Between Thanksgiving and New Year's, houses are full of guests, kitchens run all day and heating systems work their hardest. That is when kitchen drains clog, garbage disposals jam, furnaces stop and circuits trip. Many contractors close for the holidays or let calls go to voicemail. The ones who stay visible and answer the phone win high-value emergency jobs and customers who remember them for years.
In this article
The emergencies that spike
- plumbing: kitchen drain clogs, garbage disposals, toilets and sewer backups, especially the day after Thanksgiving;
- heating: no-heat calls, furnace ignition problems and heat pump failures on the first cold nights;
- electrical: tripped circuits and overloaded outlets from holiday lights and extra appliances;
- water heaters: a house full of guests empties the tank and exposes old units.
Keep your holiday hours right on Google
Update special hours on your Google Business Profile for Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's. If you take emergency calls, say so in the hours and in a Google post. Customers search "emergency plumber near me" and call whoever shows as open.
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Run ads only when you can answer
Local Services Ads and search ads can bring a lot of calls during the holidays. Schedule them for the hours your on-call team is available and pause them when nobody can answer. A missed paid call is wasted money and a bad review.
Answer every call
Use an on-call rotation, call forwarding or an answering service. The first company that answers usually gets the job. Give the person on the phone a short script: what happened, address, access, the holiday rate and arrival window.
Price it clearly
Charge a holiday or after-hours dispatch fee and state it before sending a technician. Customers with a flooded kitchen and guests at the table accept a fair premium when they hear it upfront.
Staff the on-call crew
Pay the on-call team a bonus for each holiday shift, keep the trucks stocked with the most common parts and plan for at least one backup technician on the busiest days.
Turn emergencies into customers
After the job, send a thank-you text, ask for a review and offer a maintenance plan or a follow-up inspection in January.
An example
A plumbing company in Ohio kept its Google profile open with emergency hours, scheduled its ads for the on-call shifts and used an answering service from Thanksgiving to New Year's. It booked 212 emergency calls in that period, 38% more than the year before, and sold 47 maintenance plans in January.
Common mistakes
Wrong holiday hours on Google, ads running while nobody answers, no holiday rate on the phone, a single technician on call for the busiest day and no follow-up after the emergency.
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Frequently asked questions
Should contractors charge more for holiday emergency calls?
Most do, and customers expect it. A clear holiday or after-hours rate, told on the phone before the technician is dispatched, is fair to the customer and keeps your on-call team motivated. Write the rate on your website and in your call script so there are no surprises on the invoice.