A call answering service that books the job, not just the message.
Every call answered on the first ring, day or night, in your business name. The caller is qualified, the job is booked into the system you already use, and you get the summary. Flat monthly price, no per-call billing.
One line, one afternoon
Illustrative call log
Blocked drain, Coburg
Qualified and booked Thursday 8am
Second call, same minute
Answered in parallel, no queue
Price enquiry, no job yet
Details captured, no callback wasted
No hot water, elderly customer
Flagged urgent, transferred
Illustrative view
A call answering service answers your business calls when you cannot, so enquiries reach someone instead of voicemail. Traditional Australian answering services staff a call centre with operators who take a message and pass it on, billed per call or per minute. Chime Labs answers with an AI receptionist instead: it picks up in your business name 24 hours a day, asks the questions you would ask, books the job into your calendar (or ServiceM8, SimPRO and ServiceTitan on Pro), and live transfers genuine emergencies to a person. Chime starts free, with Essential at $99 AUD per month + GST and Pro at $399 AUD per month + GST, and no lock-in.
A message is not a booking, and the caller has already rung someone else.
The standard answering service model ends at the handover: an operator types what the caller said, emails it to you, and the job sits there until you get off the tools and ring back.
By then the customer with the blocked drain has called the next three numbers on the search results and booked whoever could give them a time.
What happens when someone rings your business number
Answered on the first ring
In your business name, in the tone you set, at any hour. No hold music, no shared operator pool, and several calls at once are all answered at once.
Qualified, not just recorded
It asks what the job is, where the site is and how urgent it is, using the questions you would ask, so you can tell a real job from a price shopper before you pick up the phone.
Booked into your system
The job is created in ServiceM8, SimPRO, ServiceTitan, AroFlo, Fergus, Acuity or Google Calendar with the address, category and notes attached. Nothing gets re-typed off a message pad.
Urgent work reaches a human
Your rules decide what is an emergency. When one comes in, the caller is live transferred to whoever is on call and the details go with them.
Spam and cold callers filtered
Robocalls and sales pitches are handled and logged rather than pushed through to your mobile in the middle of a job.
A written record of every call
Transcript, plain English summary and outcome for each call, so you can see exactly what was said and promised without listening back.
The difference is what happens after the call is answered.
Most Australian phone answering services sell pickup: an operator answers, takes a message and bills you for the minutes. Cover outside business hours is usually a surcharge, and a busy month costs more than a quiet one.
Chime sells the outcome. The booking exists in your job management system before the call ends, the price is the same in a flat week or a storm week, and 24/7 cover is in the base plan rather than bolted onto it.
Same call, two models
Illustrative comparison
Message emailed to you
Billed per call, you still ring back
After-hours surcharge
Nights and weekends cost more
Job created in ServiceM8
Address, category and notes attached
Flat monthly price
24/7 included, no per-call fee
Illustrative view
More on call answering
Pricing models, what small businesses actually need, and how the service compares to a human virtual receptionist.
Answering service for small business
What a one-van or ten-person business actually needs from call answering, and where per-call pricing quietly hurts.
Answering service for small businessCall answering service cost in Australia
Per-call, per-minute and flat-rate pricing compared, plus the fees that usually sit outside the headline rate.
See call answering service costsCall answering service vs virtual receptionist
What each term means in Australia, what a human bureau does well, and where an AI receptionist is the better fit.
Compare the two modelsAfter-hours answering service
Nights, weekends and public holidays covered in the base price, with genuine emergencies transferred to a human.
See after-hours answeringWorks with the tools you already run on
We sit on top of the system you already run. We do not replace it.
Already have people on the phones and just need the overflow covered? See Chime Overflow