The Client Desk Build Standard

Done for you: Front Desk

1. What this standard covers

A builder or a trade with a job system, a phone number and a schedule that moves. Two jobs, both done in business hours:

• ✓Answering the phone in the day. Most callers already have a job: they want to know when the tradesperson is coming, or they want a person. Some are new work.
• ✓Keeping customers told. Running late, on the way, all done, sent when the job system says it happened, and only then.

What it does not cover. Calls after hours are Booked After Hours, and new work taken in the day is written by that standard’s rules. The quote, the invoice and the chase are the Cash Seam. Moving the arrival time is the Dispatch Board’s; this standard tells the customer once it has moved. For the whole role on one record, read Virtual Admin.

What cannot meet it. A job system the desk cannot read while the caller waits. Tradify is the common case: with no API, the desk cannot look the caller up or read the arrival time, so the honest answer on every status call would be a callback. A business on Tradify can still take the transfer and callback half. The standard says so rather than pretending the desk can see a job it cannot.

2. The records it keeps, in the shape your developer needs

Nothing here is a new table. The job, its arrival time, its contact and its notes are already in the job system. The roster is a short list the business keeps. The desk adds notes, callbacks and messages to records that already exist.

Job                               # the job system's record
  - id (issued by the job system)
  - customer, phone, status (open | complete)
  - eta                            # the arrival time, as the business writes it, or null
  - contact { phone, consent }     # who gets messages, and whether they agreed
  - notes[] { ref, text, at }      # every call and every message, by call or event id

New job (from a daytime call)     # written by Booked After Hours' rules
  - verbatim                       # the caller's own words
  - type (emergency | routine | quote | unclassified)

Roster                            # the business's own
  - on_duty                        # who takes a transfer and owns a callback
  - callback_within_minutes

Callback                          # a task on the job, never a chat reminder
  - job_id (or the caller's number when no job was written)
  - owner (from the roster), due_by, reason

Update                            # a message, not a record of its own
  - job_id, to (the job's contact), kind (late | on_the_way | complete)
  - eta (from the job, read after the change)
  - trigger (the schedule event that woke it)

A time in a message that is not the job's eta, a message whose trigger is not a schedule change, and a callback with no owner are the three defects this schema makes visible.

3. The checks, in order

The order is the claim. Disclosure comes first because it is first on the call. The lookup comes before new work because, in the day, the caller usually already has a job. The status answer and the transfer come before the messages because a customer who was told the truth on the phone is the one who does not need to ring again. Writing back comes last because it is what makes the next person’s answer right.

1. Disclosure first, on every daytime call. AI identification and the recording notice come before the first question, on every call the desk answers, the same as after hours. A caller who already has a job is told too.
2. The caller is looked up before anything is written, and an existing job is worked on, not duplicated. Before writing anything, the build reads for an open job on the caller's number. A caller with an open job is handled on that job: what they said is filed to it, and no new job is made, whatever they rang about.
3. New work is written the way Booked After Hours writes it. A caller with no open job and new work is written as one job: the caller's own words kept as said, a type from the fixed list (emergency, routine, quote, unclassified) and nothing free-text in its place. The rules do not relax because it is daytime.
4. A status question is answered from the job, or not answered. "When is he coming?" is answered with the arrival time the job system holds, read by the job's id on that call. When the job holds no time, the caller is told that plainly and a callback is raised for the person on duty. No time is ever estimated, rounded or made up.
5. A caller who asks for a person is put through, and a missed transfer becomes a callback with a name and a time. In business hours a caller who asks for a person is transferred to whoever the roster names as on duty. If nobody picks up, the build raises a callback on the caller's job, owned by that person, due within the time the business set. The caller is told when to expect it. Nobody is left on hold and nobody is dropped.
6. Running late, on the way and job complete are sent only when the record changes. A status message is sent when the job system or the board records the change, woken by that event. The time in the message is the time on the job, read after the event arrived. No event, no message.
7. One message per change, and a new change gets a new message. The same change delivered twice sends one message. A second, different change on the same job sends a second message with the new time. The build reads what was already sent before sending again.
8. An update goes only to the contact on the job, and only with their consent. A status message goes to the contact recorded on the job, by the channel they agreed to, and to nobody else. Where the job records no consent to messages, nothing is sent and the job says so.
9. Every call and every update is written back to the job. Whoever opens the job next sees what the customer said and what the customer was told: every call the desk took and every update it sent is filed to the job with the event that caused it.
10. A job write with no id back is not a booked job. A new job write that returns a null external id did not happen. The caller is not told they are booked, and a callback task with the caller's number goes to the person on duty.
11. It survives the builder. Someone other than the builder can explain what it does, and it runs on an account the business owns.
12. The pass test passes. On the business's own number and job system, in business hours: an existing customer rings to ask when the tradesperson is coming and then asks for a person who does not pick up; the arrival time is then moved on the board. The caller hears only the time on the job, gets a callback with a name on it, and receives one running-late message carrying the new time, with all of it on the job.

4. Who rings in the day, and what they get

An existing customer asking when. The desk reads the job by its id and says the arrival time it holds, exactly. If the job holds no time, the caller hears that plainly and gets a callback from the person on duty. “Should be early afternoon” is the sentence this standard exists to stop: it is the one that makes the second call.

An existing customer asking for a person. The desk puts them through to whoever the roster names. When nobody picks up, the caller is not left on hold and is not dropped: a callback goes on their job, owned by that person, due within the window the business set, and the caller is told when to expect it.

A new customer with new work. Written as one job, the same way Booked After Hours writes it: their own words kept, a type from the fixed list, and nothing about the work invented. Daytime is not a reason to relax a rule. If the write comes back with no id, they are not told they are booked.

5. The three messages

Each one goes once per change, to the contact on the job, and only if they agreed to messages. A change that arrives twice is one message. A second, different change is a second message with the new time. Where there is no consent, nothing is sent and the job says why, so the person who rings them knows.

6. What stays with a person

• ✓Every transfer, once it is answered.
• ✓Every callback, by the person the roster names.
• ✓Anything said to an upset customer, and any promise about the work.
• ✓Moving the arrival time. The desk tells the customer it moved; it never moves it.
• ✓Writing the roster and the callback window.

Facts that can change, and when we checked them

8. What your developer builds, and the step that needs care

One step not to hand-roll: the live line. A number that answers in the business's name with the disclosure first, transfers to a real phone, and reads the job system while the caller waits. That is Front Desk. The rest, the lookup, the message rules, the notes and the callbacks, is wiring a coding agent builds against the stub in an afternoon.

provider:
  stub:       local.mock_client_desk
  production: office_voice.front_desk   # Office Voice / Front Desk, sold as Booked After Hours
  default:    stub                       # no live mapping in the conformance kit yet

the live step
  - the daytime line: Office Voice Front Desk, sold as Booked After
    Hours. The same number answers by day and after hours.
  - running-late and on-the-way calls, on the same Front Desk: off the
    board every ten minutes, or when the owner asks on their own line.
    One call per change, the time read off the job.

stays local                          # yours, and the standard
  - the open-job lookup on the caller's number
  - the roster and the callback window
  - the job-complete message, and any update sent by text, consent first
  - every note written back to the job

cannot meet the standard
  - a job system with no API, for the status answer. The transfer and
    the callback still apply.

A vendor selling a daytime receptionist is usually selling a voice. Ask them one thing: when Mrs Patel asks when the plasterer is coming, where does the time come from, and what does she hear when the job does not have one?

9. A checklist to hold any build or supplier to

Hold a DIY build or a vendor to this. If a box is empty, it is not in production.

• ✓1. Disclosure first, on every daytime call. AI identification and the recording notice come before the first question, on every call the desk answers, the same as after hours. A caller who already has a job is told too.
• ✓2. The caller is looked up before anything is written, and an existing job is worked on, not duplicated. Before writing anything, the build reads for an open job on the caller's number. A caller with an open job is handled on that job: what they said is filed to it, and no new job is made, whatever they rang about.
• ✓3. New work is written the way Booked After Hours writes it. A caller with no open job and new work is written as one job: the caller's own words kept as said, a type from the fixed list (emergency, routine, quote, unclassified) and nothing free-text in its place. The rules do not relax because it is daytime.
• ✓4. A status question is answered from the job, or not answered. "When is he coming?" is answered with the arrival time the job system holds, read by the job's id on that call. When the job holds no time, the caller is told that plainly and a callback is raised for the person on duty. No time is ever estimated, rounded or made up.
• ✓5. A caller who asks for a person is put through, and a missed transfer becomes a callback with a name and a time. In business hours a caller who asks for a person is transferred to whoever the roster names as on duty. If nobody picks up, the build raises a callback on the caller's job, owned by that person, due within the time the business set. The caller is told when to expect it. Nobody is left on hold and nobody is dropped.
• ✓6. Running late, on the way and job complete are sent only when the record changes. A status message is sent when the job system or the board records the change, woken by that event. The time in the message is the time on the job, read after the event arrived. No event, no message.
• ✓7. One message per change, and a new change gets a new message. The same change delivered twice sends one message. A second, different change on the same job sends a second message with the new time. The build reads what was already sent before sending again.
• ✓8. An update goes only to the contact on the job, and only with their consent. A status message goes to the contact recorded on the job, by the channel they agreed to, and to nobody else. Where the job records no consent to messages, nothing is sent and the job says so.
• ✓9. Every call and every update is written back to the job. Whoever opens the job next sees what the customer said and what the customer was told: every call the desk took and every update it sent is filed to the job with the event that caused it.
• ✓10. A job write with no id back is not a booked job. A new job write that returns a null external id did not happen. The caller is not told they are booked, and a callback task with the caller's number goes to the person on duty.
• ✓11. It survives the builder. Someone other than the builder can explain what it does, and it runs on an account the business owns.
• ✓12. The pass test passes. On the business's own number and job system, in business hours: an existing customer rings to ask when the tradesperson is coming and then asks for a person who does not pick up; the arrival time is then moved on the board. The caller hears only the time on the job, gets a callback with a name on it, and receives one running-late message carrying the new time, with all of it on the job.