Restoration call intake is the process of gathering and organizing the information a restoration company needs to respond to an inquiry. It connects a caller’s description of a problem with a documented next step. It does not establish the full damage scope, confirm insurance coverage, or prove that a crew has accepted a dispatch.
Answering, intake, and dispatch are separate steps
These terms describe related work, but they are not interchangeable.
Answering
Someone or a voice agent picks up, identifies the business, and understands why the caller is contacting it.
Intake
The conversation produces the information needed for the next decision: the caller, property, reported issue, and requested help.
Dispatch
The operation assigns or coordinates the response according to its services, territory, availability, and authority. A notification alone does not establish that this has happened.
The core restoration intake fields
Adapt this list to your business and allow an explicit unknown value.
- Caller and callback: who is calling, how to reach them, and their relationship to the property.
- Loss address: the property, unit or suite, and any clarification needed to distinguish it from a billing address.
- Reported issue: what the caller says happened, without converting it into an unverified technical conclusion.
- Timing and current state: when the issue was noticed and what the caller reports is happening now.
- Requested help: a new-loss response, assessment, existing-job update, or another service.
- Access and coordination: who can authorize or arrange entry and which other parties are already involved.
- Referral details: available program, property-manager, or claim references relevant to the inquiry.
- Next step: the intended recipient, action, and expectation communicated to the caller.
A short example of a useful record
Fictional example: “Tenant reports water below the kitchen cabinets, first noticed this evening. Says building maintenance attended and water is no longer appearing. Kitchen and dining area reported affected. Property manager will coordinate access. New assessment request; no crew assignment confirmed.”
The callback number and property address belong in their own fields. This note is useful because it distinguishes the tenant’s observations from confirmed field findings and makes the next action clear.
Preserve uncertainty instead of guessing
A caller may not know the cause, how far water travelled, or whether an insurer has opened a claim. Those are missing answers, not negative answers. Record “unknown” or the caller’s own description, then route the unresolved questions to the right person.
The IICRC S500 standard concerns professional water damage restoration procedures and precautions. A phone intake supports that work; it does not replace a qualified assessment.
Give each inquiry a state and an owner
An inquiry can be awaiting review, assigned for follow-up, linked to accepted work, or closed with a reason. Use states your team can apply consistently. Existing-job calls and out-of-area requests should not disappear simply because they are not new sales opportunities.
The handoff guide covers acknowledgement and escalation. The CRM reconciliation guide covers the connection between an inquiry and a job record.
Where voice AI can help
A configured voice agent can gather the agreed details and follow the routing rules for calls sent to it. The team should test address corrections, unknown answers, existing-job inquiries, and unavailable recipients. Evaluate the resulting record alongside the conversation.
What Is Hank AI? explains Hank’s product role. This reference defines the intake process, which remains useful whether your first conversation is handled by your office, a staffed answering provider, or voice AI.
Restoration intake questions
Does every restoration inquiry need an insurance claim number?
A caller may not have one yet. Capture available information and follow your company’s policy without inventing a claim or coverage decision.
Is an intake record the same as a job?
No. Intake documents the inquiry. The business decides when a job should be created or an existing record linked.
Should the answering agent assign a water-damage category?
The phone record should capture reported facts. Technical classification requires the appropriate professional assessment.
What makes an intake complete?
Completeness means the required available information is recorded, unknowns are explicit, and the next action has an owner. It does not mean every possible field has been filled.