ServiceM8 Integration
The AI Receptionist Built for ServiceM8 Businesses
Optiphone answers every call to your trade business in 3 seconds, 24/7, and puts the job straight into ServiceM8. Contacts sync both ways. Nothing gets booked into your diary unless you switch that on.
- Every call answered, including the ones that come in at 9pm on a Sunday
- Callers matched against your existing ServiceM8 clients, both ways
- Booking off by default, so your schedule stays yours until you say so
- Urgent calls flagged and transferred to your own on-call staff
No credit card · Live in 24 hours · No lock-in contracts
The Problem
What an AI receptionist does for a ServiceM8 business
Every call answered in 3 seconds, day or night
You already run the job side of your business properly. ServiceM8 knows your clients, your jobs and your schedule. The gap is not the software. The gap is the phone.
You are up a ladder, under a house or holding a torch in your teeth. The phone rings and you cannot get to it. By the time you can, the caller has rung the next business on the list. That is not a discipline problem. That is the job.
Optiphone answers instead. Every call, in 3 seconds, in a voice built for your trade. It is not there to replace anyone on your team. It is there so nobody has to choose between the work in front of them and the phone in their pocket.
The missed calls you never find out about
A missed call does not sit in a queue waiting for you. Most callers do not leave a message and most never ring back. The enquiry is gone before you have even seen the notification, and you have no way of knowing what it was worth.
80%
of callers sent to voicemail hang up without leaving a message
85%
of those callers never call back
62%
have already called your competitor by the time you see the missed call
After hours is when the good jobs ring
The burst pipe at 9pm. The dead switchboard on a Saturday morning. The aircon that gives up on a 40-degree afternoon. Those are the calls worth the most, and they are exactly the ones landing in voicemail while your competitors are asleep too.
Optiphone answers them, works out whether it is urgent, and either transfers the caller to your on-call number or captures the job so it is sitting in ServiceM8 in the morning. Same agent, same rules, no separate after-hours plan.
The Workflow
From phone call to ServiceM8 job: the exact sequence
This is what happens between a customer dialling your number and the job appearing in ServiceM8. Every step is configurable, and the ones that touch your diary are off until you turn them on.
- 1
The call gets answered
Your business number forwards to your Optiphone agent and it picks up in 3 seconds, 24 hours a day. Nights, weekends and public holidays included. No voicemail in the middle.
- 2
The caller gets qualified
The agent works out who is calling and what they actually want. New job or existing one, the suburb, the service they are after, and the questions your trade needs answered before anyone commits to attending.
- 3
Urgency gets assessed
The agent checks what it is hearing against the rules you set. A quote that can wait until Monday is handled one way. A hazard sitting in someone's house right now is handled another.
- 4
The caller gets matched against your ServiceM8 clients
Every caller is checked against your ServiceM8 contacts by phone or email. Repeat customers are recognised as existing clients. New callers are added as a company and a contact, so nothing has to be typed in later.
- 5
The job details get captured
Name, contact details, address and a plain description of the work, written the way you would want to read it at 6am. This is the part that used to be a scribbled note on the dash.
- 6
The booking is made, or held for your approval
Booking is off until you switch it on. Left off, the agent takes the details and tells the caller your team will confirm the time. Switched on, it books the appointment straight into ServiceM8 against the right staff member.
- 7
You get the summary
The job lands with you as a written summary: who called, the suburb, the job type, what they described and how to reach them. The full transcript and call summary sit in your dashboard.
- 8
Urgent calls get transferred to your on-call staff
When a call matches your urgent rules, the agent flags it and transfers the caller to the on-call number you nominated. You decide which situations qualify, which number they reach, and what changes after hours.
You Stay In Control
Booking stays off until you switch it on
This is the question every owner asks first, so here is the plain answer. By default the AI does not book into your diary. Not on day one, not ever, unless you switch it on.
What it looks like with booking off
The agent takes the job details and tells the caller your team will confirm the time. Nothing lands in your schedule without you. You still get the name, the number, the address, the job description and the urgency, which is everything you need to pick a time without ringing the customer back to ask what the job is.
Plenty of owners leave it that way on purpose, because they want the last word on where the van goes. That is a legitimate way to run a trade business and the product is built to respect it.
What changes when you switch it on
When you are ready, you switch on direct booking for any calendar and the AI books confirmed appointments straight into ServiceM8 against the right staff member. The job is created with the caller's name, contact details and job description attached. If the caller later cancels through the AI, the scheduled time is cleared but the job record stays, so nothing quietly disappears from your history.
Keeping your diary completely private
There is a third option people miss. Leave your ServiceM8 calendar unmapped altogether. Your contacts still sync and your jobs are still captured, but the AI never sees or writes to your schedule at all. You get the call answering and the contact sync with your diary completely out of scope.
Your Data
Two-way contact sync that will not overwrite your records
Your ServiceM8 client list is years of work. An integration that treats it as disposable is worse than no integration at all.
How a caller gets matched
Every caller the AI speaks to is matched against your ServiceM8 contacts by phone or email. Repeat callers are recognised as existing customers, so the agent is not treating a client of six years like a stranger. New callers are created as a company and a contact, ready for the job to attach to.
What happens when details clash
If a caller gives details that clash with what you already have, Optiphone holds the change for you to review instead of overwriting your record. Someone reading a number out wrong on a noisy jobsite never becomes a permanent change to your client file. Your ServiceM8 data stays the source of truth until you say otherwise.
Your ServiceM8 contacts flow back the other way
The sync runs both directions. Your existing ServiceM8 contacts flow back into Optiphone, so the agent works from your real customer list instead of slowly rebuilding what you already had.
Staff Mapping
The right job against the right person
A crew is not one diary. If the AI is going to schedule anything, it has to know whose day it is filling, so each Optiphone calendar is mapped to the ServiceM8 staff member it belongs to. When a booking comes through, the job is scheduled against that person, not dumped into a shared pile for someone to sort out later.
You can also skip mapping entirely and start with contact sync only, then map the calendars once you have seen how the agent handles your customers. Direct scheduling is available on the Tradesman plan and above.
Urgent Calls
Urgent calls get flagged and transferred on your rules
Trade calls are not all the same size. A quote enquiry can wait until Monday. A hazard in someone's house cannot. The agent works out which one it is hearing and acts on the rules you wrote.
The kind of call that gets flagged as urgent
- A hazard the caller describes as happening right now
- No power, no water, or no hot water at an occupied property
- Storm or flood damage that cannot wait until the morning
- A vulnerable customer who needs someone on site tonight
- A repeat fault on a job you have already attended
When a call matches those rules, Optiphone flags it as urgent and transfers the caller to your on-call number. You write the rules. Which situations count as urgent, which number they go to, what changes after hours and on weekends, and what the AI says while it is putting the caller through. Configurable escalation is standard, not an add-on.
Everything else gets captured properly and lands with you as a message. No voicemail. No hang-ups. No 6am scroll through missed calls trying to work out which one was the real job.
One thing your AI receptionist will never do is give repair advice. If a caller describes a genuine threat to life, smoke, fire, or someone who has had a shock, it tells them to hang up and call 000 straight away. That line is not negotiable and it is not configurable.
Done For You
We build it. You do not sit there configuring it.
You did not buy ServiceM8 so you could spend your Sundays configuring software, and this is not another platform handing you a blank screen and a help centre. The Tradesman plan includes a one-time $1,495 tailored setup, and that is us doing the build.
- We build the agent for your trade, service area, pricing and qualifying questions. It is not a template you fill in yourself.
- We connect ServiceM8 with you, map each calendar to the right staff member, and set your booking and escalation rules.
- Monthly call-quality evaluation and agent tuning are included, so the agent gets better at your business over time.
- Same-day change requests. If a price changes or you stop servicing a suburb, you tell us and it is done.
The connection uses secure sign-in from inside your ServiceM8 account, so no passwords are ever shared and you can disconnect at any time. Most businesses are live within 24 hours, with no lock-in contract afterwards.
Who It Is For
Built for the trades that run on ServiceM8
The scripts are not generic. They come from a family that has run a home-services business for over 20 years, so the agent knows a routine service call from a callout that needs someone tonight.
Electricians
Switchboard faults, sparking outlets and storm damage triaged against your rules, with quote enquiries captured properly instead of going to voicemail.
Plumbers
Burst pipes and blocked drains sorted from the routine hot water quote, with the job in ServiceM8 before you have wiped your hands.
HVAC technicians
The 40-degree day when every phone in town rings at once. Every caller answered, qualified and captured, not queued.
Landscapers
Quote enquiries and site visits captured with the address and scope attached, so you are not calling back to ask what the job is.
Pool technicians
Green pool, pump failure or a chemical issue, triaged and logged against the right client record.
Pricing
What it costs, in full
Solo
For the sole operator who wants a professional answer on every call. Includes 150 minutes a month and a pre-built template agent. The ServiceM8 integration is not included on this plan.
Tradesman
+ $1,495 one-time tailored setup
The ServiceM8 plan. Includes 400 minutes a month, ServiceM8, Xero and calendar sync, a tailored agent built for your trade, monthly call-quality evaluation and agent tuning, same-day change requests, the Optiphone mobile app and direct line support.
The $1,495 setup covers the build, the onboarding and the training period. The monthly retainer covers your included minutes plus ongoing tuning and same-day edits. Enterprise pricing is custom, for crews and multi-location operations that need custom booking and escalation flows or API access.
All plans include unlimited transcripts and owner approvals. Cancel any time. Average go-live in 24 hours.
Common Questions
ServiceM8 integration questions, answered
Does Optiphone connect to ServiceM8 directly?
Yes. It is a native, two-way connection to your ServiceM8 account, not a manual export, a spreadsheet or a generic webhook. You authorise Optiphone from inside ServiceM8 using secure sign-in, so no passwords are ever shared, and you can disconnect at any time.
Will the AI book jobs into my ServiceM8 diary without asking me?
No. Booking is off by default. Left off, the agent takes the job details and tells the caller your team will confirm the time, so nothing lands in your schedule without you. Plenty of owners run it that way on purpose. You still get everything you need to pick a time without ringing the customer back.
What happens when a customer who is already in ServiceM8 calls?
They are matched to their existing ServiceM8 record by phone or email, so the agent treats them as the customer you already have rather than creating a duplicate. New callers are added as a company and a contact instead.
What if the caller's details do not match what is in ServiceM8?
Optiphone holds the change for you to review instead of overwriting your record. Your ServiceM8 data stays the source of truth until you say otherwise.
Can I keep my ServiceM8 schedule private and still use the integration?
Yes. Leave your ServiceM8 calendar unmapped. Your contacts still sync both ways and jobs are still captured, but the AI never sees or writes to your schedule at all.
What actually gets created in ServiceM8 when a job comes through?
With direct booking switched on, the booking creates a job in ServiceM8 and schedules it against the mapped staff member, with the caller's name, contact details and job description attached. That is the same information you would have written down yourself, entered without you touching a keyboard.
What happens if a customer cancels through the AI?
The scheduled time is cleared but the job record stays in ServiceM8, so nothing quietly disappears from your history. You keep the record of the enquiry and what was said.
Which plan do I need for the ServiceM8 integration?
ServiceM8, Xero and calendar sync sit on the Tradesman plan, which is $349 per month plus a one-time $1,495 tailored setup. Direct scheduling into your diary is available on Tradesman and above. Solo is $99 per month and uses a pre-built template agent for call answering without the integrations.
How long does it take to connect ServiceM8?
The connection itself takes a couple of minutes. You authorise Optiphone from inside ServiceM8, then each Optiphone calendar is mapped to the staff member it belongs to, or mapping is skipped to start with contact sync only. We do this with you as part of your setup, and most businesses are live within 24 hours.
Want the technical detail? Read the full ServiceM8 integration guide in our help docs, or see what every Optiphone integration does.
Hear it answer a call about your own business
Two minutes, no credit card. Put in your website, we build you a demo agent that knows your trade, then you ring it and hear what your customers would hear.