ServiceTitan CEO and co-founder Ara Mahdessian opened Pantheon 2024 with a simple message that is at the heart of the cloud-based software company to the trades — the best part of ServiceTitan’s journey with contractors is getting a front-row seat to their success.
He cited Andy White, who after 45 years in business experienced his first million-dollar year, and later his first million-dollar month, with ServiceTitan. And Marco Acosta, who texted Mahdessian to share news of his own first million-dollar month.
And Will and Shanna Blanton of Blanton’s HVAC Service, whom Mahdessian asked the night before if he could share with the audience the news of their first $4 million month. Their response? They asked if he’d rather share the news of their first month with $5 million in revenue.
These events, Mahdessian noted, used to be rare in the trades, but with ServiceTitan that is no longer the case. More than 400 ServiceTitan customers, he said, have experienced their first million-dollar month while using the software. Some have surpassed $1 billion per year in revenue.
But big or small, Mahdessian said, the contractors in the room should be credited for their success. And ServiceTitan’s mission remains the same as it was at the company’s inception, he added.
“You continue to build businesses on a scale that this industry has never seen before,” he said. “We are on this journey to build extraordinary companies together.”
ServiceTitan CEO Ara Mahdessian kicks off Pantheon 2024 with the opening keynote.
Challenge meets opportunity
The size of the opportunity is immense. ServiceTitan customers process more than $45 billion in annual customer revenue, servicing more than 20 million homes nationwide. But for ServiceTitan, so is the size of the challenge, Mahdessian said: Serving every contractor and powering the outcomes they deserve.
”Our job is to continue to improve ServiceTitan,” he said, “so we can continue to grow with you.”
To do that, ServiceTitan intends to continue to build, and to optimize for not just those large and growing top-line numbers, but for automation and efficiency that drives profitability.
In his opening keynote, in front of thousands of contractors at the Orlando World Center Marriott, he laid out the journey: How far ServiceTitan and its customers have come, and the path for the future of success in the trades.
That future, for contractors, includes an expansion into new trades such as roofing, where ServiceTitan has built robust features to serve that industry.
It also includes capabilities for commercial and construction that have improved rapidly.
“That wait is now over,” Mahdessian said. “We’ve become the No. 1 software for commercial contractors as well.”
But the biggest areas of improvement for the software and the industry, Mahdessian said, are those that improve the efficiency and profitability of contractors, from those who focus on residential customers to commercial contractors, those with a focus in construction, and those in new trades.
The improvements, he noted, are essential in a macroeconomic environment – higher interest rates, more cautious customers, and demand down.
“Thankfully though, you provide services that are essential,” Mahdessian told the audience.
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‘Perfect execution’
That doesn’t mean it’s easy, and Mahdessian noted as much.
“In today’s macro climate,” he said, “we have to be near perfect in execution to continue to thrive.”
ServiceTitan, Mahdessian said, is building functionality that helps contractors lean into the challenge. And to go from good to great — through improvements in marketing ROI, call booking efficiency, reduction in cancellations, improvements in conversions and average ticket, and profit margin.
Customer need, Mahdessian said, is at the heart of every priority. “We spend a lot of time in person and on the phone with many of you,” he said, “so we can constantly have a pulse on your business.”
Those conversations led to many of the solutions Mahdessian highlighted.
Ads Optimizer, which tracks the success and ROI of Google Ads, which identifies which campaign, keyword or ad copy attracted revenue, then targeting other similar profitable customers. And it constantly reoptimizes ad spend, a process that would be impossible otherwise. “(Ads Optimizer) will save you a lot of money, make you a lot of money, or both,” Mahdessian said.
SMS marketing capabilities that drive engagement, results and ROI in a way that follows complicated regulations around text messaging campaigns.
Marketing Pro Autopilot, which makes Marketing Pro completely turnkey and can “help you get a lot of business with very little effort by simplifying startup of the product."
Second-Chance Leads, which uses Titan Intelligence, ServiceTitan’s version of AI, to identify calls that could have been booked by the call center but weren’t — and alerts contractors that they should call back to win the job. Mahdessian called it “one of the most powerful capabilities we have ever built at ServiceTitan."
Scheduling Pro, a modern, immediate booking experience for customers that confirms and books online appointments based on real-time capacity, maximizing conversion rates and increasing revenue.
Contact Center Pro, which puts all communications into one inbox, enables multiple-tenant capability for a centralized call center, and, powered by TI, populates everything into ServiceTitan without a CSR touching the keyboard.
The Virtual AI agent, within Contact Center Pro and demonstrated for the crowd, captures calls on nights and weekends, was built for the trades, and decreases the call center burden by half.
What do all these features have in common? They simplify complicated processes for contractors through automation.
“That’s where you see the biggest improvements in profit,” Mahdessian said. “In exchange for all the investment you are making in ServiceTitan, we are able to deliver increasing levels of profit.”
That profit, he said, is a product of the value of the services you deliver and the efficiency with which you deliver that value.
That’s true of ServiceTitan, too, and the driving force behind every new functionality. Because great technology, Mahdessian said, “has to be really easy to use.”
