The phone keeps ringing. You can't always pick up.
A storm rolls through at 11pm and the phones light up. By morning, three of those callers have booked with whoever answered. In tree care, answering first often wins the job, but you have crews to run, climbs to do, and a life outside work. The ArborDash AI Phone Assistant is a voice agent built into your dashboard. It knows your hours, holiday closures, service towns, and services, and it turns a phone call into a lead or a free-quote job your office can schedule in the morning.
It works from your own records. When a returning customer calls, it matches their number to your QuickBooks customer list, greets them by first name, and already has the addresses on file. If they ask about a visit, it reads their upcoming or past jobs in ArborDash, with the services on each. With a new caller, it collects name, callback number, email, service address, and the work they want quoted, and it asks built-in intake questions for the services you offer (removal, stump grinding, pruning, and plant health), such as how many trees, how big, and what's near them. A returning customer's request becomes a free-quote job flagged for follow-up; a new caller becomes a lead with their answers in the notes. Every AI call is recorded, transcribed, and summarized on your Phone page.
You decide when it answers: always, during business hours, after hours, or only when nobody on your team picks up within about 18 seconds. You also decide what it promises. By default it never offers a specific day; it tells the caller the office will call back within one business day to schedule. If you keep set quote windows, it can offer times inside them instead, and your office confirms the exact time. Callers hear your company name, not ArborDash, and a caller who asks for a person is transferred to the number you set. The same assistant can also answer text and voice chats from a widget on your website.
Your ArborDash plan includes 60 minutes per month of AI receptionist time. Past that you pay by the minute, typically $0.10–$0.15 per minute depending on the voice and AI model you choose. The assistant settings show an estimated per-minute cost for each combination, plus your actual average over the last 30 days. Overage is billed monthly with your subscription, and you can set a monthly minute cap that emails you when usage passes it. There is no setup fee for the assistant and no extra charge for the tools it uses.
What it can do on a call
- Take a free-quote request — collects the address and the work needed, asks built-in intake questions for that service, and creates a lead or a free-quote job
- Capture a new lead — name, phone, email, service interest, urgency, and notes
- Recognize returning customers — matches the caller's number to your QuickBooks customers and greets them by name
- Answer questions about scheduled work — reads the caller's upcoming and past jobs, with the services on each
- Answer company questions — hours, holiday closures, service towns, and the services you offer
- Make small account changes — fixes an email, phone, or address in QuickBooks and ArborDash, adds a property, or takes a service off an upcoming visit
- Transfer to a person — forwards the call to the number you set, straight through or announced first
- Log the call — recording, transcript, and AI summary on your Phone page
How It Works
- Connect a number. Pick a new number in ArborDash, or forward your existing business line to it with your carrier. Then choose when the AI answers: always, business hours, after hours, or only when no one on your team picks up.
- Set up the assistant. Pick a voice and an AI model, start from a tree-care script (front desk, after hours, free-quote booking, or storm emergencies) and edit it, and turn each tool on or off. It uses your company name, business hours, and holiday closures from Settings.
- Let it answer. The AI talks with the caller and uses its tools to look up the customer, take a free-quote request, or capture a lead in your dashboard.
- Review & refine. Every call appears on your Phone page with the recording, transcript, and summary, and new leads and free-quote jobs appear in Leads and Jobs. Adjust the script as you learn what your callers ask.
Built into the dashboard your team already uses
An outside answering service takes a message and leaves your office to retype it. ArborDash's assistant works from the same customers, jobs, and service list your team uses, so a call ends with a lead or free-quote job already in the system and the caller's answers in its notes. Turn on the AI Free Quote Booked automation and your team gets a notification each time it books one.