It’s twenty to eleven and you’re on your back in a kitchen cupboard with a torch in your teeth. The phone goes in your pocket. Normally that’s the moment you either crawl out and lose ten minutes, or let it ring and wonder all afternoon who it was. This is a walk through one day with Datify answering that call and doing the admin around it. The day, the customers and the addresses are made up for illustration. What Datify does in it is real, and at the end we say plainly which parts are still in pilot.
10:40, under a boiler
You let it ring. Datify’s receptionist answers in your business name and does what you’d do with a minute to spare. It takes the caller’s name, number and address, what the problem is, how urgent it is and when suits them. It doesn’t diagnose anything or give safety advice over the phone. That stays with you.
The job is a boiler service, the postcode is on your list, and Tuesday morning is free in your connected calendar. Those are all things you’ve told it it can book on its own, so it books it. It checks the diary as it stands right then, and if the slot had gone or it couldn’t read the calendar, it would ask you instead. A couple of minutes later, this is waiting when you come out.
That second call is the point. Anything that doesn’t fit what you’ve set comes to you, with everything the caller said. Datify doesn’t ring customers back on its own. You decide who calls back and when. Your rules are the whole game here, which is why we wrote write your rules first. And if a call matches what you’ve called an emergency, the alert comes straight away rather than when Datify gets round to it.
Lunch in the van: the quote
You ring Mr Hill, sort the access out with him, and while you’re eating you remember the quote you promised someone yesterday. You type it like you’d text a mate in the office.
Datify finds the customer and the property, uses the prices and quote terms you saved during setup, and asks for anything missing one question at a time. The quote goes to Jack only after you’ve approved it. You can set a rule that lets certain quotes go straight out, such as a standard annual service at your set price, but a boiler replacement isn’t one most people would loosen. More on that in trust is a dial. If Jack goes quiet afterwards, quote, then silence covers what to do about it.
Afternoon: the job and the paperwork
Your afternoon job is a landlord gas safety check. When you’re done you sit in the van and send a voice note with the appliances, your readings and what you found, the same way you’d talk it through to a colleague.
Datify starts a draft gas safety record. It fills in the admin it already knows: the landlord or managing company, the property, the tenant, the date and your business details. Then it writes up the readings and findings you gave it. It doesn’t guess anything you didn’t say, it never decides whether an appliance is safe, and the record stays a draft until you’ve checked every technical field and signed it. Datify never signs or issues it. We explain why in why you sign the paperwork.
Then the morning job gets closed off. “Mark the Elm Road service complete and add that the pressure relief valve needs replacing.” If you use ServiceM8, Datify finds the job, makes the change and checks it went through before saying it’s done. If it isn’t sure which job you mean, it asks. If the change fails, it tells you and leaves the job as it was. Then: “Invoice Mrs Patel for this morning.” It fills in the customer, the job and the agreed labour and parts, and asks you for anything it doesn’t have, like an amount or a VAT detail.
It never tells you something is done until the connected tool has confirmed it. If something fails, it says so.
Evening: the summary
Urgent things came through during the day as they happened. Everything else waits for the daily summary, at whatever time you’ve asked for it. In this made-up day it lands at six.
That’s the evening admin, as a list. You check the record properly at the table, sign it and send it yourself. You give it the parts total for the invoice. If you want to know where the money stands, you ask “who still owes me?” and the answer comes from Xero, which stays your record of the accounts. Not having to piece the day back together is most of what saves the time. We wrote about where the admin hours go if you want to count your own.
What’s live, what’s in pilot, and setup
Datify is working with a first group of trade businesses, and we set each one up by hand. Here’s where each piece of the day above stands.
Nothing in that list is switched on until it has passed a test on your own business. Until your number has taken a real test call, your calls carry on reaching you as normal. A connection that isn’t ready shows as not set up rather than being left half-working. Google Calendar is the only calendar and ServiceM8 the only job software Datify connects to today. If you use something else, tell us.
Setup is a call with us. We can read your website for a head start on your services and hours, then go through what it can’t tell us: the work you do and don’t, your area and hours, your prices, how emergencies are handled, what Datify can book on its own and which messages can go to customers without asking you. Then we test it together: a real call to your number, a test quote to your WhatsApp, and checks that your calendar, Xero and job software are read correctly. Use a WhatsApp number you keep for the business, not the one with the family chat on it. The setup guide has the detail.
Price: a 14-day free trial, then £37 a month. We aim to get your calls, WhatsApp and main tools set up early in the trial so you see it handle real work. The latest is in the pricing section.
If you’d like to see your own day run this way, book a demo. Bring the admin you most want gone, and we’ll show you how Datify would handle it and where your approval stays.
An illustrative day: Datify answers the call you can’t take, books it if it fits your rules and passes it to you if it doesn’t, drafts the quote you approve from the van, writes up the gas safety record for you to check and sign, and sends you one summary in the evening. Calls, messages, ServiceM8 and paperwork are set up and tested with each pilot business before they go live. 14-day free trial, then £37 a month.
Writes about what actually happens when you put an AI in charge of real business operations — including the parts that go wrong.