A service call is $189–$400. A panel upgrade is $2,500–$5,000. A whole-home rewire is $8,000–$20,000. Every one of those jobs starts with a phone call, and every call that goes unanswered can walk to the next contractor on Google.

Quick answer: An AI receptionist for electricians answers the phone when you can't, sorts homeowners, general contractors and property managers, captures the symptom and address, books service calls into your calendar, and forwards arcing, burning-smell or sparking emergencies to your on-call tech with the caller still on the line. Columa does this around the clock, including evenings and Saturdays.

Columa is the AI Receptionist built for electricians. Olive picks up, qualifies the lead, identifies whether you're talking to a homeowner with a service call, a general contractor calling about a new build, or a property manager with a multi-unit issue, and books the appointment in real time.

Why electricians lose more revenue to missed calls than they realize

1. Mid-afternoon homeowner discovery. Someone notices flickering lights, a tripped breaker, or a hot outlet. They Google "electrician near me" at 2 p.m. and call the first three results.
2. The 5 p.m. cliff. Office staff goes home. Calls roll to voicemail, and a caller with a dead circuit rarely waits for a callback before trying someone else.
3. Saturday morning urgency. Half-finished DIY projects, power outages, GFCI issues. If you don't have weekend coverage, you're handing away your best-margin work.

None of these calls are hard to win. They just need someone to pick up.

What Columa does for an electrical contractor

• Triages by job type. Service call vs. quote request vs. emergency vs. commercial.
• Captures the right context. For service calls: symptom, address, panel age, service entry size, whether it's tripping or arcing.
• Books service calls in real time. Appointments go onto your schedule, with routing rules by tech, ZIP, or service type.
• Routes electrical emergencies. Arcing outlet, burning smell, sparks, power-line-down calls — forwarded to your on-call tech with the customer still on the line.
• Pushes everything to Columa’s built-in CRM — with native HubSpot sync if that’s where you work. Dispatch-platform integrations (Service Titan, FieldEdge, Housecall Pro, Jobber, Workiz) are on the roadmap.

Run the math on your own shop

We won't hand you someone else's averages. Your call log already has the numbers that matter, and the calculation takes five minutes.

1. Pull last month's inbound call count from your phone system.
2. Count how many of those calls went unanswered or to voicemail.
3. Estimate how many of those missed callers would have booked if someone had picked up.
4. Multiply that number by your average service ticket.
5. Compare the result with the plan price on our pricing page.

If the missed-call figure in step two surprises you, that is the case for answering every call.

What electricians ask before signing up

Can Olive talk shop? During onboarding we train her on the brands you install (Square D, Eaton, Siemens, GE), the panel sizes you service, the EV charger lines you carry.

What about commercial calls? Olive can route commercial vs. residential to different intake flows.

Can it qualify GCs vs. homeowners? Yes.

Go live today

Pick a plan and go live today — no sales call required.

Related reading: AI Receptionist for Plumbers · AI Receptionist for HVAC · AI Receptionist Pricing · The Real Cost of Missed Calls

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Olive do when a caller reports sparks or a burning smell?

She treats it as an emergency, not a booking. Arcing outlets, burning smells, sparks and power-line-down calls are forwarded to your on-call tech with the customer still on the line, so your tech hears the problem first-hand. The caller's address and symptom still land in Columa's built-in CRM, so the job record exists before anyone writes a thing down.

Does Columa connect to ServiceTitan, Jobber or Housecall Pro?

Not yet. Dispatch-platform integrations with Service Titan, FieldEdge, Housecall Pro, Jobber and Workiz are on the roadmap. Today, Olive books appointments with routing rules by tech, ZIP or service type, and every call is pushed to Columa's built-in CRM, with native HubSpot sync if your shop already runs on HubSpot. If your dispatch board lives somewhere else, plan for that gap before you switch.

Will it answer after 5 p.m. and on Saturday mornings?

Yes. Those are the hours it's built for. When the office goes home, calls don't roll to voicemail. Olive picks up, works out whether it's a service call, a quote request, an emergency or a commercial job, and books it or routes it the same way she would at 10 a.m. Your routing rules decide which tech gets the evening and weekend work.

What if someone hangs up before Olive answers?

For the calls that don't connect, Columa includes missed-call text back and lead capture, so the caller gets a reply and the lead is saved instead of disappearing into your call log. Our breakdown of missed-call text back covers how that piece fits alongside the receptionist.

How do I set it up for my shop?

Pick a plan and go live; no sales call is required. During onboarding you tell Olive the brands you install, the panel sizes you service and the EV charger lines you carry, then set routing rules for commercial versus residential calls and for which tech covers which ZIP. Our step-by-step setup guide walks through each part.

Is an AI receptionist a better fit than a live answering service?

A live service puts a trained person on the phone. Columa answers around the clock, books appointments directly and forwards emergencies to your on-call tech. Which wins depends on how much of your volume is routine booking versus calls that need a human's judgment. We lay out both sides in AI receptionist vs live answering, or See Columa in action.