An answering service takes a message. We take the job.
Both of them stop your phone ringing out. Only one of them means you don't have to ring anybody back. Here is the difference, including the bits where an answering service is the better call.
The gap isn't answering. It's the callback.
An answering service ends with a note in your inbox saying Sharon called about a hedge. You still have to ring Sharon. By the time you climb off the mower and do that, Sharon has spoken to two other blokes. The message was never the bottleneck.
Four ways to handle an enquiry
| What it does | Cushy | Answering service | Website chatbot | You, on the tools |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Replies in under 60 seconds | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Answers at 6am on a Sunday | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Works out what the job actually is | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Knows a retaining wall from a hedge trim | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Books it straight into your calendar | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Catches the enquiry that came from Facebook | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Sounds like you, not a call centre | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Chases the quote afterwards | Yes | No | No | No |
| Works while you're behind a mower | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Costs you | $990/mo | $400 to $1,500/mo | $50 to $300/mo | A job a month |
Answering service pricing is a range because most charge per call or per minute on top of a base plan. Chatbot pricing assumes a standard website widget, not a custom build.
Where an answering service is the better choice
There are three situations where we would tell you to go and use one instead. We would rather say so here than three months into a subscription.
Some customers ring because they want to talk to a person, and an answering service gives them one. Cushy replies by text. If your customers overwhelmingly want a live voice and will not accept anything else, an answering service is the better fit and we would tell you that on the call.
Answering services can put a caller through to you mid-call. Cushy does not do warm transfers. It captures the job and books the visit instead.
If most of your enquiries are people in trouble right now, a human answering point that can triage and dispatch is worth paying for. Cushy escalates urgent enquiries to you, but it does not dispatch.
They're not far apart on price
A typical Australian answering service runs $400 to $1,500 a month once you account for per-call charges, and the busier you get the more it costs. Cushy is $990 flat up to 50 enquiries a month, $1,690 above that, and there is no contract on either tier. The full pricing is here.
So the question isn't really cost. It's whether you want a message or a booking.
Common questions
An answering service takes a message and passes it on, so you still have to ring the person back. Cushy has the conversation instead: it works out what the job is, whereabouts it is and when suits, then puts the booking in your calendar with the details attached. You do not ring anyone back.
No. A website chatbot only catches people who are already on your site with the widget open. Cushy covers missed calls, web forms, Facebook and Google enquiries, and it replies by text to the person's own phone, which is where tradie conversations actually happen.
Typically $400 to $1,500 a month depending on call volume and whether you are paying per call or on a plan. Cushy is $990 a month flat up to 50 enquiries, then $1,690 above that, with no contract.
You can, and a few businesses do: the answering service handles live voice during business hours and Cushy covers everything after hours and every enquiry that arrives in writing. It is usually more than most businesses need.
Most do not. They take a message and send it to you, and the booking still depends on you calling back. That callback gap is where the job is usually lost, because the customer has already heard from someone else.
It says so rather than guessing, holds the conversation open, and alerts you. An answering service does the same thing by taking a message, the difference is that Cushy has usually already captured the job details by that point.
Stop ringing people back.
Twenty minutes on a call. We'll time how long your enquiries actually sit, show you what we'd build, and you'll know by the end whether it's worth doing.