Talkify / Handymen / Dunedin
AI receptionist for Handymen in Dunedin

Third job before lunch. Nobody hits voicemail.

Small jobs, lots of them, and a phone that rings all day while you are already up somebody's ladder in Waverley. Talkify answers every call, works out whether it is half an hour or half a day, and fills the gaps in your run across Dunedin. The jobs that are not worth the drive get politely turned down instead of quietly forgotten.

From
$129/mo
Answered
24/7
Local number
03
Calls handled in
New Zealand
Waverley · booked
On the job in Dunedin.
Phone answered anyway.
Urgent jobsTexted to you
Reception Personal Assistant Booking Service Sales Qualification Tradesman Dispatcher Real Estate Enquiry Beauty & Wellness Plumbing Dispatch Retail Professional Services

Three handyman calls you would have missed in Dunedin.

Dunedin is built on hills and on old houses: villas and cottages with original everything, steep drives a loaded van will not always make, and a winter that finds every weak point in both. The first hard cold snap fills every voicemail box in the city inside a morning. On top of that the student rental market turns over almost all at once in one week of the year, so the peaks here are steeper than the averages ever suggest.

The list of little jobs

A Waverley caller has nine things: a sticking door, a leaking tap washer, two shelves and a gate that drags. The agent takes them one by one, works out roughly how long the lot will take, and books a half day rather than a one-hour slot that was never going to be enough.

Answered

The rental changeover

A property manager needs a handful of repairs done before a tenant moves in on Friday. The agent takes the address, the list, who holds the keys and the deadline, then books it and texts you the summary so you load the van once.

Answered

The job that is not yours

Somebody in Dunedin rings about rewiring a kitchen. The agent explains that needs a registered electrician, offers to text them a name you trust, and does not book you into a job you cannot legally sign off.

Answered

What it asks, what it texts you.

The agent takes the whole call rather than a message. Anything on the urgent list reaches your mobile as a text within seconds, with the address and the number, and the caller gets their own text confirming somebody is on it.

What it asks every caller.

Your questions, in your order. Anything you would ask standing in the doorway with a notebook.

  • What needs doing, item by item
  • Roughly how long they think it will take
  • Whether the parts and materials are already there
  • The address, and whether somebody will be home
  • Whether it is a home, a rental or a business
  • How soon they need it done

What reaches your mobile at once.

You set the list. These are the defaults for handymen, and every one of them texts you rather than waiting in a summary.

  • A property manager with a tenancy starting this week
  • Anything unsafe, such as a loose handrail or a broken step
  • A business that cannot open until it is fixed
  • A repeat customer with a job that has come back

The job written straight into Fergus.

On the tools the diary is not a calendar app, it is the job system. Talkify writes the enquiry, the site address and what the caller actually said into the one you run in Dunedin, so nobody types the same job in twice. Where a connector is marked early access it is built and tested, and set up with you rather than left for you to wire up.

01 Fergus Each job written in against the customer and the property with the list attached, the diary read before a time is offered, and the visit booked itself once you switch that on.
02 Tradify Every enquiry lands in your Tradify Enquiries inbox with the name, the number, the address and the list of jobs, ready to turn into work. early access
03 Google Calendar Jobs written into the real diary at the next free slot, sized against how long you said that kind of work takes, with the address in the entry. 04 Xero Property managers and repeat customers recognised from your Xero contacts, account questions answered on the call, and overdue invoices chased.

Running something else in Dunedin? Tell us what you use and we will quote the integration work. See every integration →

Already on Fergus? Sign in with it.

Press the button, approve Talkify at Fergus, set a password. Talkify builds the whole account out of what Fergus already knows: your company, your team, your line already pointed at the right town, your customer list copying in behind you and Fergus already connected. It drops you on the agent builder with a reception agent half made, rather than on an empty screen.

Sign in with Fergus What the Fergus connector does

No job software yet? You still get the diary and the customer list.

Plenty of good handymen run the week off a notebook and a phone. Nothing here asks you to open an account somewhere else first.

01 A diary we keep A calendar of your own, one column per person, that the agent checks before it offers a time and books straight into. Included with an agent rather than charged for, and if you connect Google or Outlook later the diary carries on beside it. Team Calendar
02 An address book that fills itself Every caller is filed with their number, what they rang about and the calls before it. A returning customer is greeted by name, and you can read the history of anyone who has ever rung you without keeping a spreadsheet. Every caller
03 Leads you can actually work A quote enquiry that did not book is not lost. It lands as a lead with the name, the number, the address and what they wanted, ready to ring back or hand to whoever prices the work. Nothing dropped

Dunedin, and the 03 number you already have.

Dunedin has one of the country's oldest housing stocks and a student flat market that changes hands almost all at once, which makes its property managers some of the heaviest phone users in New Zealand.

Your patch.

From North Dunedin to Mosgiel, St Clair to Port Chalmers. You set the area you actually drive to, and anything outside it is turned down politely rather than booked and cancelled.

Dunedin

Keep the number on the van.

Your 03 landline or mobile stays exactly as it is. Forward it to the agent when you are busy, after hours, or always, and switch it back from your phone whenever you like.

Forwarding

Or take a local line.

We can provision a local 03 number for the agent and sell you the line itself, so the agent has a number of its own without you running two providers.

03 number

Everyone answers the phone. The difference is underneath.

There are a lot of AI receptionists now and they all sound much the same on a demo call. These are the six things that are hard to hear in five minutes and matter by month three, and each one is something you can check rather than something we can claim.

Nobody in the middle.

We sell the line as well as the thing that answers it. Numbers sit on our own carrier account, the routing is ours to change, and it is one supplier and one bill. Most AI answering is a layer of software on a phone account somebody else sold you, which is invisible on a good day and the whole game at three in the morning.

One supplier

Answered here. Held here.

Talkify is built in Christchurch, and your call recordings, transcripts and call notes stay in New Zealand data centres, in line with the Privacy Act. Those recordings are your customers talking, which makes where they live your problem rather than your supplier's.

New Zealand

Not eighteen months old.

Talkify has answered business calls since 2024, out of a Christchurch software studio over twelve years old that was doing voice and telephony work before Talkify had a name. Most of this market arrived in the last year and a half. That is not a criticism, but it is worth knowing when you are handing over your phone.

Since 2024

Every connector is one we wrote.

Nothing gets named on this website until the connector behind it exists and we can show it to you, which is why our list is shorter than some and why every name on it is real. Anything we have not built yet, you or your developer can, over a documented API with webhooks and Zapier.

Written by us

It rings out, not just in.

The same account and the same number also chase the quotes you sent, confirm next week's jobs, ring the overdue invoices straight out of your Xero, run phone surveys, work an on-call roster until somebody actually accepts, staff a front counter and answer the chat window on your website.

Same account

Voices from here, and a phone to ring.

Real New Zealand voices that say the street and suburb names properly, so a caller is not spelling their own address at a machine. Support is a phone number in your own timezone answered by the people who built the thing, and the apps for iPhone and Android are on every plan.

iOS + Android

Two more are further up this page rather than repeated here: if you run Fergus you can sign in with it and skip the setting up altogether, and if you run no software at all you still get the diary and the address book. Weighing us against somebody else? We list every provider selling into New Zealand on the alternatives page, including where each of them is the better pick, and there is a row by row of us against Easy AI Agents on the head to head.

Price the handyman agent.

Slide for the number of agents you would run on your number (the plan includes up to 3), pick the integrations you'd connect, and see live what your monthly looks like. Most businesses start with one. No sign-up needed.

How many agents 1 agents
Integrations 0 selected
Your plan
$199/mo Founding rate · 3 months
$129
/mo
Plan
Broadcast
Minutes
200/mo
At once
3 calls
Numbers
1

Broadcast fits most growing NZ businesses. One number carries up to 3 agents and three callers at once.

Includes 200 minutes a month, then 10c a minute (20c after your first 3 months). Each number includes 50 texts a month, then 9c each.

Want more than 3 agents on one number? Extra agents are $39 a month each.

Start with this plan

Frequently asked.

What handymen in Dunedin ask us first. If yours isn't here, ring our live demo agent on 03 242 1262, it'll either answer or queue a callback from a human.

Can it work out how long a job will take?
It asks enough to make a sensible call and books to your own rules: a list of ten little jobs becomes a half day, a single tap washer becomes an hour. Anything it is unsure about is taken as an enquiry with the whole list written down, so you decide rather than arriving short of time.
Will it turn down work I am not licensed for?
Yes, if you tell it to. Electrical, gas and anything else that needs a registered trade is declined politely, with the offer to text the caller a name you would use yourself. You keep the goodwill, and you do not end up on a job you cannot certify.
Do I have to change my 03 number?
No. Keep your 03 landline or mobile and forward it to your Talkify agent when you are busy, after hours, or always, and nothing about the number your customers already know changes. If you want the agent on its own line we provision a local 03 number and sell you the line, and the call recordings and transcripts stay in New Zealand data centres either way.
How fast can a handyman in Dunedin be live?
Same day. You forward your existing number, mobile or landline, to your Talkify agent, tell it about your business in the dashboard, and it starts answering. There is no hardware, no porting and no setup fee, and you can switch forwarding off again from your phone.
What does it cost?
Business agents are $129/month at the founding rate for your first 3 months, then $199, including 200 minutes of calls, with extra minutes at 10c. No setup fee, no lock-in. Compare that with a single missed job and it tends to pay for itself in the first week.
Now shipping · iOS & Android

Carry your control deck in your pocket.

The Talkify mobile app puts the dashboard, transcripts and live coaching in your hand. Listen back to any call, edit your agent's prompt mid-shift, get push-notified the moment a hot lead lands.

9:415G ● ●
Today
128 calls.
Latest · 11:20am Booked · Sarah H. ● Reception · 00:42
Live now · 1 line
Sentiment
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HANDYMEN · DUNEDIN

Dunedin keeps ringing.
Let it be answered.

● No card● No lock-in● Free to call● The demo line can sign you up too
Get your first agent · No card needed

Talkify is currently available to businesses in New Zealand & Australia only.

Personal Assistant
Single mobile or landline. Built for one person, not a business.
$89/mo
Shortwave plan

Founding rate On a monthly plan your price is locked in at the founding rate for your first 3 months, then the standard rate applies. Pay as you go has no founding step: the rate is just the rate. Plans include 50 to 200 minutes a month, then 10c a minute. The first 20 texts each month are free, then 9c each.

● Your data stays in NZ.