When a flooded basement, bathroom clog, or backed-up drain ruins a homeowner’s day, the plumbing field technician is likely the first person they interact with in person, often when emotions are high. That field technician serves as the face of your plumbing business, as they troubleshoot plumbing problems calmly and efficiently. While being a plumber involves fixing leaky faucets, installing pipes and plumbing fixtures, and clearing obstructions, the tech needs to perform several other tasks to help the plumbing business thrive, from recording important job details and presenting customers with multiple service options to relaying critical information to dispatchers in real-time. If a problem occurs on the job site—the tech arrives with an incorrect work order or shows up to the wrong home—it not only makes your plumbing company look disorganized and unprofessional, but the tech needs to pick up the pieces and resolve the situation. ServiceTitan’s customer relationship management (CRM) software helps plumbing business owners mitigate issues before they happen. The cloud-based, end-to-end software for the trades is much more than just dispatch software. It improves communication, enhances operational efficiencies and optimizes workflow, supports digital marketing and e-commerce, reduces data entry, simplifies project management, and ultimately equips plumbing service providers with powerful tools that allow them to focus on meeting customer demands and delivering a flawless customer experience. Empower your team with user-friendly ServiceTitan field service management software to solve the following biggest pain points experienced by service technicians in the plumbing industry.
1. Arrive to Jobs Fully Informed
Nothing ruins a home service experience like a lack of proper preparation. Your plumber might show up with the wrong tools or parts, misidentify a long-time customer, or perform the wrong repair. All of these outcomes potentially harm your business, from wasting plumbing system work hours and revenue to tarnishing your online reputation.
ServiceTitan’s award-winning mobile app for iOS and Android, ServiceTitan Mobile 2.0, syncs with your office—equipping techs in the field with key information your CSRs collected during the intake process, including customer phone number, address and routing information, and even outstanding estimates. Techs can also review a customer’s initial call or listen to recordings of phone calls between customers and CSRs—allowing them to understand in greater detail what their current assignments might entail.
When techs reach their job sites, ServiceTitan has already provided them with information about the plumbing customer’s needs and preferences, on-the-ground conditions, and outstanding requests. Your plumbers can also view complete service history, existing equipment and systems, club or service memberships, worksite images, notes, previous invoices, and more, to accurately address customer needs.
2. Increase Revenue Opportunities with Good-Better-Best Options
One of the most effective ways to grow average ticket size—and company revenue—involves offering customers good-better-best service options for every new install or repair. This approach places the power and decision-making with the homeowner.
However, as many business owners in the service industry know, some plumbing technicians feel uncomfortable giving sales presentations, while others simply get busy and forget to provide multiple service options. But a tech needs more than a friendly reminder and a flashy sales pitch—they need to show the value of the upsell to truly get customer buy-in.
“People have to believe there's a need before they buy into any solution,” says Jerry Hanessian, a sales professional with more than 20 years in the trades. “Showing customers pictures of the problem, and good-better-best solution options, allows them to decide for themselves. Education is huge.”
Using detailed descriptions with photos and videos, plumbing technicians can explain the value of each service level, which in turn educates the customer, creates better understanding of options, and ultimately helps close larger jobs.
Techs can simply tap their mobile tablet for a customer-facing presentation, then hand it over to the homeowner to review and select from the different plumbing repair or replacement options, mirroring an online shopping experience.
Before building the estimate, techs can use the mobile app on their tablets or phones at the job site, or another location, to input all information and notes specific to the plumbing job, such as:
Measurements
Materials and equipment
Permits to be pulled
Details about the work to be completed
ServiceTitan’s digital pricebook and mobile estimate templates make it easy for technicians to build estimates with good-better-and-best options in minutes.It calculates pricing, taking into account time and materials, and allows techs to easily itemize plumbing estimates. From there, proposal templates allow the plumbing tech to quickly build a polished proposal, detailing the pricing breakdown.
Additionally, ServiceTitan’s integrated pricebooks and inventory management features allow you to instantly verify material pricing and availability with plumbing distributors, which is crucial to creating an accurate estimate.
A quick turnaround on estimates—a proven way to increase conversion rates—helps techs increase their average job ticket, earn more money, and excel at selling more jobs. And because ServiceTitan’s field service management solution uses cloud-based technology, all of the data updates instantly in the field and at the office.
3. Meet Customer Needs with Financing Options
The key to growing revenue directly involves raising techs’ average ticket, typically by offering customers multiple repair or replacement options. To make these higher-priced jobs more appealing to customers, field service companies must offer easy financing for new installs and even routine repairs.
With ServiceTitan’s integrated financing solution, your techs can offer financing on the job site, and customers can quickly apply and receive instant approval using ServiceTitan Mobile. It helps your technicians close bigger jobs while still on site.
“Having financing available or having a promotional plan, in itself, is going to be a benefit to the sales process and our customers’ needs, by making things affordable,” says Darius Lyvers, COO at F.H. Furr Plumbing, Heating, Air Conditioning and Electrical in Northern Virginia.
“The fact that it’s integrated in the CRM makes it easier for them to fill out the application, see the data in one platform, and be able to sign off and acknowledge what they’re getting and how they’re getting it, the terms and conditions. So that all plays into that customer experience,” he adds.
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4. Automatically Solicit Positive Customer Reviews
In today’s digital-first world, potential customers vet prospective plumbing companies by first checking online reviews on trusted review sites and social media platforms. In fact, one survey shows 82% of customers say they read online reviews for local companies before they make a hiring decision. It’s reassuring to hire a company with a stellar reputation and a track record for generating customer satisfaction.
Naturally, some plumbing service technicians feel uncomfortable asking a customer to leave a review or provide referrals, and many customers often forget to provide an online review, even for a job well done.
A lack of positive reviews might influence new customers to call a different business—even for a well-respected, established company—or cause the customer to suspect your business performs shoddy work or lacks trust.
ServiceTitan's mobile app allows plumbing technicians to generate more reviews automatically by texting a direct link to customers as soon as they finish the job. With Marketing Pro Reputation, an add-on software solution, you can manage consistent messaging on all business directory listings in one simple dashboard, which leads to higher search engine rankings.
Travis Ringe, co-owner of ProSkill Services near Phoenix, knows all about the power of online customer reviews. He started the company 14 years ago with his brother, Tyler. Today, they’ve grown the business into a $14-million-plus operation with nearly 5,800 Google reviews with a 5-star rating.
What’s ProSkill’s secret? After a field tech closes out a job in the ServiceTitan Mobile App, the app automatically sends satisfaction survey texts for prompt customer feedback. Travis also notes the instant notification must be accompanied by a positive customer experience.
“If you want to drive reviews, you have to deliver a full experience worthy of writing a review,” Travis says.
5. Simplify Communication Between the Field and Office
Poor communication between CSRs or dispatchers and your field technicians causes a wide range of avoidable problems, including sending the tech to the wrong address or dispatching an inexperienced tech to a complex repair.
“It’s really important to send the right person to the right job,” says Nikolai Matveev, owner of Cardinal Plumbing, Heating & Air in Virginia. “Good communicators are not always really good on the technical side, or it’s the opposite, and somebody really good at the technical stuff isn’t really good in communication. That’s one of the biggest obstacles, to find the people who can do both really efficiently.”
Dispatch mistakes waste time and money, and negatively affect how customers view your service business. Miscommunication in the trades often results from not using a field service management platform featuring real-time communication capabilities.
With ServiceTitan's dispatching software, your office team can communicate scheduling changes, job updates, and other pertinent information in real-time to plumbing techs in the field via SMS messaging. It keeps the entire team on the same page with the most up-to-date information, simplifies work order management, and ensures lines remain open for every customer opportunity.
ServiceTitan’s plumbing software also provides dispatchers with a real-time view of the technician job cycle. When high-priority jobs arise, they can quickly adjust as needed, rerouting or reassigning to best meet the requirements of their employer, their customers, and the circumstances of the day.
6. Leverage Digital Forms in the Field
Plumbing repair techs need to document key information when they arrive for a service call or repair, including customer signatures, service dates, inspection details, and more. Traditionally, field technicians relied on paper forms and checklists, raising the risk of user-error or lost paperwork.
ServiceTitan’s customizable digital forms, designed specifically for the trades, help your techs easily create and implement a variety of custom forms to ensure they follow your procedures and collect the necessary information for every job. And its ease of use cuts back on plumber training time.
Some of the core benefits of using ServiceTitan forms include:
Triggers for certain jobs: ServiceTitan can trigger a form based on the job type, such as a checklist for a maintenance inspection or warranty form for new product installation.
Required actions: ServiceTitan can require a technician to fill out a form before allowing them to close out the job and move to the next one.
Request for a picture or signature: Requiring pictures of the finished installation documents that the work was done properly. And requiring a signature, for example, from a customer who forgoes a technician's recommended repair, could cover the contractor if the customer’s preferred solution fails in less than a year.
7. Recognize and Reward Field Technicians
Service techs can feel deflated when they don’t receive recognition for exceeding goals or going the extra mile to put an unhappy customer at ease. As a result, many business owners in the trades encourage healthy competition not only to offer plumber rewards for a job well done, but to increase visibility and accountability for every technician.
ServiceTitan’s field reporting software, including the technician scorecard, allows you to build customized reports and dashboards to drill into technician key performance indicators (KPIs), including conversion rate, average ticket size, customer satisfaction, memberships sold, generated leads, billable hours, billable efficiency, tasks per call, and other key metrics.
Mike Losoya III, president of Mike’s Plumbing and Electric in McAllen, Texas, uses ServiceTitan’s technician scorecards to monitor real-time performance metrics on new revenue per tech, customer satisfaction, and other key metrics.
“We're getting the most potential out of each tech and each employee because of ServiceTitan,” Losoya says. “We have a weekly goal, and we have a technician goal for each field.”
Additionally, Losoya uses ServiceTitan’s call recording feature to review communications between CSRs and customers. He says it provides a key tool for delivering training and feedback.
8. Sell More Membership Agreements and Service Contracts
Club memberships, loyalty programs, or recurring preventive maintenance contracts help guarantee future billable work in a highly competitive environment.
It’s also a great way to book more time in a customer’s home, build brand loyalty, increase revenue, and give homeowners discounted or exclusive access to your services.
“If you don't have a service agreement or club membership program, it's very hard to schedule and plan for work going forward,” says Chris Hunter, ServiceTitan’s Director of Customer Relations and former owner of Hunter Super Techs. "Every time we sold one club membership, that was four hours of guaranteed future work."
Besides helping Hunter secure ongoing work, he says memberships made it easier to know how and when to scale his team of maintenance technicians.
“I could bank on when I could take someone who was on the bench and put them into a permanent role as a maintenance technician, because we were guaranteeing future work.”
ServiceTitan’s service agreement software allows you to streamline marketing strategies and create new maintenance memberships and equipment-based contracts with just a few taps. You can easily apply discounts, schedule regular appointments, and customize multiple fields to best fit your business.
Tailor memberships for each customer, so you can customize additional monthly charges, opt-ins for extra maintenance tasks, membership upgrades for additional services, and more. And when you customize an agreement, ServiceTitan automatically tracks labor and material costs in real time, so you know invoicing will be accurate to maximize profitability.
ServiceTitan: Best-in-Class Plumbing Software
ServiceTitan’s comprehensive plumbing software streamlines operations in the office and in the field for a more polished and professional approach. Our cloud-based solution is the best business management software in the construction industry and includes:
Customer portal for easy online booking
Marketing automation for email and direct mail campaigns
Service agreements, contracts, and inventory management
On-site quoting, payment processing, job costing, and estimating software
Digital sales presentations with multiple pricing options
QuickBooks integration, including QuickBooks Online, and other accounting software
Regular software updates, feature additions, and functionality improvements
Looking for new technology to help your plumbing business grow its bottom line? Contact our team to schedule a demo today.
ServiceTitan Plumbing Software
ServiceTitan is a comprehensive plumbing business software solution built specifically to help service companies streamline their operations, boost revenue, and achieve growth. Our award-winning, cloud-based platform is trusted by more than 100,000+ contractors across the country.
