Triage script for emergency electrician calls

Four kinds of electrical call

Emergency electrician enquiries vary enormously. Some callers have smoke coming from a socket. Others have a street-wide power cut that no contractor can fix. Many have a tripped circuit that they could reset themselves with a little guidance. The person answering needs to tell these apart within a minute or two.

The triage script

1. 01

   Is anyone in danger?

   Example: Before anything else, is there any smoke, burning smell, sparking or scorching, or has anyone had a shock? If there is fire, put the phone down and call 999.

2. 02

   Can they make it safe?

   If there is no fire and the consumer unit is dry and easy to reach, ask them to switch off the main switch. Never ask anyone to touch wet equipment.

3. 03

   Is it just their property?

   Are the neighbours’ lights on? Are the street lights on? If the whole area is out, give them 105.

4. 04

   What has tripped?

   Ask them to look at the consumer unit and say which switches are down: the main switch, an RCD or a single circuit breaker.

5. 05

   Will it reset?

   If an RCD trips straight back, ask them to switch off or unplug everything on that side, reset, then plug items back one at a time.

6. 06

   Who is in the home?

   Anyone relying on medical equipment, older people, babies, or anyone with no heating if they heat electrically?

7. 07

   Book and confirm

   Give a time window, explain any call-out charge and send a text confirmation with the engineer’s name.

Questions that tell you more than the caller realises

1. When did it start, and what was happening at the time? A trip as the kettle went on points to a different fault from one at 3am.
2. Has it happened before? Repeated trips suggest a developing fault rather than a one-off.
3. Has any work been done recently, by you or anyone else? New fixings into walls are a common cause of damage to cables.
4. Is the consumer unit old with fuse wire, or modern with switches? This tells you what parts and time the visit may need.
5. Is there any outdoor equipment, such as garden lighting or an outside socket, and has it rained heavily?
6. Do they rent? If so, who is the landlord or agent, and do they have authority to book?

When calls arrive and why it matters

Electrical emergencies do not keep office hours. Over half of the fire incidents attended in England in the year ending March 2026 were called in between 15:00 and 22:00, with a peak from 17:00 to 21:00^[2]. Cooking appliances were the largest specified ignition source in accidental dwelling fires, at 42% of 23,795 fires^[2]. Plenty of evening calls will therefore involve kitchens, appliances and overloaded sockets.

If you advertise emergency work, your evening phone cover matters more than your daytime cover. Callers ringing at 8pm with a burning smell from a socket need a live answer or a clear route to someone on call, not a voicemail.

Smoke alarms are part of the conversation

Electricians are often the people who notice that a home has no working alarm. In 2024-25, 93% of households in England reported having at least one working smoke alarm, but only 62% of dwellings had a carbon monoxide alarm^[3]. A call about a tripping circuit is a natural moment to ask whether the smoke alarms are mains-wired and tested.

Do not turn a safety call into a sales call. A simple line works best: While I am there, would you like me to check your smoke alarms are working? Most customers say yes.

Calls from landlords and agents

Landlords in England must have the electrical installation in a rented home inspected and tested by a qualified person at least every five years^[4], and must complete any required remedial work within 28 days or a shorter period if the report specifies. A call from an agent about an inspection report with urgent items is therefore time-sensitive even if nothing is broken. Ask for the report, the deadline it gives and a contact for tenant access.

Customers and agents increasingly ask whether you are registered. NICEIC-certified businesses completed 78% of all notifiable electrical work in England and Wales in 2025^[5], so membership of a competent person scheme is a normal expectation rather than a bonus. Say it on the call if it applies to you.

Calls from shops, offices and small commercial sites

Commercial callers bring different pressures. A café without power is losing takings by the hour, and a small office with a dead server room may be desperate. Add a few questions for business callers:

• Is the whole building affected, or only your unit? In shared buildings the fault may be in the landlord’s supply.
• Is there a building manager or landlord who must approve work or give access to the intake room?
• Are refrigeration, alarms or security systems affected? These may change how urgent the visit is.
• Who will pay and how? Get a purchase order number or an agreement on terms before you dispatch.

Be honest about what you can reach. If the fault is likely to be in the supply to the building, tell the caller to contact the network operator on 105 at the same time as booking you, so neither call waits for the other.

Learn from every emergency call

Keep a simple log of emergency and urgent calls: time of call, category, what the caller described and what the engineer actually found. After a few months you will see where your triage is too cautious and where it is not cautious enough. If many urgent visits turn out to be a single faulty appliance, add the unplug-and-reset step earlier in the script. If any non-urgent booking turned out to be dangerous, find the question that would have caught it and add it.

Share the log with whoever answers the phone. Triage gets better fastest when the people taking calls hear what happened on site.

What not to say on the phone

• Do not tell callers to remove covers, change fuses in old fuse boards or work on anything that has been wet.
• Do not guess the cost of a repair you have not seen. Give the call-out charge and explain how further work is priced.
• Do not promise a time you cannot keep because the caller is upset. A realistic window is kinder than a missed one.
• Do not dismiss a burning smell as nothing. Ask them to turn off the circuit and book an urgent check.

Example call

Example. Caller: All the downstairs sockets went off and the switch will not go back up. Office: Is there any smoke, burning smell or scorching? No. Are your neighbours’ lights on? Yes. Office: Can you see which switch is down in the fuse box? One of the big ones on the left. Office: Please switch off everything on the downstairs sockets and unplug the kitchen appliances, then try the switch again. It stays up. Office: Now plug things back in one at a time. The switch trips as the washing machine goes back in. The office books a non-urgent appointment for an appliance check, tells the caller to leave the washing machine unplugged and sends a text confirmation.

Explaining findings clearly after the visit matters as much as the triage call; see our guide to explaining technical findings plainly. For similar scripts in other trades, read the boiler breakdown script, the roof leak guide and our advice on wasp nest calls.