A residential leak call has one decision maker on the line. She owns the house, she saw the stain, she can tell you to come out. A commercial flat roof leak call almost never works that way, and if you answer it like a residential call you will send a truck to a locked roof hatch at 4pm on a Friday.
The person calling is usually a property manager who has never been on the roof, a facilities lead who has been on it once, or a tenant who noticed water landing on their inventory and called the number taped inside the utility closet. None of them may be the person who signs a repair authorization. That signer might be an asset manager three states away, or an owner's rep at a REIT, or a corporate facilities department with a work order system you will need a vendor login for. Your intake has to find that person on the first call, because finding them on the third call is where commercial work goes sideways.
This is the sheet. What to ask, in what order, and why each answer changes the dispatch.
Start with who is calling and what they can approve
Get the caller's name, direct cell, and their relationship to the building. Then ask the question that saves the whole job: "If we get out there and this needs a repair, who authorizes that?"
Most callers will answer honestly and fast. Some will say they can approve up to a dollar threshold and need a purchase order above it. Some will say they have to open a ticket in a portal. Write down whatever they say verbatim, including the portal name, because your office will need it to invoice.
Three separate contacts usually matter, and they are often three different people:
- The caller (who reports the problem and probably meets you on site)
- The site contact with keys and roof access
- The authorizer who approves the repair and the money
If the caller is a tenant, ask whether the landlord or property manager knows about the leak yet. Tenants call roofers directly all the time. If you dispatch on a tenant's word alone, you may be doing unauthorized work on someone else's building, and the invoice conversation afterward is unpleasant.
Identify the roof if the caller can
Ask what the roof membrane is. Do not push if they do not know, because a facilities lead who guesses wrong is worse than one who says "no idea." But when they do know, it changes what goes on the truck.
If the caller says TPO or PVC, you are likely looking at a single-ply membrane with heat welded seams, and your tech should bring a hot air welder and matching membrane. EPDM means black rubber, seam tape, and a different set of primers and adhesives. Modified bitumen and built-up roofs pull in torch or cold adhesive work and a very different repair conversation. If they say "gravel on top," that is a strong hint toward built-up, and the tech should know before arriving that they will be moving ballast to find anything.
Also ask the age of the roof and whether it is under warranty. A manufacturer warranty on a single-ply roof can be voided by the wrong contractor cutting into it. If the caller says there is an active warranty, capture the manufacturer name and flag the ticket. That is a call to make before anyone touches the membrane.
Two more that take ten seconds each: how many stories, and is there a roof on top of a roof. Recover projects leave a second membrane over the original, and a leak in that assembly can travel a long way before it appears inside.
Locate the drip relative to something a tech can find
"Water is coming through the ceiling" is not a location. On a flat roof of any size the tech needs a landmark, because the entry point on the membrane is frequently nowhere near the interior drip.
Ask the caller to stand under the leak and describe what is around them. Useful anchors:
- Suite or unit number, and which exterior wall is closest
- Nearest rooftop equipment visible from outside (a big HVAC unit, an exhaust fan, a skylight)
- Distance to the nearest interior column or structural bay
- Whether the drip is at a wall line, a ceiling grid seam, or the middle of a tile
Then ask about the ceiling itself. Drop ceiling tiles will hold water and then dump it all at once when the grid gives, so a stained tile with no active drip can still be a bucket waiting to fall. If the caller reports bulging tiles, tell them to keep people out from under it. That advice costs nothing and it is the right call.
Ask how long it has been leaking and whether it only leaks during rain. A leak that runs for hours after the rain stops usually means water is sitting in insulation. A leak that appears in cold weather with no rain at all is often condensation or an HVAC condensate line, and that is a different trade entirely. Catching that on the phone spares everyone a wasted dispatch.
Hear it handled live. Answara's own AI receptionist answers our main line. Call (857) ANSWARA and ask it whatever a customer would ask you, or see plans and get set up.
Roof access is the question most intakes forget
Commercial roof access is a small logistics problem and it derails more dispatches than anything else on this list. Work through it explicitly.
How does a tech get on the roof: interior hatch, exterior fixed ladder, stairwell to a penthouse door, or does the crew need to bring their own ladder. Who has the key or the fob. Does the building require an escort, and is that escort on site during your dispatch window. Some properties require a certificate of insurance on file before anyone goes up, and if that COI is not already lodged, your office needs to send it now rather than at 7am tomorrow.
Then ask about hours. Retail centers, medical offices, and schools often restrict roof work to specific windows. Ask whether after-hours access is possible and get the after-hours number, not the front desk line that rolls to voicemail at five. If the property has a security desk, get that number too.
The escort question in plain terms
Ask it directly: "If our tech shows up at two o'clock, is there someone who can let him on the roof, or does he need to call ahead?" You want a name and a cell number attached to that answer. A building contact who exists only as a role title is not a contact.
Triage: what is the water landing on right now
Not every commercial leak is an emergency, and not every emergency is a big leak. A slow drip in a warehouse aisle can wait for the schedule. A modest drip directly over an electrical panel or a server rack cannot.
Ask what is underneath the water. The answers that should move a call to the front of the queue include electrical gear and panels, IT and server rooms, commercial kitchen lines and food prep surfaces, pharmacy or medical supply storage, and retail stock or merchandise on the floor. Also flag anything hitting a stairwell or a main walkway, because that becomes a slip liability the moment a customer walks through it.
For everything else, ask whether the caller can contain it. A trash can and a plastic sheet buys real time. If they can contain it and there is nothing sensitive below, that is a next-day call rather than a tarp-in-the-dark call, and saying so out loud on the phone is a service in itself.
Storms bring these calls in clusters, and that changes intake
Commercial leak calls do not arrive evenly. They arrive in a wall during and immediately after a storm, which is exactly when your office staff is thinnest and your crews are already committed.
Two things happen in that window. The first is that call volume spikes past what one or two people can pick up, and a missed call is usually a job that goes to whoever picks up next. The second is subtler: during a cluster, intake quality drops. Whoever is answering starts taking a name and a number and promising a callback, and the roof access details and the authorizer never get captured. Then a crew arrives at a locked hatch.
The fix is having intake that does not degrade under load. Whether that is a documented script every person in the office follows on every storm call, a shared form that will not submit without the access fields filled, or phone coverage that picks up the sixth simultaneous call the same way it picks up the first. Answara handles that last part for contractors who would rather not add office staff for four storm days a year, capturing membrane type, access instructions, and the authorizer contact into a ticket before anyone gets dispatched.
Whatever you use, the standard is the same. Every leak ticket that leaves your office should be able to answer: who is authorizing, how the tech gets on the roof, and what the water is landing on.