Chicago towing answering service
A Chicago towing answering service should split two calls before anyone rolls a truck. One driver wants a car back from a city pound. The other wants you to tow something that is still sitting there. The city's winter parking page says which overnight streets are a city tow. Your brief should say that, and then stop. If both calls get the same script, you spend minutes on a car you never hooked.
What the city page says
The City of Chicago's Winter Snow Parking Restrictions page, opened 14 November 2026, says the Winter Overnight Parking Ban covers 107 miles of arterial streets from 3 am to 7 am, December 1 through April 1, whether or not it snowed. Signage on those streets is permanent. A car left there can be towed. The page lists a minimum $250 towing fee, a $60 ticket, and $50 a day in storage, starting the day of the tow. It says those vehicles go to Pound 2 at 10301 S. Doty Ave. or Pound 6 at 701 N. Sacramento.
That is a city tow. It is not your invoice and it is not your lot. A driver who finds an empty curb will call companies at random. The useful answer is short. If the street is on that ban, the city may have the car, and the page names the two pounds. Offer the page. Do not invent a third pound, a waiver, or a fee you did not read there.
The same page describes a separate two-inch ban on another 500 miles of main streets. The city can turn that one on after at least two inches of snow, at any hour, on any date. It is not the overnight rule. If the brief mentions only one ban, callers will argue about the other. Two sentences cover both. Anything past those two rules was not on this page, so leave it out.
A private tow is the other call
A private job sounds different. The car is still there, or it is in a driveway, a lot, or a crash, and someone wants your truck. Take the location, what the vehicle is, whether the lane is blocked, a callback number, and a plate if they have it. A plate helps when more than one truck is out. It does not change the rule. If your rule says that call goes to the driver on duty, transfer it to that driver's phone. If nobody is on duty, take the message. Do not say a truck is on the way unless a person has actually accepted the job.
RingKit's receptionist answers from the brief you wrote, says it is an AI, and transfers only to numbers you listed. There is no pool of RingKit dispatchers. A transfer that nobody answers should end as a message, not as a promise. Missed business calls is why the message exists: the caller already tried you once.
Keep the number on the truck
Forward the number printed on the door. RingKit does not port it. The RingKit number is $1.99 a month. Talk time is $0.20 a minute, the first 10 seconds free, then 6-second increments, so a 2:10 call bills as 2:00. A quiet month is still $1.99 if you keep the number. You top up a wallet, $10 at the smallest, and a payment method is required before the number goes live. The pricing page is that same list.
A lot that already has a person at the counter, looking up plates, does not need this for pound questions. Keep that person. Use the line for the hours the counter is closed, and for the "was that you?" calls while the driver is hooked up. Answering calls while working is that second case.
The brief is the whole product. City pound, or your truck. Say which, and stop.