Emergency service request triage prompt: free ChatGPT template
Updated · By Robert Breen
Use this when requests pile up overnight or on a busy morning (from your web form, voicemail notes or email) and you need to know who to call first. The AI applies your priority rules and drafts a short first reply for each. It must not invent safety or repair advice, and it must not promise arrival times. This prompt limits safety lines to your own wording, pushes unclear requests up the list with "Call to confirm," and leaves the final call to a person.
The prompt
Copy it into ChatGPT (or Claude, Gemini or Copilot) and replace every [BLANK] with your own details. It uses the four parts from Prompt Writing 101: Role, Context, Task and Format.
Role: You are the dispatch assistant for [BUSINESS]. You sort incoming service requests so the office calls the urgent ones first. A person makes the final call on every request. Context: Our priority rules: [PRIORITY RULES]. Safety instructions we give customers, word for word: [SAFETY NOTES]. Use only these rules and these safety instructions; never write your own safety or repair advice. If a request is unclear or could be an emergency, rank it higher and mark it "Call to confirm." Don't promise arrival times. Task: Sort every request below by priority, name the rule that decided each one, and draft a short first reply for each. Format: A table: Priority, Customer, Problem (under 10 words), Rule used, Call to confirm (Yes or No), with emergencies first. Under the table, the first replies, each under 60 words and numbered to match. Include a safety instruction only when the request matches it. Today's requests, one per line: [REQUESTS]
Fill in the blanks
[BUSINESS]- Your company name and trade.
[PRIORITY RULES]- Your levels and what goes in each, such as Emergency, Same-day and Scheduled with examples.
[SAFETY NOTES]- The exact safety lines your company gives customers, approved by you. The AI will not write any others.
[REQUESTS]- Customer first name and the problem in their words. Leave out phone numbers and addresses unless the AI needs them.
Example, filled in
A made-up example from the free lesson Build an AI Emergency Request Form for Your Plumbing Company. In the emergency request form lesson, Blue Maple Plumbing's made-up dispatch rules sort requests into Emergency, Same-day and Scheduled. Here the office sorts a morning's backlog by hand.
Role: You are the dispatch assistant for Blue Maple Plumbing. You sort incoming service requests so the office calls the urgent ones first. A person makes the final call on every request. Context: Our priority rules: Emergency: active leak, burst pipe, sewage backup, or no water. Same-day: no hot water, a clogged main drain, or a sump pump that won't run. Scheduled: everything else. Safety instructions we give customers, word for word: active leak or burst pipe: "Turn off your main water shutoff valve if you can do it safely, then call us." Sewage backup: "Stop running water and flushing toilets until we've checked it." Use only these rules and these safety instructions; never write your own safety or repair advice. If a request is unclear or could be an emergency, rank it higher and mark it "Call to confirm." Don't promise arrival times. Task: Sort every request below by priority, name the rule that decided each one, and draft a short first reply for each. Format: A table: Priority, Customer, Problem (under 10 words), Rule used, Call to confirm (Yes or No), with emergencies first. Under the table, the first replies, each under 60 words and numbered to match. Include a safety instruction only when the request matches it. Today's requests, one per line: Ken: water dripping through the kitchen ceiling under the upstairs bathroom Amy: no hot water since this morning Luis: want a quote to replace an old toilet Beth: basement floor drain gurgling and smells bad Sam: sump pump not running, rain expected tonight
What a good answer looks like
- Ken first as Emergency (active leak), with the shutoff line word for word.
- Beth ranked up and marked "Call to confirm," since a smelly, gurgling drain could be the start of a backup.
- Amy and Sam as Same-day, Luis as Scheduled, each with the rule named.
- No reply says "we'll be there in an hour."
How to check it before you use it
An AI draft can sound right and still say something you never told it. Use the habit from the Reply Faster lesson: check every promise, name, date and number against what you gave it before anything goes out.
- Read the table before the replies. Do you agree with every priority? Change any you don't.
- Compare every safety sentence with your notes. Anything reworded or new gets deleted.
- Call the "Call to confirm" customers rather than replying in writing.
- If you automate this, keep a person on the emergency calls, as the AI triage setup in the lesson does with its confirmation email.
Why this prompt works
The Role says a person decides, and the Context keeps safety language to your approved lines. Those are the two guardrails that matter most when a mistake could mean a flooded basement. The "rank it higher when unsure" rule makes the AI's errors land on the safe side.
Practice it in the free lesson
Build an AI Emergency Request Form for Your Plumbing Company: Build an emergency service-request form in Lovable and connect it to an n8n workflow — webhook trigger, AI Agent that prioritizes the job, Google Sheets, Gmail, and a Respond node that ties it all together. You do every step yourself in a practice copy of Lovable and n8n, and nothing touches your real accounts.
Also useful: Build an AI Service Request Form for Your HVAC Company
Terms used here
Related prompts
- Missed call text back prompt: A ChatGPT prompt for the automatic text you send after a missed call: who you are, an honest callback time, what to send you…
- Maintenance request triage prompt: Sort a pile of maintenance and IT requests by priority and team, with the words that drove each call quoted and vague requests…
- Tech daily job briefing prompt: Turn today's job schedule and office notes into a short morning briefing for each technician, in time order, with unassigned…