Me and my brother Deepak, we been running Two Brothers Plumbing since 2021. We cover Tarneit, Werribee, Point Cook, Truganina, Hoppers Crossing β basically whole western Melbourne. Good work, fair price. That was always our thing.
But here is the problem nobody tells you when you start a trade business β the phone does not stop ringing, and you can not answer it when your hands are inside someone's wall fixing a burst pipe. You think "I will call them back in one hour" but by that time they already called another plumber. Gone. That lead is gone.
The Real Problem
We was losing 12 to 15 calls every single week. Not because we are bad plumbers β because we are busy plumbers. Monday to Friday we are on jobs from 7am. Who is answering the phone? Nobody. We tried giving phone to Deepak's wife but she has her own work. We tried voicemail but let me tell you β nobody leaves voicemail anymore. People just call next plumber on Google.
One time a customer told us "I called you three times last week, nobody picked up so I went with someone else." That one job was a full bathroom reno. $4,500 minimum. That's when we knew something has to change.
Finding Vareoz Was Actually an Accident
My mate Harpreet who runs a cleaning business, he told me about this AI receptionist thing. I thought he was joking. I said "bro what AI is going to know about plumbing?" He said it's not about plumbing knowledge β it answers the call, asks the right questions, checks your calendar, and books the job. Right there on the call. No waiting, no callback, no "leave a message."
So I looked into Vareoz. What got me was this β it's not one of those generic "press 1 for this, press 2 for that" robots. It actually talks like a real person. It knows our services, our areas, our pricing. And it books into our actual calendar. Not some separate system β our Google Calendar that we already use every day.
What The AI Actually Does (This Is What Surprised Us)
I was expecting a fancy voicemail. What we got was completely different:
Answers Every Call
Picks up in under 2 seconds. Even 9pm on Sunday. Customer thinks someone is sitting at a desk.
Books Real Jobs
Checks our calendar live, finds open slot, confirms with customer, books it. Done. Shows up in Google Calendar with all details.
Sends SMS Confirmation
Customer gets text straight away β booking confirmed, date, time, our business name. Professional.
Handles Reschedules Too
Customer calls to move their appointment? AI checks new availability, moves the booking, sends updated SMS. We don't even know it happened until we check.
And the call transfer thing β if customer says "I need to speak to someone urgently" the AI transfers straight to my mobile. Not a cold transfer either. It tells me who is calling and what they need before I even pick up. So I already know the situation.
The Numbers (Before vs After)
Before
12β15
After
0
Before
3β4
After
11
Before
4+ hours
After
Under 2 sec
Before
$8.2k
After
$13.7k
67% More Revenue. Same Two Guys.
This is the part that still blows my mind. We did not hire anyone new. We did not change our prices. We did not do more advertising. We just stopped missing calls. That's it.
Before Vareoz we were doing maybe $8,200 a month. Good months, bad months, average was around there. Now we are sitting at $13,700 average. Some months even more because the AI also picks up after-hours calls that we never used to get. Someone's hot water goes out at 8pm? Before, they call us, no answer, call someone else. Now? AI picks up, books them for first thing next morning, sends them SMS with our details. Job is already on our calendar when we wake up.
Honestly I was not believing it will work for plumbing. I thought AI is for tech companies and big business. But this thing books more jobs than we could book ourselves. My brother keeps saying we should have done this two years ago. He is right.
Raj K.
Co-founder, Two Brothers Plumbing β Tarneit, VIC
Covering All of Melbourne's West
The AI knows our service areas too. Someone calls from Geelong? It politely tells them we only cover western suburbs and suggests they look locally. Someone from Truganina or Point Cook? It checks our calendar and books them in. No confusion, no wasted time driving somewhere too far.
Would We Recommend It?
Look, I am not a tech person. Deepak is not a tech person. We are plumbers. But if you are a tradie and you are missing calls β you are losing money. Simple as that. Vareoz is not some complicated software you need to learn for weeks. We set it up in one afternoon, put in our services and business hours, connected Google Calendar, and it was running same day.
Best decision we made for the business since buying the van.