Construction sector

Every plumber, electrician, and carpenter starts the same way: mobile phone number on the van, on the website, on every business card. It works — until you go on holiday and realise you never actually have a holiday. The phone keeps ringing, and you are the only one who can answer it.

A virtual business number changes everything. A toll-free or national, or local number on your van looks more professional than a mobile number — and behind it, you decide who takes the calls. Going on holiday? Route calls to your partner, a colleague, or an answering service. Hired your first employee? Add them to the team and let them start taking calls from day one.

And here is the thing that matters most: you never have to change the number. Your mobile number is personal — if you change phones, change networks, or sell the business, the number goes with it. A virtual business number stays with the business. It is on every van, every leaflet, every Google listing. It is yours to keep, no matter what changes behind it.

With CallFactory, calls to your business number are forwarded directly to your mobile phone through the carrier network — no app needed, no internet connection required. You choose where calls go, and you can change it at any time — no engineer visit, no complicated setup.

You are under a sink, up a ladder, or elbow-deep in a fuse box. The phone rings. You cannot answer. The customer hangs up, calls the next tradesperson on the list, and you have lost the job before you even knew it existed.

CallFactory solves this. Our voicebot answers the call for you, captures the caller’s name, number, and what they need — and sends you the details by text or email. You call them back during your next break, and the job is yours. No missed opportunities, no voicemail that customers cannot be bothered to leave.

You can also set up a simple phone menu: “Press 1 for a new quote, press 2 for an existing job.” New enquiries go to voicemail with a message saying you will call back within the hour. Existing customers are connected to you directly — because if there is a leak or an electrical fault, they need you now.

If you work with colleagues or subcontractors, you can take turns answering calls. On our team dashboard, each person sets their own availability. Calls are offered in the order you choose — if the first person does not answer, the next one gets it automatically.

This also opens the door to collaboration with other tradespeople. Independent contractors offering similar services in different regions can share a central number and route calls to the right person based on the caller’s area code — creating a regional network under one professional number.

Boiler repair, locksmiths, drain clearance, emergency glazing — if your business offers callout services, you need a number that works around the clock. With CallFactory, you set up time-based routing so daytime calls go to your office or reception, and out-of-hours calls go straight to whoever is on duty.

The on-call rota is managed through our team dashboard. Each engineer logs in when they start their shift and logs out when they finish. Last-minute swaps are no problem — the routing updates in real time. If the duty engineer does not pick up, the call automatically escalates to the next person in the chain. No call is ever lost.

For businesses that share an emergency line between multiple companies — for instance, several plumbing firms covering a region — we invoice each company separately for their share of the costs.

Locksmiths want to be reachable 24/7, but they are human and need sleep. The solution is to run the phone line together with other locksmiths and take turns covering nights and weekends.

With a national number they are no longer just a local locksmith. Their website ranks nationally, and suddenly calls come in from all over the country. Calls from their own area go to them directly. Calls from other areas are routed to partner locksmiths in those regions.

Here is where it gets interesting: those incoming calls from other areas are leads. The locksmith who owns the number and the website is now selling call leads to contractors in other regions. Our statistics panel shows exactly how many calls go to each contractor, so billing is transparent and fair. Everyone can see the numbers.

It is a business model that starts with a single tradesperson wanting to be reachable after hours — and grows into a national network generating revenue from every call.

Running three, five, or twenty projects at once means juggling multiple site managers, subcontractors, and suppliers — all trying to reach the right person. A single business number with a phone menu sorts this out instantly: “Press 1 for the Riverside development, press 2 for the High Street project, press 3 for head office.”

Each option routes to the site manager or project team responsible. If they are on site and cannot answer, calls fall through to voicemail or a colleague. You can add and remove projects as they start and finish — no new numbers needed, just a quick update to the menu.

Call volumes per project are visible on our dashboard, so you always know which sites are generating the most inbound traffic and can staff accordingly.

Large infrastructure projects — road widening, tunnel construction, rail works — affect thousands of residents and commuters. In the Netherlands, the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat) used our toll-free numbers during major works on the A9 motorway. Information boards along the road displayed the project timeline, a website, and a free phone number for residents to call with questions or complaints.

The same approach works for any large-scale construction project internationally: a dedicated toll-free or local number on site hoardings, printed on letters to residents, or displayed on project websites. Calls can be routed to a phone menu with recorded updates, or connected to a project information team. When the project finishes, the number is simply switched off.

Every building site generates questions from neighbours, residents, and passers-by — noise complaints, dust, parking, delivery lorries blocking the road. A dedicated number on the site hoarding gives people a way to get in touch without hunting down a foreman.

Callers hear a pre-recorded message created with our text-to-speech AI — project name, expected timeline, working hours — and can then choose to speak to someone or leave a voicemail. The contractor listens to messages from the dashboard and adds notes using our built-in notes feature, so everyone on the project team knows what each call was about and what action was taken.

Update the recorded message yourself at any time — change the completion date, add a notice about upcoming night works, or announce a road closure — without calling us. The text-to-speech engine generates a professional message in seconds.

Housebuilders and property developers often need a phone number for each development — printed on hoardings, brochures, and property portals. With CallFactory, you can activate a local number for every new development site and route calls to your sales team.

When the development sells out, simply redirect the number to head office or switch it off. No long contracts, no wasted numbers. You can also use call recording on sales lines to review how enquiries are handled and improve conversion rates.

Facilities management companies run maintenance hotlines for commercial buildings, offices, retail parks, and housing associations. Tenants call to report faults — a broken lift, a water leak, a heating failure — and expect a fast response.

CallFactory lets you set up a dedicated hotline per client or building. A phone menu triages calls by urgency: “Press 1 for an emergency, press 2 for a routine repair request.” Emergencies are routed to the on-call engineer immediately. Routine requests go to voicemail or a voicebot that captures the details and creates a ticket.

You can run dozens of these hotlines from one dashboard — each with its own welcome message, routing rules, and on-call team.

Many tradespeople use a single number for everything — new enquiries, existing jobs, suppliers, and personal calls all mixed together. With CallFactory, you can run two numbers: one for new quotes and one for existing customers.

Your quotes number can be answered by a voicebot that captures the details while you are on a job. Your customer number rings through to you directly — because when a customer has a problem with work you have done, they need to reach you, not a voicemail.

Both numbers forward to the same phone. The difference is what happens before they reach you.

Construction is full of verbal agreements — a client asks for an extra socket, a supplier confirms a delivery time, a subcontractor agrees to a price. When things go wrong, it is your word against theirs.

With call recording, every conversation is captured and stored. If a dispute arises about what was agreed, you have the evidence. Recordings can also be used for training new staff or reviewing how your team handles customer calls.

Every missed call triggers an instant SMS or email notification with the caller’s number — so even if you cannot answer while operating machinery or working at height, you know exactly who called and can ring them back.

Construction is seasonal. In summer, you might have a full team and multiple projects running. In winter, it could be just you. CallFactory scales with you — add team members and numbers when you are busy, scale back when things are quiet. You only pay for what you use.

Want to provide your customers with even more confidence? Add a second number for fault reports or a 24/7 helpline. Use voicemail to capture messages when you cannot answer. Set up time-based routing so calls go to the right person during and after working hours.

Your customers know they can rely on you — and you can rely on a phone system that works as hard as you do.

We are not a reseller — we operate our own IVR platform. When something needs changing, we change it ourselves. When a problem occurs, we can pinpoint it exactly, right down to the carrier level. If you are with a reseller, they have to phone their platform provider first, who then has to investigate, who then gets back to them, who then gets back to you. When you are on a building site waiting for an urgent callback, that chain simply does not work.

Because we all love technology — and spend our free time tinkering with computers, telephones, IVR, and AI — there are always multiple colleagues online at any given moment. If something happens, someone is already there. Our support mailbox is monitored evenings, nights, and weekends. Our team is on Slack with notifications on our mobile phones, so we stay in touch around the clock. For clients who want it, we set up a dedicated Slack channel so you can reach us instantly by message at any time.

With other providers, you need strict and expensive SLAs to get this level of attention. And when something actually happens, the SLA often turns out to be just a piece of paper — support is still not there when you need it. Our “best effort” SLA is the best you can get: motivated team members who know the platform inside out and want to help you.