Chicago · answering service · restoration
A 24/7 answering service for Chicago restoration companies.
In the biggest restoration market in the Midwest, an unanswered ring is a gift to your competition. Riley picks up in your company's name at any hour, works the call like a dispatcher, and puts the triaged lead — recording and transcript attached — in your inbox before the caller can dial the next name on the list.
Call the demo line and play a Portage Park homeowner with a burst pipe. You'll know in 90 seconds.
In this market, second to answer is last
Chicago has more restoration companies competing for the same emergency than any metro around it. When a deep-freeze January night splits a supply line in a Bungalow Belt basement, or a summer downpour sends sewer water back up the floor drains of a Berwyn two-flat, that homeowner is standing in the mess with a phone in hand — and a full page of search results. They don't leave voicemails. They dial down the list until somebody answers, and the company that picks up at 2am is usually the company that gets the job.
The cruel part is timing: the calls surge exactly when you can't take them. The same cold snap that bursts one pipe bursts hundreds; the same storm that floods one basement floods a suburb. Your crews are pumping out the first job while the next three callers ring through to voicemail — and then to a competitor.
What Riley does on every call
- Answers 24/7 in your company's name — overnight, weekends, holiday freezes, and overflow during storm surges
- Runs a real dispatcher's intake: where the water's coming from, still flowing or stopped, category of loss (sewage backup flagged as the biohazard it is), residential or commercial, and how bad it is in the caller's own words
- Gets the caller's name and callback number, and reads them back to confirm
- Sends you the lead in seconds — recording and full transcript included — so you can call back knowing exactly what you're walking into
- Stays inside guardrails: never quotes pricing, never promises an ETA, and when a caller wants a human, takes their number so a real team member calls them back
Pricing is one flat number: $299/month, unlimited calls, no per-lead or per-minute fees, no contract. Want to see what the missed ones are costing you now? The calculator takes two minutes.
Serving Chicagoland: Chicago · Evanston · Oak Park · Cicero · Berwyn · Skokie · Naperville · Aurora · Joliet · Elgin · Schaumburg · Arlington Heights · Des Plaines · Orland Park · and the collar counties. (You define the service area — Riley answers wherever your customers call from.)
Common questions
Do you need a Chicago office to answer my line?
No — and we don't have one. The service is a phone line, not a branch: you forward your existing number, keep it, and Riley answers the same second whether the caller is in Beverly or Barrington. What a national call center won't give you is a product built for this one trade, and a founder who picks up his own phone.
Will an AI answering my line put callers off?
The comparison isn't Riley versus your best intake person at 2pm — it's Riley versus your voicemail at 2am. Riley answers instantly, asks the questions a dispatcher would, and never sounds bored or rushed. Callers who want a human are told plainly that a real team member will call them back — and Riley takes the number that makes it happen. Call the demo line yourself and judge it as a customer would.
Does it actually understand restoration work?
It does nothing else. Riley knows the difference between a supply-line break and a sewer backup, asks whether the water is still flowing, flags Category 3 losses, and separates the frantic homeowner from the property manager with twelve units. It was built on a real water-damage intake script — which we give away free.
How long does setup take, and do I need a new number?
You keep your number. Forwarding your line takes minutes — after-hours only, on busy/no-answer, or 24/7, whichever fits how you run. Nothing to install, no hardware, and you can turn it off anytime.
What does it cost?
$299/month flat, unlimited calls, no per-lead or per-minute fees, month-to-month.
Race your competition to the demo line.
Act out the sewer backup, the burst pipe, the kitchen fire — and time how fast the lead lands. That's the speed your callers get.
Sevby answers for restoration companies across the Midwest — Milwaukee & the North Shore · Madison & Dane County · Green Bay & the Fox Valley · Metro Detroit · Minneapolis & St. Paul · Grand Rapids & West Michigan · full overview. Riley answers wherever your customers call from; you define the service area.
Free for anyone in the trade: the water damage call script we built Riley on — printable, no email required.