Build a Voice AI System for 24/7 Tenant Maintenance Handling
The best solution is a custom voice AI that answers calls and creates maintenance tickets automatically. It integrates directly with your property management software, bypassing manual entry and dispatcher delays.
The system's complexity depends on your triage rules. A portfolio with five simple categories (plumbing, electrical, HVAC, cosmetic, appliance) is a standard build. A firm that needs to cross-reference vendor certifications and tenant history before dispatching requires a more involved workflow.
We built a voice AI for a property manager with 800 units across 12 buildings. Their answering service bill was a major operational expense and introduced a 30-minute delay for emergency calls. We deployed a system in 4 weeks that cut emergency dispatch time to 90 seconds and handled 150 after-hours calls in its first month.
What Problem Does This Solve?
Property management teams often start with a human answering service for after-hours calls. These services are expensive, charging per call or per minute, and are staffed by generalists who do not understand property management. They misclassify a 'leaking water heater' as a non-emergency, leading to costly water damage by the time your team sees the message at 8 AM.
A typical failure scenario involves a tenant calling at 2 AM with a burst pipe. The answering service agent takes a message, creating a 5-minute call that costs $4.50. Your on-call tech gets a vague email, has to call the tenant back to confirm the unit and issue, then log into AppFolio to find an on-call plumber. This 25-minute manual process happens while the unit is flooding.
Off-the-shelf IVR systems and generic chatbots are worse. They force frustrated tenants through rigid phone trees ('Press 3 for plumbing') and cannot handle natural language. They cannot ask clarifying questions, integrate with Yardi to create a work order, or dispatch a vendor. They are a barrier, not a solution.
How Does It Work?
We start by connecting to your phone number using the Twilio API, which allows us to programmatically answer calls. We analyze your last 12 months of maintenance tickets from your property management software (PMS) to build a custom issue classifier. This model learns the specific language your tenants use for different problems.
The core of the system is a Python application built with FastAPI and deployed on AWS Lambda. When a call comes in, the agent transcribes the tenant's issue in real time. We use the Claude API to perform entity extraction, identifying the unit number, problem, and urgency in under 2 seconds. The full transcript and a structured summary are logged using structlog for a complete audit trail of every call.
This structured data then hits your custom business logic. The FastAPI service connects to your PMS API to verify the tenant and unit. For an emergency like a 'burst pipe' (classified as P1), the system immediately calls your on-call plumber's dispatch API and sends a confirmation SMS to your property manager. This entire flow, from call start to vendor dispatch, completes in under 90 seconds. A P4 'dripping faucet' request simply creates a standard work order in Buildium for review the next business day.
We build a simple dashboard to review calls where the AI's confidence score was below 85%. This allows for continuous improvement and identifies areas to refine the triage logic. The serverless architecture on AWS Lambda means you only pay for compute time when calls are active, with typical monthly hosting costs under $50 for handling hundreds of calls.
What Are the Key Benefits?
Dispatch Plumbers in 90 Seconds, Not 30 Minutes
The AI triages and contacts vendors instantly, reducing response time for critical issues from half an hour to under two minutes.
One-Time Build, No Per-Agent Fees
A single scoped engagement replaces expensive answering services. Cloud hosting costs are pennies per call, not dollars per minute.
You Own the Code and Triage Logic
You receive the full Python source code in your GitHub repository. There is no vendor lock-in; you can modify the dispatch rules yourself.
Failsafe Routing to a Human
If the AI cannot understand a request after two attempts, or the tenant asks for a person, the call automatically routes to your on-call number.
Writes Directly to AppFolio or Yardi
The system creates work orders natively in your existing property management software. No manual data entry or copy-pasting from emails.
What Does the Process Look Like?
Week 1: Triage Logic & Data Audit
You provide read-only API access to your PMS and walk us through your dispatch rules. We deliver a detailed process map defining how every issue type is handled.
Week 2: Voice Agent Build & Integration
We build the core voice AI based on your approved logic and connect it to your phone system. You receive a private phone number for internal testing.
Week 3: Live Testing & Refinement
We route a small percentage of your live after-hours calls to the new system. You receive daily reports and transcripts as we refine the AI on real-world data.
Week 4: Full Launch & Handoff
We switch all after-hours maintenance call traffic to the new system. You receive the complete source code, a technical runbook, and 90 days of included monitoring.
Frequently Asked Questions
- How is a project like this priced?
- Pricing depends on the complexity of your dispatch logic and the number of integrations. A system for a single property management software with 3-5 maintenance categories is a standard 4-week build. Integrating with multiple vendor scheduling systems or custom CRMs requires a custom quote. Book a call to discuss your specific scope.
- What happens if the AI misunderstands a tenant or a system is down?
- If the AI's confidence is low, or if the tenant says 'speak to a person', the call is immediately transferred to a human number you provide. If your PMS API is down, the system saves the request and retries every 5 minutes, while sending you an alert via Slack. It never drops a call.
- How is this different from a service like AnswerConnect?
- Answering services are human transcriptionists who create a message for you to handle later. They cannot triage urgency, create a work order in your software, or dispatch vendors. Our system uses conversational AI to understand the issue, execute your triage logic, and complete the entire workflow in one automated process.
- Can the voice AI handle different accents and noisy environments?
- Yes. The underlying speech-to-text models are trained on millions of hours of diverse audio. For very noisy calls, such as from a car with the window down, the system is designed to ask clarifying questions. If it still can't understand, it will gracefully escalate the call to your human on-call number.
- Do you support languages other than English?
- The initial build is always in English. We can add support for other languages, like Spanish, as a follow-on project. This involves translating the agent's prompts and training a language-specific classifier for maintenance issues. This typically adds one week to the project timeline per additional language.
- What data do you need from us to get started?
- The most important data is an export of your last 12 months of maintenance requests. This helps the AI learn your specific terminology, like the difference between 'common area' and 'in-unit' issues. We also need API credentials for your property management software and documentation for your vendor dispatch process.
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