Legacy Housing - An AI Voice Agent for After-Hours Tenant Calls

Client Overview

Legacy Housing is a community housing provider based in Palmerston North, with homes in Levin and Whanganui as well. The office is open during the working week. Outside those hours, tenants still need somewhere to call when something goes wrong at home.

The Challenge

Most after-hours calls come down to one question: can this wait until the office opens? Some cannot. A home with no water, no power or no heating is urgent under Legacy's own rules, and so is anything that puts a tenant's safety at risk. Others can be logged for the morning. The line has to tell the two apart, reach the right people when it matters, and never commit Legacy to a callout nobody has approved.

The Solution

Automate AI built two voice agents that work together. Hana answers tenants on Legacy's call support line. A second agent makes the outbound calls to contractors when a job needs someone that night.

1. Triage by Legacy's own rules

Hana finds out what has happened and works out whether it can wait. Where there is a safety risk she directs the caller to emergency services first. She does not argue with a tenant who wants a callout that does not meet the criteria: she asks once more in case there is something urgent underneath, says what she can do, and the summary notes that the tenant wanted a callout so the team can follow up.

2. The address is checked, but never used to turn anyone away

As soon as a caller gives an address, Hana checks it against Legacy's property list. A former property gets a message taken rather than a callout. An address the list cannot match is flagged in the alert, and the call is still escalated as normal. Someone in a stressful situation will often describe their address loosely, and turning them away would be the worse mistake.

3. Alert first, then act

On an urgent call, Legacy's team is texted and emailed before anything else happens. Alerts go to the people for that region, and the office list gets every one, so an unmatched address can never end up going to nobody. If the text or the email gets through, Hana tells the caller the message has been passed on. She never says a contractor is on the way until one has actually accepted.

4. A second agent rings the contractor

The tenant is not transferred to a tradesperson. Instead, the outbound agent texts the job details to the first contractor on Legacy's approved list for that trade, then calls them, reads out the address and the problem, and asks one question: can you get there tonight? A no, a vague answer, no answer or voicemail moves straight on to the next contractor. A contractor can also say the job will keep until morning, and that is passed back to Legacy as their assessment. If the list runs out, the team is texted and emailed straight away.

5. Lockouts go straight through

Lockouts are the one exception to "no transfers". The tenant pays for the locksmith and arranges access themselves, so Hana explains that first and, once they agree, puts them through to the locksmith.

Legacy's call support line now applies Legacy's own rules every time, alerts the people responsible for each region, and handles the contractor callout itself, so the tenant only has to explain the problem once.