Call tracking for HVAC, plumbing and other home service companies

Where a home service company’s calls come from

HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, garage door and pest control companies have this in common on the phone: someone has a problem or a project, finds a number and calls. What differs is where they found it, and with one published number on everything, every call looks alike when it arrives.

Some of those places carry a number you print yourself:

• truck wraps, lettering and uniforms;
• yard signs, and door hangers left after a job;
• mailers, postcards and flyers;
• your website, and any other site you run;
• referral partners such as property managers, real estate agents and other trades;
• your own social media posts.

Others show a number that someone else controls, which the next section covers. A call that someone dials straight to your main office number is in neither group: it does not pass through VereTel, so the desk does not list it.

Where Google puts its own number in front of yours

If you advertise on Google, read what Google’s own help pages say about the phone number before you decide what to count where. Three of them matter here.

• Local Services Ads. Google says the number displayed on the ad “is a Google forwarding number” and that calls to it are forwarded to your business number. Its help page adds: “There is no way to choose your tracking number.” Google also says these ads are available only for certain service categories, and its United States list includes HVAC, plumbers, electricians, roofers, garage door services and pest control services. Google also says existing Local Services Ads campaigns are being moved into Google Ads as Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals, so your account may not match older guides.
• Google Ads call reporting. When it is on, Google says “a Google forwarding number is assigned to your ad,” so that it can report details such as call duration and start time. To show your own business number or use third-party call tracking instead, Google says you can turn call reporting off in your account settings, and that turning it off “prevents Google Ads from tracking calls.” The setting covers call assets, location assets and call ads together, so it is a choice about which system counts those calls.
• Your Google Business Profile. Google says that besides the primary phone number you can add up to 2 more. Its guidelines also say: “The phone number must be under the direct control of the business.” A VereTel number sits on VereTel’s carrier account, so read Google’s guidelines before you change a Profile. VereTel cannot tell you how Google will treat a tracking number there.

None of this changes what VereTel does. It logs calls to VereTel numbers, and it does not report on calls that arrive through a number another company provides. For the calls Google counts, Google’s own record is the place to look.

What a tracked call looks like in your desk

Every call to a tracking number is a row in your desk: when it started, the caller’s number, which tracking number was dialed and the label you gave it, whether it was answered or missed (where the carrier reports it), and how long it lasted. You can filter the list by date range, and to answered or missed calls only.

Crews are on roofs and under sinks, and the phone does not always get picked up. The missed filter works as a callback list: it shows who called, when, and which source they called, so you can start with the calls that came from sources you pay for. Open the desk each morning, filter to missed, and work down the list.

To judge a source, count its calls and its answered calls for a date range, then divide what you spent on it by each count. The guide to measuring cost per call walks through the method, and the ROI calculator does the arithmetic.

The desk shows the call, not the job. Whether a call became an estimate, a booking or a paid invoice stays in your own software; match it to the desk by the caller’s number and the date.

Each customer signs in to its own desk, and each customer’s calls are kept apart from other customers’ at the database level, so another customer’s desk does not show your calls. The page on data separation explains how.

A practical set-up for a home service company

Start with the sources you pay for or print. Then give each one you want to judge on its own a tracking number.

1. List your sources: each truck design or wrap, each kind of sign, each mailer, your website, and each referral partner you want to measure.
2. Label every number with its source, such as “Yard sign,” “Mailer · Spring tune-up” or “Truck wrap,” so that the desk reads like your marketing plan.
3. Point each number at a line you already answer, such as the office line or your dispatcher’s phone. Each number forwards to one line, and you choose the line for each number.
4. Print or publish each number only where it belongs, and keep a note of what it is for.
5. For your website, use website number insertion, included in every plan and set up with you. It shows a different tracked number on each site or page you register, for example one on your repair pages and another on your installation pages. It works per site and per page, never per visitor, keyword or ad.

VereTel has no schedules or phone menus, so a number rings the same line at every hour. If an answering service or an on-call phone covers nights and weekends, point the number at a line where your own phone system or that service makes the switch.

Think before you put a tracking number on something that has to last. The number sits on VereTel’s carrier account. If you cancel, you keep it until the end of the month you have paid for, and it is released 7 days after that. Bringing an existing number to VereTel is not available at launch: a number you already publish stays where it is, and tracking numbers forward to the line behind it. A mailer or a yard sign is easy to replace; a permanent truck wrap is not.

What VereTel does not do for a home service company

Also not part of VereTel today, so you can plan around it:

• text messages: VereTel does not send or receive them;
• dispatch, field-service, scheduling or accounting software: there is no connection to any of them, and there is no export;
• reports and dashboards, lead statuses and notes: the call list, with its date and answered or missed filters, is the whole record;
• keyword or ad-click attribution: a call is credited to the number dialed, so to a source, a site or a page, but not to a keyword, an ad or a visitor;
• call routing beyond one line per number: no phone menus, ring groups or schedules;
• alerts to you when a number goes quiet: VereTel monitors its own call pipeline, and those alerts go to VereTel’s team, not to you;
• outbound calls, and any AI features.

Getting started, and which plan fits

Create a free account first. It asks for your email address, not a card, and it needs no demo and no approval. It gives you a desk with sample calls (labeled as samples), a test tag for your website that only your own test link switches on, and the ROI calculator. It has no phone number, so it has no real calls: a free account is not a trial of calls.

You pay when you choose a number, and not before. Numbers are local, in an area code you choose where one is available. Toll-free numbers on Starter and up are on request: talk to us, and we will tell you what is possible. Numbers are not on sale yet. Create a free account and ask to be told when they are.

As guidance, not a promise, this is how the plans tend to match a home service company’s sources:

• Solo $19.99 (1 number, 250 minutes) suits an owner-operator who wants to learn whether one source, such as the website or a truck wrap, makes the phone ring.
• Starter $79 (3 numbers, 1,000 minutes) suits a small crew that compares a few things at once, for example the website, a mailer and yard signs.
• Growth $199 (10 numbers, 3,000 minutes) suits a company with several trades, service areas or seasonal campaigns that each deserve a number.
• Scale $399 (25 numbers, 7,500 minutes) suits a larger company with many crews or locations.

A new account can hold up to 3 numbers during its first 30 days; an order for more is held for review. After that, the full count of its plan applies. An extra number is $5 a month on Starter, Growth and Scale. Solo is one number: for more, choose a larger plan.

A minute is one started minute of a forwarded call, counted on the inbound leg: a call that lasts 2 minutes and 10 seconds uses 3 minutes. Minutes are pooled across all your numbers. To size minutes, multiply the calls you expect in a month by their average length.

Prefer to talk first? The Talk to us form is optional, and it creates no account. What each plan includes is on the pricing page.