Dan Metzger runs Nature's Designers Landscape Contractors out of Wisconsin, managing crews, meeting clients, and overseeing two separate service divisions. He's a busy owner who would rather be on a job site than tied to his phone.
Challenge
For a long time, Dan answered every call himself. Then his wife joined the business as office manager and took over the phones. When health insurance costs forced her back to a day job, the calls fell back to Dan.
"My business was hurting because I couldn't answer the phone enough," he says. "But I got other stuff to do. I got crews to talk to and people to meet."
Nature's Designers runs two distinct divisions: a landscape maintenance department and a construction division. Callers needed to reach the right one and provide the right information upfront. Handling that himself, while managing operations in the field, wasn't working.
He also needed a way to screen calls intelligently. Nature's Designers doesn't do mowing-only work, and taking those calls one by one was a waste of time he didn't have.
Solution
Dan looked into AI answering services. None of them fit until he found Upfirst. One thing stood out early.
"You guys actually offered a free trial. And it wasn't a free trial with only five of the features or two of the features. It was a free trial that you could use and really get your stuff laid out."
He built out his knowledge base and organized Upfirst around his two divisions. When a call comes in, the AI asks the right opening question: is this about ongoing maintenance services like lawncare or cleanups, or a new landscape design or construction project? From there, the call goes in the right direction.
If someone asks just for mowing and that's not what Nature's Designers offers, the AI tells them. If the call is a fit, the AI collects the right information and routes accordingly. Urgent calls transfer directly to Dan.
"It helps me to screen my calls for my landscape maintenance," he says. "She'll transfer the calls as needed and she'll get the correct information. And then that helps me with all my sales pipeline."
Results
Dan doesn't think about his phone anymore until it actually rings with something that matters.
"I don't worry about anything until my phone rings," he says. "Life is less stressful. I can set my phone to the side."
Upfirst has taken roughly half of all incoming calls off his plate. The right calls still reach him. Everything else is handled, routed, or filtered without his involvement.
"It's probably taken 50% of the phone calls off my plate," he says. "It does everything I need when I'm gone and any important calls get transferred to me right away."
Dan doesn't have much more to add.
"I'm like tickled pink with it. I don't worry about any of it anymore. So, yeah, it's perfect."
