay of the real agent. Time is compressed, the business is fictional.
The phone rings twice under a sink. The caller dials the next listing.
The problem is the thirty seconds after the missed call, when the caller decides whether to leave a voicemail or try someone else. Many try someone else. A text that lands while they're still deciding, asks what they need, and gives them a way to book is what keeps them. Here is what happens, in order.
- 0:00
The call comes in. Your cell rings first. You're under a sink, so it rings out. The caller hears one line: "Sorry, [your business] missed your call. Please leave a short message after the tone, and we'll get back to you." It doesn't promise a text, because not every caller gets one. A caller who hangs up while your own cell is still ringing, before the call forwards, never reaches the agent: no text, no log entry, just a line in your phone's missed calls.
- The tone
The caller leaves a message. The voicemail is recorded and transcribed, up to 90 seconds of it, so the agent can answer what the caller actually said. No message, or a hang-up before the tone, and the agent writes without one.
- Then
The caller is screened. Before anything is drafted, the agent drops withheld or malformed caller IDs, your own numbers, premium-rate lines, and calls whose caller ID failed carrier verification. One lookup then drops landlines, toll-free, and fixed-VoIP lines that can't receive a text. Nothing is spent on those. A landline caller who left a message isn't texted; you get the voicemail so you can call them back.
- Seconds later
The text goes out. The agent checks whether you're open, looks the caller up in your records if you keep any, and writes one short text: an apology, a plain note that it's automated, an answer to the voicemail (or a question about what they need, if they left none), and your booking link. A second pass checks it against your configured prices, hours, and links. Then it sends. After 8 pm the text waits until 8 am, and you get the voicemail right away.
- On reply
The thread continues. The caller's answer lands in the same conversation. The agent answers from your FAQ and price list, and moves them toward a booking or a call-back time.
- On handoff
It comes to you. A question it can't answer from your information gets a short text saying someone from your team will get back to them. A voicemail or reply that sounds urgent gets one saying someone will call them right back, plus your emergency line if you keep one. It never tells them to call your main number, the line that just missed them. Either way you get a Slack alert with what was texted and a note to call them back, marked urgent when it is.
A sample conversation
What a caller gets when they miss me and this agent picks up the thread: my prices, my terms, my booking link. Yours would carry yours.
The caller hears the spoken line when the call rings out, then the tone. This caller hung up without leaving a message, so the first text asks what they need; when there is a voicemail, the text answers it instead. The first text names the business, says it's automated, gives one next step, and ends with the opt-out line, all under 300 characters. The agent answers from the caller's reply. Later texts in the thread skip the name and the footer.
Not software you install. Not an app you download.
People search for missed-call text back software or a missed-call text back app and expect something to set up themselves. This is a managed service: the agent runs on my side, the text comes from a number I set up for you, and there is nothing to install. Three other things it gets mistaken for:
It is not an AI receptionist.
A receptionist, human or AI, answers the call. This doesn't. It replies after the call was missed, by text, from the business line I set up for you. If your callers need to talk to someone right now and won't text, buy the receptionist. If they'd rather have the answer in writing and book when it suits them, this is the quieter tool.
It is not a fixed auto-reply.
The missed-call automations bundled with marketing platforms send one message you wrote once to everyone. This one asks what the caller needs, reads the answer, checks your hours, and replies to the actual question. That is the difference between a caller who books and one who wonders if anyone read their message.
It is not a drip.
Nothing is scheduled and nothing is promotional. The agent messages only a number that just called you, only about that call, and it stops when the caller stops. Recurring or marketing texts need a different kind of consent and a different product.
How it's set up, in the order it actually happens.
You keep your number. Unanswered calls forward from it to a toll-free number I provide, or you put the new number on your truck and your site. Everything below runs from one link, and the only real wait is the carrier's.
- 01
Sign and pay through one link. After the call, I create your account and send one onboarding link. It walks you through the terms, the service agreement (your typed name is the signature), and the first month's invoice. Nothing is bought or provisioned until it's paid.
- 02
Fill in a short intake. Your website, hours, time zone, service area, services and pricing notes, booking link, how you greet customers, the phrases you always use, the things you must never promise, and who gets urgent problems. Flyers and price lists can be uploaded. You also attest that your customers agree to receive texts.
- 03
I provide the number and file the verification. A toll-free number is provided on its own sub-account, and its carrier verification is filed under your business's own identity. This is the wait: toll-free verification typically clears in about three business days. A local number is available on request, but its registration takes longer.
- 04
Train, then rehearse. I train the agent on your website (up to 25 pages of your own domain) and your intake answers, then run it against its example calls and a few made-up ones and send you the drafts. You tell me which don't sound like you; each correction lands before it goes live.
- 05
Forward your calls, then a test. From your cell, one or two carrier codes, which I send you, forward unanswered calls to the new number. Or advertise the new number directly and skip the forwarding. Then call it from another phone, let it ring out, and read the text that arrives. That test catches the one setting that breaks it: if your cell's own voicemail answers before the call forwards, the call counts as picked up and no text goes out.
- 06
Live, in shadow mode. For the first weeks I read a copy of every text as it goes out, with the reviewer's verdict, and fix anything that sounds off before it becomes a habit. A wrong price or an off tone gets caught within minutes without slowing any reply down, and each correction becomes a house rule.
After that you get a read-only report link with this month's usage, and a portal for invoices and your card. Conversation records are kept for 90 days. If you leave, the number ports out with you.
It cannot quote a price you didn't give it.
Every draft is written by one model and checked by a second one against your configured prices, hours, terms, and links, plus a set of rules that don't involve a model at all. A draft that fails is corrected once; if it still fails, the caller gets no text and you get an alert to call them back. For this agent the fixed rule is simple: the first text must name your business and end with the opt-out line. A separate check confirms the same first text says it's automated.
Reply only
The agent may only message someone who contacted you first. For this agent that is the product, not a restriction.
STOP ends it
The carrier blocks the number on a STOP reply, and the agent stops on its own on the same keyword. No later text goes to that number.
Quiet hours
Texts send only between 8 am and 8 pm in your time zone. A call or reply after 8 pm is kept, and answered in one text when the window opens at 8 am. You hear about an after-hours voicemail right away.
No promotion
Advertising language in a reply is blocked. An answer stays an answer, never a solicitation.
Those four are enforced in code on every draft, not requested of the model. The legal footing is that a person who called you first may get a direct reply about that call. It does not cover marketing texts, which need prior written consent you collect yourself. The texting rules are described in Twilio's messaging policy, which the number operates under. Confirm the specifics for your state and trade with your own counsel.
$249 a month. No setup fee.
$249 a month, plus AI usage and phone line costs, typically $20–40 a month. The first month is the first invoice, and it covers the number, the verification filing, the training, the rehearsal, and the shadow weeks. Usage is billed monthly on top, as the terms describe. The full terms:
- Month to month, cancel any time
- 30-day cancel for any reason
- No setup fee
- Your number ports out with you
- Conversation records kept 90 days
The pricing page has what costs extra and the market range.
Do the arithmetic before you book the call.
Count last week's voicemails. Say it was eight. If one of those eight would have booked, and your average job is $300, that is $300 a week you didn't invoice, roughly $1,300 a month. At $249 a month, the agent has to recover one job a month to pay for itself. Put your own numbers in. If they don't clear that bar, skip it, and I'll say the same thing on the call.
A fit if…
- You are the one answering the phone, and the phone is also how work comes in
- Ten or more calls a month go to voicemail, and you rarely hear from those callers again
- Your callers are homeowners and individuals on cell phones, not other businesses on desk lines
- You'd rather have the answer in writing and a booking than a call you have to return at 7 pm
Skip it if…
- Someone already answers every call during working hours. There's nothing to recover.
- You miss fewer than ten calls a month. The arithmetic above won't work.
- Your callers won't book by text and need a live voice. That's a receptionist, not this.
- You want it to answer the call itself, talk to the caller, or transfer. It plays one line and takes a voicemail, nothing more.
One more honest note. This agent is new, so the proof on this page is the mechanism, not a testimonial: every control above is one I check by hand in the first weeks, when I read every text that goes out. The idea itself is settled practice: Jobber, Housecall Pro and Quo each now text missed callers in some form, inside software a lot of trade shops already run on, and the pages on each one below say when theirs is enough. If the job is bigger than the phones, several departments or software of your own, the operations audit is the right door, not this page. If you'd rather see the wording first, the templates page has the texts by trade.
A missed call is one place a lead goes cold. The rest of the chain, from catching every inquiry to knowing when a person should take over, is in how to automate lead follow-up.
