Under the hood
How PilotLight works
How a call flows through it, how it keeps callers safe, and how it's tested.
What happens on a call
- 1
A customer calls your number
Your phone company forwards the calls nobody answers to your PilotLight number. Your number stays the same.
- 2
The AI receptionist answers
A voice AI (Retell AI) says it's an AI assistant, then follows your business's rules: hours, service area, diagnostic fee, and emergency rules.
- 3
It acts during the call
It books an open time on your calendar (Cal.com), or sends an emergency to your on-call tech through our server.
- 4
Our server checks the call
It saves the call, checks the caller's ZIP code against your service area in code, and flags an emergency that wasn't sent during the call.
- 5
You get a short summary
Labeled Booked, EMERGENCY, Out of area, Call back, and so on, so you know what to do at a glance.
Texts start once phone carriers approve the texting number, which can take a few weeks. Until then, alerts arrive as push notifications in a free phone app.
Safety by design
Gas and carbon monoxide come first
Before anything else, it tells the caller to leave the home and call 911 from outside, then alerts the on-call tech and ends the call so they can get out.
A safety net after every call
If the call's summary says emergency but nothing was sent during the call, the owner's alert starts "EMERGENCY, missed during the call" with the caller's number, and I'm alerted too.
Facts come from the data, not the AI
Your summary's labels come from the actual data: whether a visit was really booked comes from the calendar's answer, and whether a ZIP code is in your service area is checked in code.
No made-up prices
The only price it ever says is your diagnostic fee. Everything else is priced by your technician on site.
How it's tested
Every change to the AI's instructions is tested with simulated calls: another AI plays the caller, and the booking and alert tools are faked, so nothing real is booked or sent.
- Simulated test calls
- 289
- Oct 20 to 23, 2026
- Call scenarios
- 19
- From routine bookings to gas leaks
- Latest full test run
- 17 of 19
- Scenarios passed
The two that didn't pass, rescheduling an existing visit and a water-leak emergency, are next on the list. Gas-leak and carbon monoxide calls passed every run on the last test day, and the safety net above is there for an emergency the AI misses during a call.
The scenarios
- Normal booking
- Time just taken
- No times available
- Booking fails
- Reschedule a visit
- No-heat emergency
- Water leak emergency
- Gas smell
- Gas smell, caller won't leave
- Carbon monoxide alarm
- Out-of-area ZIP code
- Asks for a repair price
- Wants a real person
- Angry caller
- Spanish speaker
- Vendor message
- Salesperson
- Job applicant
- Wrong number
What it's built with
- Retell AIThe voice AI that answers calls
- Cal.comOpen times and bookings on your calendar
- Next.js on VercelThis website and the server that handles every call
- SupabaseThe database, with each business's records kept apart
- Twilio and ntfyTexts once carriers approve the number; push alerts until then
Privacy
Each business's calls and texts are tagged with its own ID and never mixed with another's. Push alerts stay short and never include a street address. Callers can ask to see or delete their information by emailing reacheashan@gmail.com. The details are in the privacy policy.
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