Operating their own Mr. Rooter Plumbing franchise in Mount Pleasant, Mich., and a call center for several other franchisees in the area, Brad and Amanda Sims needed a better phone system to answer the daily backlog of plumbing service calls.
Amanda Sims says the company had been using a basic voice phone system with direct inward dialing numbers (DIDs) to route calls to existing telephone lines. But the sheer number of Mr. Rooter Plumbing calls often overwhelmed her customer service representatives.
“It was super frustrating before,” she says. “We have six or seven phones in our office, and if everybody's on the phone and there's only three of us here, we hear our other phones blowing up.
“It’s just the constant ringing, and we're trying to hurry and rush with our customers, so we can get to the next person.”
A ServiceTitan user since 2013, Mr. Rooter adopted Phones Pro in 2019, shortly after ServiceTitan released the add-on phone management system software.
“I’ve always been a huge fan of ServiceTitan, but Phones Pro is giving us insight into our actual phone situation that we’ve never had before,” Amanda says. “Now, we’re able to track the minutes of use for each area and we know exactly which areas are calling in.”
She says Mr. Rooter’s CSRs no longer feel like they need to rush through calls, which results in a better customer experience.
“It’s less stressful and more relaxed,” Amanda says. “Now, our customers are able to go into the queue. And when somebody hangs up, (the next call) goes right to them.
“Phones Pro just made it so much more calm.”
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We asked Amanda, a Phones Pro newcomer and longtime ServiceTitan user, to share her experience with the call management system.
Q: Has Phones Pro made an impact on how Mr. Rooter delivers customer service?
A: It sure has. The ability to see a missed call is so much easier. Before, we would have to log in, go to the dashboard, look for the abandoned calls and find the ones we actually missed. With Phones Pro, it tells us exactly how many calls we’ve missed. It’s so much easier to call back and take care of the customer much faster than we ever did before. We call everyone back.
We’re also interested in exploring the remote call answering system. We’re open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. We’re trying to see if we can make (remote call answering) happen this year.
Q: Does Phones Pro make it easier to train your CSRs?
A: It’s way easier. We can listen to every new CSR. When they take a call, I love to use my headset to jump in and listen. When they stumble because they’re not sure what to say, I can tell them exactly what to say because I know exactly what the customer said.
We really like the real-time recommendations. They pop right up (on the screen) and they’re super helpful, especially when answering calls for the other area franchises.
I also like the real-time alerts for missed calls because that means somebody is not paying attention, or everybody’s off dinking around instead of being at their desk answering phones.
Q: Are you able to do things faster and book more jobs because of Phones Pro?
A: Yes, and we’re seeing really good results on identifying the faster CSRs in the office. We’re also able to train people to do the job more quickly. If everybody has a 1.5-minute average call time, and we see a CSR with a 3-minute average call time, then the 3-minute CSR is going to get more training. Why are you taking so long on the phone? What can we do to speed up what you’re doing?
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Q: Are you tracking certain KPIs, and are you seeing improvement month-over-month?
A: Right now we are working on our missed call percentage, and our goal is 10 percent. We’re roughly around 8 percent right now, and we’re going to drop it to 7 percent. I’d like to get to 5 percent, which I think is reasonable.
The next one we’re going to work on is service level. We didn’t realize until recently we could drill down into one specific service area and actually see the level of service (provided).
Q: What tips would you give other home services businesses for using Phones Pro?
A: The system is really easy to use. I haven’t had any problems where I needed support. The biggest thing we did when we started was everybody watched all of the Phones Pro YouTube videos. I had most of our call centers set up before we even had our training call.
Watch the videos. Everything is super easy, super simple.
Our onboarding was perfect. Within 15 days, we were on Phones Pro from the first call. We’ve had no problems. None at all.
Ready to find out how ServiceTitan Phones Pro can benefit your company? Book a demo today!
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ServiceTitan is a comprehensive software solution built specifically to help service companies streamline their operations, boost revenue, and substantially elevate the trajectory of their business. Our comprehensive, cloud-based platform is used by thousands of electrical, HVAC, plumbing, garage door, and chimney sweep shops across the country—and has increased their revenue by an average of 25% in just their first year with us.
