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AI for New York City businesses

An AI phone system that turns more New York calls into booked jobs.

An AI receptionist picks up every call to your New York business, books the job or transfers the caller to you, for $179 a month.

  • A live answer any hour
  • Urgent calls sent to your tech
  • Follow-up texts to every caller

Calls start with a search

Searches for local trades in New York each month

17,030

searches a month

  • plumber new york
    6,600
  • pest control new york
    4,400
  • landscaping new york
    2,400
  • electrician new york
    1,900
  • roofing company new york
    880
  • garage door repair new york
    320

Source: Google Ads keyword data, average monthly U.S. searches. "Under 10" = below Google’s reporting floor.

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2010Lithium Marketing, established in 2010
$10M+Over $10 million in Google ad spend managed

Businesses we’ve worked with

  • Willard Power Vac
  • Sarkinen Plumbing
  • Robinson Restoration
  • Town & Country Glass
  • Dixie Glass
  • Byers Septic Service
  • F&W Fence Co.
  • Drake’s 7 Dees
  • Rickabaugh Construction
  • Hillsview Building
  • Dozer Dave
  • Mt. Hood Pro Painting
  • On-Target Landscape
  • Atiyeh Bros Carpet
  • Lovett
  • Westmore Construction
  • Northwest New Homes
  • Porter Sealcoating & Paving
  • RescueHero Restoration
  • Panda Plumbing
  • Biermann Plumbing & Heating
  • Ballistic Junk Removal
  • Smart Doors LLC
  • Peak Performance Roofing
  • Deluxe Heating & Cooling
  • Lifetime Exteriors
  • Bruce Johnson Construction
  • Madrone Painting
  • Smart Tree Service
  • Premier Gutter Cover
  • NW Pacific Electric
  • Universal HVAC
  • Lenny Martin Painting
  • Next Level Decks & Exteriors
  • Prodan Construction
  • Smooth Rollin’ Sealcoating and Paving
  • Lovett Restoration
  • Greenlight Titles
  • G.W. Hartley IV
  • Advanced Coatings
  • Thomson Equipment
  • MyADU

AI phones, explained

What an AI receptionist does for a New York City contractor

An AI receptionist answers every call your business gets, day or night, and Lithium Marketing runs it for New York City service businesses along with custom AI automation for the work after the call. The math starts with the price of a click. Each click on “plumber new york” costs $13.49 on average, so a paid call that reaches voicemail is money already spent with nothing booked.

Then there’s the road. New York also leads the world in urban automobile traffic congestion, and if your techs answer the office line between jobs, your calls shouldn’t have to wait on them. The receptionist answers each call, asks your questions and texts the details to whoever you choose.

New York City homes

Renters, landlords and the questions your receptionist should ask

Owners live in 32.8% of New York City’s occupied homes, and the rest are rented. So your receptionist may need to ask a caller whether they rent or own, which building and unit the job is in, and whether a landlord has to approve the work before anyone books it.

Winters in New York are chilly and damp. If a cold night brings a burst pipe or a furnace that quit, the receptionist picks up at 3 a.m. the same way it does at noon, and your rules decide which of those calls go straight to the on-call tech.

residents (2025 estimate)
8,584,629
residents (2025 estimate)
population change, 2020 to 2025
-2.5%
population change, 2020 to 2025
housing units
3,678,486
housing units
of occupied homes owner-occupied
32.8%
of occupied homes owner-occupied
of homes built before 1980
78.9%
of homes built before 1980
median home value
$777,600
median home value

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau 2025 population estimates, ACS 2020–2024 and 2023 County Business Patterns.

Trades in Brooklyn

Repair calls and project calls need different scripts

There are 784 plumbing, heating and cooling contractors in Kings County, which is Brooklyn. For repair trades like those, set rules by urgency: a leak that won’t stop or a home with no heat goes to the on-call tech, a slow drain gets the next opening, and a price question gets a text.

Project calls work differently. Kings County has 153 landscaping services, and when a landscaping or painting customer calls about a job, the receptionist takes the address and the scope, asks for photos by text and books the estimate on your calendar.

County Business Patterns

Trade and home service businesses in Kings County

Establishments by industry, 2023

  • Residential remodelers
    1,378
  • Plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors
    784
  • Electrical contractors
    593
  • New home builders
    320
  • Painting contractors
    184
  • Landscaping services
    153
  • Pest control companies
    105
  • Glass and glazing contractors
    87

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2023 County Business Patterns (NAICS establishment counts).

Getting set up

Four steps to a live AI line for your New York business

Nothing goes live until you’ve approved how each type of call is handled.

1

Sort your calls by urgency

Using a sample of your recent calls, we agree which callers get transferred, which get booked and which get a text with next steps.

2

Write the answers it gives

You tell us what callers ask most and how you answer; we turn that into its knowledge base, including the rent-or-own questions, and you pick the voice.

3

Connect it to your tools

It books into the calendar you already use, updates your CRM and sends each caller a confirming text.

4

Test it, then listen in

You call the line yourself before it goes live, then we review recordings and transcripts together and fix any answer that missed.

What the AI receptionist does on every call

The same eight parts go into every AI receptionist setup, wherever the business is.

See the full AI receptionist service

  • Answers every call, 24/7
  • Qualifies the lead
  • Books the appointment
  • Answers common questions
  • Sends follow-up texts
  • Captures every detail
  • Transfers to a real person when needed
  • Connects to your CRM and calendar

Proof

AI phones already working for service businesses

Both examples below come from service businesses already using Lithium’s AI. For a plumbing company whose emergency calls after closing kept landing in voicemail, Lithium built a custom AI phone system; the card shows what changed. Smart Doors LLC is a garage door company whose website Lithium built, and it later added the AI receptionist to its phone line.

AI phone project, plumbing company

3x

more leads

60% of after-hours emergency calls had been going to voicemail. A custom AI phone system now sorts urgent calls, texts the on-call tech and books non-emergency jobs.
Smart Doors LLC garage door website built by Lithium Marketing
24/7Lithium’s AI receptionist answers the phones at Smart Doors LLC

Around New York City

AI answering for jobs outside the city, too

Add any nearby city you work in to the receptionist’s service area, so it can confirm coverage while the caller is still on the line. The AI pages below cover Newark, Elizabeth and Jersey City in New Jersey, then Mount Vernon, Freeport and Hempstead, and the state page lists the rest of New York.

Published price

The monthly price of an AI receptionist in New York

$179

per month, fully managed

No contract and no setup fee, so you can cancel anytime. The voice, knowledge base, call rules and calendar and CRM hooks are all set up by Lithium. Custom AI automation is scoped after a free discovery call.

FAQ

New York owners’ questions about AI on the phones

DJ Van Zanten

Still curious?

Call (503) 766-5964 or email [email protected].

Does the AI ever hand a caller to a real person?

Yes. Transfers are part of the setup: you name the situations, like a gas smell, a flooded basement or a caller asking for the owner, and the number each one rings. Calls outside those rules are answered, qualified and booked or followed up by text.

How does $179 a month compare with hiring a receptionist?

A human receptionist typically costs $3,500 or more a month and works set hours. The AI line answers around the clock and can take unlimited concurrent calls, so no caller waits for a free line or reaches voicemail because the receptionist went home.

How quickly can the AI start answering our calls?

It usually goes live within days. Most of the setup work is on our side, so the pace depends mostly on how fast we get your call rules, your answers to common questions and access to your calendar.

What else can Lithium automate for a New York service business?

Most of the office work that follows a call. Examples include pushing new jobs into your CRM, sending review requests after a finished job, reading documents like invoices and connecting your phone system to your spreadsheets. A typical custom build takes one to two weeks, priced once we’ve seen how your office runs.

Does it know which boroughs we serve?

It knows whatever you load into it. Give it your service area by borough or ZIP code, and it can tell a caller on Staten Island if you work there before it books anything.

Free action plan

Map your New York call rules on a free video call

Send a rough count of your weekly calls, the hours nobody answers and the calls only you or a tech should take. A co-founder will turn that into draft call rules for your New York line on a short video call. Our own number, listed below, is answered by the same AI receptionist, so you can try it before we talk.

What we’ll cover

  • What’s working (and what isn’t) in your current marketing
  • Site and funnel gaps that are costing you leads
  • Local SEO and paid traffic opportunities
  • Simple tracking and KPIs to measure success

Get my free action plan

Tell us a little about your business. Response within 24 hours.

  • 100% free, no obligation
  • Custom plan for your business
  • Response within 24 hours
Call now Free action plan