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How Rehlko Used Voice AI to Turn Storm-Season Surges into a Sales Advantage
“Storm seasons used to be our biggest operational challenge - high demand, overwhelmed teams, and leads going cold faster than we could reach them. NuPlay changed that. We now engage every high-intent lead at the right moment, at any volume, without adding headcount. It's the kind of capability that makes a real difference to both our business and our customers”
Rehlko is a global leader in energy resilience, delivering commercial-grade home backup generators and power systems that keep homes and businesses running when the grid goes down. With over a century of innovation, Rehlko has powered everything from private residences to mission-critical infrastructure across the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Its home energy division serves homeowners across the US and Canada, connecting them to local dealer networks for installation and service.
For Rehlko's home energy business, storm seasons aren't just operational peaks - they're make-or-break windows. When severe weather hits, thousands of homeowners flood the pipeline overnight, filling out forms, requesting quotes, and signalling clear purchase intent. But that intent has a short shelf life. A lead that isn't engaged within 24 hours goes cold fast. Manual outreach teams couldn't keep up. During a major East Coast storm, the gap between lead volume and response capacity became impossible to ignore. Key challenges included:
- High-intent leads left unengaged during demand surges, going cold before the team could reach them
- Storm spikes generating thousands of dormant leads that were expensive and slow to re-engage manually
- Outreach teams stretched beyond capacity, creating burnout and missed opportunities
- No reliable mechanism to screen, qualify, and route leads to local dealers at speed and scale
Rehlko partnered with NuPlay to deploy a Voice AI Agent on NuPlay - an outbound sales agent designed to engage inbound form-fill leads at the moment of highest intent, screen them in real time, and transfer warm, qualified prospects directly to local dealers. The agent was built to handle both steady-state volume and emergency surge scenarios, with custom intent detection and retry logic to maximise connect rates even when the first attempt fails. Key workflows included:
- Inbound form-fill response: When a homeowner submits a quote request on Rehlko's website, the voice agent calls them proactively, answers questions about products and financing, and qualifies them based on home size, location, and installation needs.
- Warm transfer to dealer: Qualified leads are transferred directly to the right local dealer with full context, eliminating friction and repeated explanations for the customer.
- Custom intent signal and retry logic: Failed contacts are automatically identified and re-engaged through intelligent retry and escalation workflows, ensuring no high-intent lead falls through the cracks.
- Emergency surge campaign: When a major East Coast storm created overnight lead volume, NuPlay turned around a full emergency campaign within hours - engaging approximately 2,000 leads via outbound calls before they went cold. The entire system went from pilot to production in six weeks, with no infrastructure changes or downtime required.
30% More conversions via AI-led outreach $20–25M Pipeline protected annually 3x Lead throughput without added headcount 134,290+ Conversations processed, 90,000 connections made
For Rehlko's customers: under 3-minute call handling during peak demand, faster service scheduling, no repeated explanations, and a reliable phone-first experience even during outages. For Rehlko's team: lower burnout during peak seasons, fewer missed-call escalations, and agents redeployed into higher-value roles like service coordination and exception handling.
NuPlay helped Rehlko solve a problem that can't be fixed by hiring - the ability to move at surge speed without surge cost. By deploying a voice AI agent that engages, qualifies, and routes leads in real time, Rehlko now captures high-intent demand the moment it appears, whether it's a steady Tuesday or the night before a major storm. The result is a sales operation that is always on, always consistent, and impossible to overwhelm.
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Storm-season demand surges overwhelmed manual outreach teams, leaving thousands of high-intent leads unengaged and going cold within 24 hours.
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