Message taking service: the message you can actually act on

"John called. Wants a callback."

That message costs you a phone call to find out what John wants, another to get the information you should already have had, and a third to actually do the thing. Three calls to replace one, because nobody asked the second question while John was still on the line.

The value of a message is decided in the twenty seconds after the caller states their business. Either someone asks what you would have asked, or the message is just a notification that something happened.

Every one includes the caller’s name and number read back and confirmed, the company they’re calling from where relevant, what they want in their own words, the answers to your qualifying questions, and the urgency flag by your definition. Plus the time, the language of the call and who handled it.

Your questions are the part that makes it yours. A property manager needs the unit number and whether water is currently running. A law firm needs the other party’s name so a conflict check can happen before anyone calls back. A contractor needs the job address. We ask them because you told us to.

Email, SMS, or both — and it can differ per person on your team, so the owner doesn’t get every message and the coordinator does. Routing rules can send different message types to different people: bookings to the front desk, complaints to a manager, emergencies straight to the phone.

Everything is also in the portal, searchable by name, number or date, with your own notes attached. How the portal works.

Message taking is the floor, not the ceiling. If the message you keep getting is "wants to book an appointment," we should be booking it during the call instead. If it’s "says it’s an emergency," you want escalation rules, not a message.

All of it is the same price, because one answered call = one billable call, whatever we do on it. There’s no reason to buy the smaller version.