Bradham Brothers — Part 5: The Technicians

Bradham Brothers, an HVAC and electrical company in Charlotte, N.C., is going through onboarding with ServiceTitan. With 50 employees and about 20 trucks in the field, taking on a new software can be a challenge. This company took ServiceTitan along for the journey. 

Part 5: The Technicians

At Bradham Brothers Inc., the technicians meeting happens in a trailer that doubles as a training lab, complete with ductwork that hangs down to less than 7 feet above the floor.

On this morning, the staff gathers to watch a video from ToolShed, on the need for techs to have a script when asking for reviews.

Bradham introduces the writer from ServiceTitan and uses the opportunity to remind the techs to work on their Academy training lessons.

There are reminders about paperwork, a discussion of SEER ratings and troubleshooting, and other banter, including talk about a television commercial filmed two weeks earlier, with the technicians in a starring role.

“When’s the commercial coming out?” Bradham is asked.

“I don’t know. We might have to scrap it,” he joked. “The talent was a little rough.”

That’s definitely not true when it comes to heating and cooling work. Bradham Brothers brought in about $9 million in revenue in 2020, and those technicians touched the source for much of it.

In 2021, Bradham is asking for more.

He’s asking them to adopt a new mobile application for doing their jobs. ServiceTitan goes live at the company in late May.

The talent, Bradham is confident, will be ready. But getting there? That’s been a little rough, too.

A ‘nerve-wracking’ switch

If there’s one thing about the transition that keeps general manager Kelly Dowdy up at night, it’s all the things ServiceTitan does for a company. The software is, to put it mildly, robust.

”In the beginning I thought, man, this move is not easy,” Dowdy said. “And as we go on and I see a lot of the stuff that I'm not involved in, yeah, it makes me nervous. When we go live, will we miss stuff?

“We've used ESC for, man, at least 15 years. So the idea of switching from something that you semi know like the back of your hand is nerve-wracking.”

The transition from dESCO, the software Bradham Brothers has used for Dowdy’s entire time there, brings with it the unknown.

The technicians, though, don’t seem to be concerned. At all.

“They're all looking for change, and they want to be able to improve on their daily work life just to kind of make it a little easier on them,” Bradham said.

“They're all excited. None of them are really apprehensive about the change, but they're all concerned a little bit. They're ready to do it, and they're not nervous about it.

“But, yeah, they don't have the pressure to make it work.”

Seeing the possibilities

Dowdy completed all of ServiceTitan's online Academy courses once and plans to go through them all again before the go-live date, plus attend training.

He can already see the possibilities.

“There's certain things in there that I say, this is a better way,” Dowdy said. “And then there's other stuff—I think it's selfish, because I don't want to change—I'm going, OK, how can we make this work to the process that we do now?

“Some of that will be a learning curve for us. We'll just have to figure out how to adjust.”

The technicians, obviously, haven’t yet done the preparation Dowdy has.

“Technicians, we've only had a few of them really start to do any of the Academy stuff,” Dowdy said. “They hear us, we tell them every meeting about it. They know, but they're always hesitant, let's face it.

“A lot of times we don't like change.”

But Dowdy is confident the technicians will come around.

“I think the process on their side is going to be very similar, but I think it's going to be better,” Dowdy said. “And I think they'll really like it.”

UP NEXT: We're all creatures of habit