Playbook
Missed-call answering for trades with Lindy
Direct answer
A Lindy phone agent can take a missed-call message for a tradesperson: name, number, address, and the job. It must not quote a price. Only buy a number if customers in the UK can dial it without an international code. This page has not been live-tested.
- Time to set up
- 1–2 hours, plus test calls
- Difficulty
- comfortable
- Monthly cost, USD
- about $50–$80 before call minutes
- Monthly cost, GBP
- about £38–£60 before call minutes
- Last tested
- Not yet tested
- Updated
- 24 October 2026
Lindy's public pages do not describe one stable small-business price. The marketing page has listed a Team seat from $49.99 a month for 5,000 credits, and phone docs describe a monthly number fee plus per-minute credits. Treat $50–$80, about £38–£60 at the planning rate, as a floor before minutes. Read Settings and Billing, and both pricing pages, before you pay.
GBP figures are a budgeting conversion at £1 = $1.33 and €1 = £0.86, rounded to the nearest pound, fixed for this edition on 24 October 2026. They are not a live rate and not a quote. Vendor list prices are usually quoted before tax.
Primary tool: Lindy
Who it is for
A tradesperson or salon owner who misses calls during the job and wants a message with a callback number, not a robot that runs the diary.
A missed-call text from a UK provider is the boring alternative, and for many trades it is the better one. The customer gets a text, replies with the job, and you ring them back. No recording, no overseas number, no per-minute agent. Use Lindy only when you have heard it handle a test call better than that text would.
Emergency calls are not a sales script. Gas, fire, a flood that is still spreading, and anyone who might be hurt are for the emergency services. Put that in the first screen of the prompt, not in an appendix.
What you need
- A mobile you can divert, or a willingness to publish a separate out-of-hours number.
- A written list of what the agent may and may not say.
- Time to place test calls from your own phone before any customer can.
Step by step
01
Write the job on paper first
The agent may collect a name, a callback number, the site address, what needs doing, and whether anyone is without water, power, or heat. It may not give a price, a start date, or a promise that you will attend today. Its first sentence must say it is an automated assistant and that the call may be recorded.
02
Check you can offer a UK number
Open Lindy's phone-number settings and look for a United Kingdom number before you pay for a seat you do not need. The docs conflict. One phone guide tells you to pick a US or Canadian area code. Older notes talk about UK per-minute rates. If the only number on offer is American, stop. A customer reporting a leak should not dial an international number. Use a UK missed-call text service instead.
03
Write the prompt as a script
Paste the allowed questions, the banned topics, and the exact sentence for when someone asks the price: you cannot price it, and someone will call them back. Tell it to read the phone number back and to spell unusual street names. Tell it to end the call when it has the facts. If the caller describes a gas smell, a spreading flood, or anyone in danger, it tells them to contact the emergency services and does not troubleshoot.
04
Place a test call before you divert
Buy the number only after the script is in. Call it from your mobile. Listen to the recording. Try to make it quote a price and book a day you are away. If it does either, change the prompt and test again. The first twenty real calls are still yours to listen to, even after the tests sound fine.
05
Divert unanswered calls, and say so
Turn on call forwarding for unanswered calls to the Lindy number, or publish that number only as the out-of-hours line on your Google Business Profile. Say on your own voicemail that an automated assistant may answer if you cannot. Do not turn divert on and disappear for a week. Divert is a phone setting, not a Lindy setting, and you should test it with a second phone.
06
Read the log every evening at first
For a fortnight, check the name, number, and address against what you would have written down. If numbers are often wrong, the prompt needs a stricter read-back. If callers hang up at the disclosure, the first sentence is too long. Keep recordings only as long as you need to check quality, write that period down, and delete them after it.
What can go wrong
An overseas number
Customers will not call it, or they will pay an international rate and blame you. No UK number means this playbook is the wrong tool. Stop before the subscription renews.
A quoted price or a fake arrival
The model wants to be helpful. Helpful, here, is a callback. Any sentence with a pound sign or a day of the week is a failed test.
Recordings kept forever
Lindy's docs say calls are recorded. A folder of old customer calls is a data store you must justify, secure, and eventually delete. A quality check is a reason. An archive is not.
UK notes
Costs, including VAT
Budget about £38–£60 a month before call minutes, using the planning rate of £1 = $1.33 on a $50–$80 floor taken from Lindy's conflicting public pages. Minutes and the number fee are extra. VAT may be added at checkout or may need reverse-charge accounting if you are VAT-registered and the supplier is overseas. Read the invoice. Do not treat the dollar price as the amount that will leave your bank.
Data flow
A call recording and a caller's name, number, and address are personal data. They are processed by Lindy as well as by you. Tell the caller, in the first sentence, that they are speaking to an automated assistant and that the call may be recorded. You need a lawful basis under UK GDPR. Do not use the line to make marketing calls. The Telephone Preference Service and PECR rules on live marketing calls are a different, stricter regime, and this setup is not a licence to ring people back with offers.
HMRC and Making Tax Digital
The subscription is usually a business cost if the line is for the trade, which is an expenses question for you or your accountant, not a promise from this page. Call answering does not keep your digital records for Making Tax Digital. If your qualifying income from self-employment and property puts you in Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, you still need compatible software for the records and the quarterly updates. A phone log is not that software.
Practical orientation for a UK reader. Not tax, legal, or accounting advice.
Test log
Status: Pending first test
24 October 2026 · pending
Pending first test. The steps were compiled from Lindy's pricing and phone documentation and have not been run on a live UK trade number.
Sources
- Lindy pricing — accessed 24 October 2026
- Lindy docs — pricing — accessed 24 October 2026
- Lindy docs — phone calls — accessed 24 October 2026
- ICO guide to PECR — accessed 24 October 2026
- ICO guide to UK GDPR — accessed 24 October 2026
Disclosure
AgentShed is independent and this playbook is not sponsored. There is no affiliate link on this page. If that changes, the link will use rel="sponsored" and a sentence beside it will say so. The verdict is not for sale.
Questions people ask
Why not just use voicemail?
Voicemail is cheaper and you already have it. People often hang up. This setup is for when you have checked that the extra cost buys a message you can actually act on. If the test calls are clumsy, keep voicemail.
Can it book the job into my calendar?
Not in this version. A trade diary has travel time, parts, and emergencies. The agent collects the facts. You decide whether the job exists.
What if Lindy's screens have moved?
They will. The stable part is the script and the rule about a UK number. If you cannot find a control this page names, use the contact form and treat the step as unverified.
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When this page is re-tested
One email when the log changes. No sequence of lessons.