For context before the questions: Shoogly builds premium websites and an AI enquiry system for UK home service businesses. The system reads every enquiry the moment it arrives, works out what the job is and how urgent, replies to the customer in your voice within minutes, and sends you a briefing on your phone with the job summed up, flagged for urgency and scored out of ten. Switched on today: your website form, your inbox, and the calls you log. Missed-call text-back and WhatsApp land this autumn, more doors into the same brain.
FAQ
The questions tradespeople
actually ask us.
Collected from real calls with real firms, answered the way we’d answer across a table. If yours isn’t here, ask it directly and you’ll get the same treatment.
Updated September 2026
Trusting the AI
I tried ChatGPT and it was rubbish. Why would this be different?
Because out-of-the-box ChatGPT knows nothing about your business. Ask it about a boiler swap in Paisley and it answers like a general-knowledge quiz. This system is built around your firm specifically: your trade, your patch, your services, the way you talk to customers. It's the difference between a random person answering your phone and someone who's worked in your office for a year. The demo runs on your own real enquiries, so you don't have to take that on faith.
Will it sound like a robot and embarrass me?
This is the fear that matters most, so it gets the most care. The replies are trained on how you actually speak to customers; we take samples of your real messages and the system writes the way you do. You approve the voice before anything goes live, and you'll see real replies in the demo first. If a reply would make you cringe reading it aloud, it doesn't ship.
What if it says something wrong to a customer?
It's guard-railed against exactly that. It only gathers job type, location, timing and photos; it never quotes prices, never promises availability, and never gives technical advice. Anything unusual or sensitive gets held for your approval instead of being sent. And behind all of it sits a 30-day money-back guarantee on the build, so the risk of trying it sits with us.
I don't trust AI companies with my customers' data.
Fair, and worth asking every provider you talk to. The AI that reads your enquiries is Claude's business API: enquiries sent to it are not used to train their models and are automatically deleted within days, not kept. The enquiries themselves live in your own private database, held for you, never sold or shared, and deletable whenever you ask. It's your customers' data, kept for your use only.
The personal touch
My customers like dealing with me, not a machine.
Good, and that's the thing we protect rather than replace. The system only handles the front door: the first reply, the details-gathering, the sorting, so nobody sits unanswered while you're on the tools. Every real conversation, every relationship, every decision stays yours. Think of it as making sure the customer hears from you faster, not making sure they never hear from you.
My trade's different. This won't work for how my jobs come in.
Every owner says this, and every owner is partly right, which is why nothing here is off-the-shelf. The system is built around your firm: your job types, your patch, the questions you'd ask. Then the demo runs on your own enquiries before you commit a penny. If your work genuinely arrives in a way it can't help with, that shows up in the demo, and we'll be the first to say so.
Compared to what you already use
I already use ServiceM8. Doesn't that cover this?
ServiceM8 is good at what it's for: managing jobs you've already won: scheduling, quotes, invoices. But an enquiry sitting in your website form at 9pm isn't a job yet, and ServiceM8 doesn't answer it. Its AI phone agent add-on handles calls only, needs your number moved onto their phone system, and the app is iPhone-only. The two work fine together: this system wins the enquiry and hands it over; ServiceM8 runs the job.
I pay Checkatrade / MyBuilder for leads. Why add this?
Because directory leads are shared: the same enquiry typically goes to several firms, and the job usually goes to whoever answers first. Checkatrade's own advice to members is to respond before leads go cold. So you're paying for a race and then running it from up a ladder. An instant-response system is what makes directory spend work harder: same leads, answered first, in your voice, while your competitors are still on the tools. This isn't either-or; it's making the leads you already buy stop leaking.
How is this different from an answering service like Moneypenny?
A human answering service puts a person on your calls who takes a message and passes it to you. That's a real service, but the message still lands on your phone needing action, the person taking it doesn't know your trade, and your website enquiries never touch them. This system actually handles the enquiry: reads it, understands the job, replies in your voice, and scores it so you know which enquiries to chase first. We've written an honest side-by-side comparison, including where the human services genuinely win, on our AI vs human answering page.
What about the missed-call text-back apps?
A missed-call text is a holding message: 'sorry we missed you, what do you need?'. Better than silence, but it doesn't answer anything, and standalone versions get resold for £100+ a month when the automation underneath costs pennies. Missed-call text-back lands this autumn as one more door into the same brain, so the customer's reply gets read, qualified and answered properly rather than just acknowledged. Founding clients get it at no extra cost.
Why you over a more established name?
A few honest reasons, and one honest trade-off. The reasons: almost everything established in this market answers the phone only, while our system treats written enquiries, which is where more and more work arrives, as the main event. You deal directly with the person who built the system, not an account manager. And there's no long contract; 30-day rolling, money-back on the build. The trade-off: we're young and we're not pretending otherwise, which is exactly why the founding terms are generous and the guarantee exists. The demo on your own enquiries is how we ask to be judged.
Money and commitment
What does it cost?
A one-off build plus a flat monthly figure, agreed on a call once we've seen how your enquiries come in; most of this market prices the same way. No long contract: 30 days' notice on the monthly side, and a 30-day money-back guarantee on the build. For what the wider UK market charges, from AI receptionists to answering bureaus, we've published a full pricing guide with verified numbers.
It sounds expensive for a small firm.
The honest way to judge it is against what slow replies already cost you, not against zero. One decent job covers months of it; our calculator will show you the leak in your own numbers, in pounds and in jobs. And if your enquiry volume is genuinely tiny, we'd rather say 'this is overkill for you just now' than take your money. That's not a line; qualifying out is cheaper than an unhappy client.
What if it doesn't work for me?
Not happy in the first 30 days? Full refund on the build, no questions. The monthly side is 30-day rolling, so there's no lock-in to escape from. We can carry that risk because the demo on your own enquiries means nobody signs up guessing.
Getting set up
I've no time to set up or learn new software.
There's nothing to learn, and the setting up is our job, not yours. We build the system around what you've already got: your website or a new one, your numbers, your tone. You'll need to give us samples of how you talk to customers and answer some questions about how the work comes in; that's the extent of your homework. From there, enquiries just start arriving on your phone as briefings. The target is live in around a fortnight.
What's actually built today, and what's still coming?
Switched on today, running in production for real customers: the enquiry engine on website forms and inbound email, photo reading, instant replies in your voice, qualifying and scoring, the phone briefing, and the calls you log yourself. Landing this autumn: missed-call text-back, WhatsApp and SMS, and the app with every conversation in one inbox, each one another door into the same brain. We will always tell you which side of that line a feature is on before you pay. If someone selling you AI won't, that's your answer about them.
Who am I actually dealing with?
Jamie Sim, the founder, based in Glasgow. He builds the systems, runs the onboarding, and picks up the phone when something needs sorting. No account managers, no ticket queue, no offshore help desk. Small enough to care, close enough to shout at, which is roughly how most of our clients would describe their own firms too.
Still weighing it up? Watch it work.
Fifteen minutes, your own enquiries, no commitment. You’ll see the reply, the briefing and the score, then make your own mind up.
Book a 15-minute call