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The water damage call script we built Riley on.
This is the actual intake sequence our AI receptionist runs on live emergency calls — every question, in order, with the branch logic. Take it, print it, tape it by the phone, hand it to whoever answers next. It works the same whether a person or a machine is holding it.
Most restoration shops lose the 2 a.m. job before anyone quotes anything. The homeowner standing in water doesn't leave a voicemail — they hang up and dial the next company. But a call that gets answered and handled badly loses the job too: the person on the phone takes a name and a number, promises someone will call, and the crew arrives blind to whether it's a clean supply line or a category-3 sewage backup.
The difference between a message and a lead is the order of the questions. Here is the whole thing.
The first 20 seconds
Two rules govern the opening. Say who you are, and get a number you can call back on before anything else — because emergency callers hang up. A panicked homeowner who drops the call after ninety seconds of triage is a total loss if you never got their number.
“Thanks for calling [Company] — this is [Name]. Are you dealing with water coming in right now?”
“Before we go further — what's the best number to reach you if we get cut off?” (Read it back, digit by digit.)
Reading the number back is not a formality. It's the single highest-value thing said on the call, and phone audio mangles digits constantly.
Question 1 — Is it still running?
“Is water still coming in right now, or has it stopped?”
Still running → this is a dispatch-now call. Say once, and only once: “If it's safe to get to, shutting the water off at the main will stop more damage.”
Stopped or contained → still urgent, but the clock is about drying time, not flow. Don't downgrade it in your head — hidden water behind walls does the expensive damage.
Resist the urge to give plumbing instructions. You're on the phone, you can't see the situation, and a wrong instruction is your liability.
Question 2 — Where is it coming from?
“Do you know where it's coming from?”
- Supply line or burst pipe — clean water, fastest-moving, usually the best-case category.
- Appliance (washer, dishwasher, water heater) — often grey water, and often under a finished floor.
- Toilet, sewer, or drain backup — treat as category 3 until proven otherwise. See the caution below.
- Roof or storm — may need tarping before mitigation, and may involve a different crew.
- Groundwater or sump failure — often recurring; ask whether it's happened before.
- “I don't know” — perfectly common. Move on; the crew will find it.
Question 3 — What does the water look like?
This is the category question, asked in language a homeowner can actually answer. Never say “is this category one, two or three” to a person standing in their basement.
“Is the water clear, or is it cloudy or dark?”
Clear → likely Category 1. Clean supply water.
Cloudy, soapy, or from an appliance → likely Category 2. Grey water.
Dark, or it smells, or it's from a toilet or drain → treat as Category 3. Biohazard handling, and the caution below is mandatory.
Category 3 caution — say this every time: “Until the team gets there, avoid contact with the water, keep kids and pets out of the area, and try not to run water or flush into the affected drains.” Nothing more technical than that.
Question 4 — Safety before property
Property damage is never an emergency-services call. Danger to people is. Keep those separate and you'll never misfire.
Ask about: water near outlets, near the breaker panel, or coming through ceiling light fixtures; a visibly sagging ceiling; slick floors and anyone unsteady in the house.
If someone is actually in danger — hurt, a gas smell, an active fire — say calmly: “If anyone's in immediate danger, please call 911 right away.” Then stay on and finish taking the details. Don't use 911 as a way to end a call.
Never tell someone to call 911 for property damage alone. It reads as panic, it wastes an emergency line, and it loses you the job.
Question 5 — What's actually affected
This is what sizes the truck. Ask it as separate questions — stacking them gets you one vague answer instead of three useful ones.
“About how deep is the water — just damp, or inches across the floor?”
“How many rooms or areas is it affecting?”
“How long has this been going on?”
Also worth knowing: flooring type (carpet, hardwood, tile, concrete), whether the space is finished or unfinished, and whether anything valuable is sitting in the water right now. Active + spreading + deep + sewage is your highest-priority combination.
Question 6 — Property and insurance
“Is this a home or a business?”
If it's a home and they rent, note that the landlord may need to authorise the work — the tenant is your caller, but not always your customer. If it's commercial, ask who can approve work on site.
“Are you planning to file an insurance claim?” (Wait. Only if yes:) “Do you know your carrier?”
Keep this light. An unsure homeowner is normal, and pushing on insurance in the first two minutes of a flood makes you sound like you're sizing up a payout instead of helping.
The close — what you promise, and what you never do
“Got it, [name]. I'm sending this to our on-call team now and someone will call you back at [number] within about [15] minutes. If the water's still going and it's safe to reach, shutting it off at the main will help. Hang tight.”
Confirm the callback number a second time here. Yes, again.
Two things never to say on an intake call: a price, and an arrival time. A number said on the phone becomes the number the customer holds you to, and an arrival window given before anyone has seen a schedule is a promise you'll break in traffic. “The team will confirm timing when they call you back” costs you nothing and protects the job.
Why the order matters more than the questions
Most published intake scripts are a list of fields. This one is a sequence, and the sequence is doing three jobs at once: it gets a callback number early enough to survive a hang-up, it establishes category before anyone is dispatched, and it separates danger-to-people from damage-to-property so the 911 decision is never a judgment call made under pressure.
You can run it with a person. We built it into software because at 2 a.m. there usually isn't one.
Want to hear it run?
Call the demo line and act out a flooded basement. Ninety seconds, no signup, no email — you'll hear every question above in order.
Related: 24/7 answering service for restoration companies · what missed calls actually cost you · how this compares to a traditional answering service