Tony King took the helm of Jake’s Heating & Cooling from his father Tommy six years ago, but it wasn’t until this year that he really shook things up when he switched the company from manual paper operations to a complete software solution.
By using software, Jake's Heating & Cooling was able to run much more efficiently and almost instantly increase their average ticket 27% and gross profit 10%.
Before going paperless, this is how Tony described the process: "Something would get written down on paper in the office, something we needed to follow up on, and the paper would go missing. It happened."
Out in the field, he would also see problems with his techs leaving items off of invoices when they were in a hurry. “They would come back to the office and try to remember what they did, or they didn’t include everything they did because it was too hard to find in the book. I knew I was losing opportunity.”
Herein lies the pitfalls of running a home services business on paper. It requires too many people to remember too many things, and all the paperwork becomes a huge time suck. As the issue became more clear each day, Tony had enough and decided to go all in by switching from paper to ServiceTitan.
Taking the Paperless Plunge “I knew this was going to be a year of change for me and a busy summer for us,” so Tony made the switch in the spring allowing time to get well adjusted before the busy season of summer hit. Things were so easy though “that by the middle of May, we were running smoothly with it.”
“The techs were afraid at first, and I thought the mobile side of it would be the hardest part of it. It ended up being the easiest.” Now, the techs are loving it since they no longer have to lug around the huge hard copy pricebooks and waste time thumbing through it finding every item they need to add to the invoice. “It is so easy with the categories and Mobile Pricebook that with just a few clicks, probably a max of five clicks, you can get to anything you’re looking for.”
Accountability Makes for Profitability
Tony has already seen the benefits of having the techs armed with tablets in the field.
What stands out the most to him is how much more accurately the technicians are building invoices and how they can receive payment out in the field.
From the office to the field, ServiceTitan houses all customer and job related information from the first call to the last signature. The ease of using ServiceTitan along with its transparency holds Tony’s team to a higher standard of accountability, leaving no loose ends along the way.
Plus, the Mobile platform has helped his technicians to be better salesmen. “My average ticket sale has gone up, and our whole system sales have gone up. I believe that’s because of how much more professional we look in front of customers with the mobile device.”
Knowing that these types of mistakes can’t happen anymore has alleviated some of the stress Tony feels as an owner as well as raised his profit margins: his average ticket sale is up 27% and gross profit has grown 10% since before he was using ServiceTitan.
Tony credits the ServiceTitan Mobile Pricebook with being a contributing factor to these increases in two ways. The Good, Better, Best options give customers more choices and more opportunities to spend, and the visible Member Discount rates on these options have boosted his membership sales.
“You can present your customer with what they could’ve saved today if they had been a member.” Customers always want to save, and being able to “give them that rate if they become a member on the spot” has made membership sales a breeze.
Saving Time While Earning More
ServiceTitan has helped streamline Tony’s staff’s day-to-day and enabled them to be more efficient.
Being able to quickly receive payments in the field has freed up the time his office staff used to have to spend on tracking down customers for payments. “Our accounts receivables is running a lot smoother, and we can always see open issues and follow-ups that need to be done.”
In the field, he now feels he has the best techs out there. “Good technicians are terrible at paperwork and follow-ups, and if they are good at paperwork or follow-ups, they’re not a good technician.” It used to be that you couldn’t have both, but by equipping his good techs with ServiceTitan on their tablets, he feels that gap has been filled.
