You're on-site, hands full, phone ringing. The bloke on the other end wants a quote for Monday. Your phone rings out. He books someone else. You lose $800 because you were holding a wrench.

ServiceM8 handles your jobs and schedules. An AI receptionist handles the calls. When the two talk to each other, every caller gets answered, every job gets logged, and you stop losing work to voicemail. Here's how to wire it up in half an hour.

What you need before you start

Three things sitting in front of you:

• A ServiceM8 account with admin access (you need to generate an API key)
• A VoxReach account - get started at app.voxreach.com.au/signup needed
• A list of the services you actually offer, written exactly the way customers say them on the phone

That last point trips people up. Don't write "domestic plumbing remediation". Write "blocked toilet, leaking tap, hot water system". The AI matches what it hears to what you've told it. Speak like a human, not a compliance manual.

Step one: pull your ServiceM8 API credentials

Log into ServiceM8. Go to Settings, then API. Generate a new API key pair - you'll get a public key and a secret. Copy both into a text file. Don't close that tab yet.

In VoxReach, go to Integrations, find ServiceM8, paste the keys. Hit Connect. If it goes green, you're done. If it doesn't, you've either got a typo or your ServiceM8 plan doesn't allow API access. Fix it and try again.

Once connected, VoxReach can read your client list, create jobs, attach notes, and update job cards - all while you're still on the roof.

Step two: map your services to keywords

This is where most people waste twenty minutes. They try to teach the AI every possible variation. Don't. Start narrow.

Open the ServiceM8 job category list. Pick your top five services by volume. In VoxReach, go to Knowledge Base and create a service list. For each service, write:

• The exact name as it appears in ServiceM8
• Three to five ways a caller might describe it ("the tap won't stop dripping", "I've got a leaking tap", "tap's busted")
• One sentence the AI should say back to confirm ("Got it - leaking tap. I'll book that in.")

We listened to a call last Tuesday where a caller said "me dunny's cactus". The AI heard "toilet", matched it to "blocked toilet", and booked the job. It works because the speech-to-text engine is trained on Australian accents and the service mapping is loose enough to catch variants.

Don't map emergency vs non-emergency here. That's next.

Step three: set your availability rules

Go to Scheduling in VoxReach. Pull your working hours from ServiceM8 - the integration reads your staff calendar. Set your buffer times (travel between jobs, smoko, whatever). Tell the AI whether to offer same-day, next-day, or next available.

For emergencies, create a separate flag. If the caller says "burst pipe", "no hot water", "sparks", the AI should skip the calendar dance and say "I'm getting someone to call you in five minutes." Then it creates a high-priority job in ServiceM8 and sends you an SMS. You ring them. Done.

This two-tier system stops your calendar filling with genuinely urgent work getting bumped by someone who just wants a quote.

Step four: test it with your own phone

Ring your VoxReach number. Pretend you're a customer. Say "yeah I need a sparky, me lights keep flickering." Listen to how the AI responds. Does it confirm the service correctly? Does it offer a real timeslot from your ServiceM8 calendar? Does the job appear in ServiceM8 with the right details?

If something's wrong, don't rebuild everything. Check these three things first:

• Did you spell the ServiceM8 job category exactly right (case-sensitive)?
• Is your ServiceM8 calendar actually available at the time the AI offered?
• Did you save the knowledge base after editing it?

Nine times out of ten, it's a typo in the service name or a calendar sync delay. Fix it, test again.

What to do right now

Set a timer for thirty minutes. Follow the four steps above. Don't try to make it perfect - get it working, then tweak it as real calls come in. The AI learns your business faster when it's handling live traffic.

Once it's live, forward your business number to your VoxReach line. Your phone stops ringing. Your jobs start logging themselves. You keep working.

Sign up at app.voxreach.com.au/signup - a free 90-second demo call included needed. If you'd rather talk it through first, ring +61 2 5926 2202 and ask for Frank. He's our live AI broker, running on the same platform. He'll walk you through it.