An AI colleague for your installation business: quotes, emergencies and scheduling
In an installation business the problem is timing: requests come in while your hands are inside a boiler, and whoever answers first wins the job. Nova picks the request up immediately, asks the questions you would have asked anyway, and prepares a draft quote. Emergency calls are recognised and escalated rather than queued.
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The problem in this sector
Urgent breakdown calls drown in quote requests. Reacting too late = customer walks away.
| Aspect | For this sector |
|---|---|
| Channels | E-mail · WhatsApp |
| Own knowledge | FAQ on breakdowns, service area, opening hours |
| Deployment | Nova Air |
| Expected outcome | Urgent straight to dispatch. Planning questions auto-replied with 2 proposed slots. |
How far your sector has come
Here is a figure worth knowing: construction applies AI least often of all sectors, alongside hospitality and transport, at 6 to 7 percent. For comparison: information and communication sits at 54 percent. That does not mean it fails in construction — it means almost nobody in your sector does it yet, and the first to respond instantly to a quote request has that advantage alone.
Where the limit sits
A draft quote is not a quote. The AI gathers and proposes; you set the price and send. That is not only commercially sensible — a price a system issues on its own is a commitment you are bound to.
Concretely, these are the things Nova does not do on its own here:
- Committing to a price or lead time; it gathers what is needed and prepares the draft for you.
- Judging whether something is safe or compliant — that requires someone looking at it on site.
- Handling or triaging an emergency call itself; that goes straight through to an engineer.
That limit does not live in a setting someone can flip by accident; it is established up front. That is the difference between a system you know the behaviour of and one you find out about afterwards.
What sets an installation business apart
There is no separate article for this sector in the knowledge base, and that is not an oversight. What sets an installation business apart is not a law of its own but the way the work runs.
Start with scheduling. An appointment hangs on three things at once: an engineer who is free, parts that are in stock, and a situation nobody has seen yet. An assistant can complete the request and propose a time slot; fixing it hard is only possible once someone knows what is needed.
Then the field crew. The people with the answer are on a roof or under a floor and are not looking at their phone. Escalating to the team therefore means something different here than at a desk: it comes with an agreement about what happens when nobody picks up within the agreed time.
And warranty periods. They differ per manufacturer, per part and per contract, and they do not run in step with the guarantee on your own work. Naming a period there is making a commitment on your behalf. The assistant finds the job and the details; what falls under the warranty is yours to decide.
What CBS does and does not measure about AI use per sector is set out in How many Dutch SMEs use AI.
The general rules on automated decision-making and transparency are set out in AI and the GDPR for SMEs and the AI Act for SMEs.
What we need from you
This differs per sector, so it sits here rather than in a generic checklist:
- Your rates or the rules of thumb you price by, so a draft quote is right before you review it.
- Your service area and the criteria on which you accept or refer a job.
- What counts as an emergency for you. That differs per business and determines when Nova escalates rather than schedules.
How a project runs — intake, analysis of your existing communication and a shadow week in which nothing is sent yet — is set out on the approach page.